Punching up or down is an absolutely foolish line that some people take. If you don't believe in 'nasty' comedy, that's fine. And if you do, that's fine. But having special protected groups or particular targets (who alone can be subjected to the most extreme humour) is to hold no principle on the boundary of taste or free speech at all, but an arbitrary preference for one side or against another.
To concisely rephrase: it's a crock of shit.
I have a theory that the people preoccupied with issues of race are those who are, in actuality, racist. The opposite of a racist isn't an 'anti-racist', it's someone who sees no colour, just likes everyone, with no prior judgements, until given a reason to do otherwise. 'Punching down' is a deeply racist idiom.
I don't think that's a very plausible theory, to be honest. The people I know who think about these issues a lot are mostly people who have experienced racism, frequently pretty nasty racism at that. Accusing them of being racists sounds an awful lot like gaslighting.
What about the theory that use of the phrase 'to be honest' usually indicates the presence of an untruth?
My pet peeve is the 'ignore everything past the but' crack. It's just a technique to lazily dismiss arguments based on its grammatical structure without having to actually look at it, as sometimes it will be fine and sometimes it won't.
Time to watch his dark material before it's pulled
You could not force me , most unfunny comedian on the planet apart from Corden.
Corden is tripe. He also happens to be one of the most arse-licking presenters. No wonder celebs love him.
If you've seen Corden on stage you might have a different opinion. I saw him in One Man Two Governors at the National Theatre years ago and he was probably the most gifted physical comedian I've ever seen. It was an incredible performance.
Punching up or down is an absolutely foolish line that some people take. If you don't believe in 'nasty' comedy, that's fine. And if you do, that's fine. But having special protected groups or particular targets (who alone can be subjected to the most extreme humour) is to hold no principle on the boundary of taste or free speech at all, but an arbitrary preference for one side or against another.
To concisely rephrase: it's a crock of shit.
I have a theory that the people preoccupied with issues of race are those who are, in actuality, racist. The opposite of a racist isn't an 'anti-racist', it's someone who sees no colour, just likes everyone, with no prior judgements, until given a reason to do otherwise. 'Punching down' is a deeply racist idiom.
I don't think that's a very plausible theory, to be honest. The people I know who think about these issues a lot are mostly people who have experienced racism, frequently pretty nasty racism at that. Accusing them of being racists sounds an awful lot like gaslighting.
I'm not sure the term gaslighting is very helpful, however (it rarely is). That theory may well be wrong, but is someone advaancing it truly gaslighting? It's not been hard to find people who have suggested X cannot be a racist because they are a great anti-racist, yet in fact X has said racist things (the classic example would be the sort of thing Baddiel details). In that situation it wouldn't be gaslighting to call someone a racist even though they would see themselves as anti-racist, even though labelling anyone who who is preoccupied with these issues as racist would be incorrect.
I think that calling someone who talks about racism because they experience racism a racist is a textbook example of gaslighting to be honest.
But that was not the original proposition. The original 'theory' was about people 'preoccupied with issues of race'. That will undoubtedly include people who have experienced racism, but is not the full extent of them. Indeed, many people are rightly and positively interested in issues of race without having experienced racism themselves.
So even if the theory was bollocks I don't think anyone suggested the approach you are calling gaslighting. Indeed, is it gaslighting to imply that was what was suggested? Am I gaslighting by suggesting that your suggestion was not the original suggestion?
I can only go by my own experience, which is that people who are "preoccupied by race" are people who face racism and have the "preoccupation" forced upon them. If there are people who just woke up one day and decided to become obsessed by race for no reason I can only say that I have never met them.
I don't want Joe Rogan to be cancelled. I don't like his presentation style, and don't listen to his show even when his guest is someone I should be interested in.
But if he is cancelled, the effect on the wider world will be zilch in ten years' time. Someone else will take over the role of educating Leon.
I think one concern might be that it then allows other up and coming people to also be censored / canned or at the very least not be given the kind of opportunity Rogan has, as then nobody will dare task a risk on similar individuals if they have ever interviewed similarly controversial people.
We have seen it with social media, this creeping in of who gets a ban, in some cases getting banned having never said anything rule breaking on a particular platform, they just get the blanket un-personing.
The cancel culture stuff, it isn't about the too big to really cancel people, it the chilling effect among those that don't have 10 millions of listeners / viewers and top notch lawyers to fight everything.
The thing that is likely to save Joe Rogan is Spotify’s share price. It fell 18pc last week on poor subscriber guidance. The CEO of Spotify is well aware that, if Joe Rogan quits / is sacked, then his share price will get pummelled, especially if Rogan turns on Spotify.
However, your point it’s a good one, it’s not Rogan who needs to be worried, it’s the smaller artists who don’t have his audience. A Spotify could sacrifice them without seeing a financial hit.
It’s also the hypocrisy of the matter. Look at Whoopi Goldberg who got a two week suspension for her comments. Now, I don’t think she should necessarily be cancelled for her comments although if you live by the sword, you die by it. But she is now coming out and saying she will quit (she won’t) unless her suspension is revoked because she thinks her suspension is unjustified and she has apologised. From someone who was one of the loudest advocates of getting people cancelled.
What annoys the complainers, is that Rogan has a massive audience of people they don’t like - white, male, working-class Americans.
Spotify knows that, having paid for Rogan and given him full editorial control, they would have to pay him off eight figures, only to see him immediately appear exclusively on a rival network, taking tens of millions of subscribers with him and seriously tanking the Spotify share price.
Which is why they are now trying to go for Rogan personally, for things said more than a decade ago that have been online since. They want to devalue his brand, make no other company want to hire him.
The thing with Rogan is he is so massive he could just go back to DIYing the podcast with a small membership fee.
Yes, he could easily set up “The Comedy Podcast Network” with a few friends, and screw all the existing platforms. He’s already about to open a huge comedy club in Austin, and a dozen or more A-list comics have joined him in moving there.
There are already comedians who have done their own PPV ‘event’ podcasts, on their own platforms because Patreon or YouTube would kick them off for being offensive. https://ymhstudios.com/ is the one that immediately springs to mind. Many more comics are using the existing platforms and earning serious money for weekly podcast shows.
Then the protests will move to be against Visa, Mastercard and whoever hosts the backend. See Parler and their row with AWS from last year.
You are right about the payment processing angle. See GoFundMe suspending Canadian Trucker protest funds yesterday, some vacuous nonsense about them being against their terms of service as its criminal behaviour (all the blowing your horns etc)....when they have allowed GoFundMe's for people on trial for serious crimes.
The reality is worse. They withheld payment because Trudeau asked them to
Mr. Carnyx, your line is completely unsustainable.
You can't just leave a country then demand it pays your pensions. You can't drag with you the payment of pensions and abandon entirely the responsibility for funding them.
You can't have your cake, and eat it.
what utter bollox, people leave the country all the time and get the state pension. Only if England bans all Scottish and English people living in Scotland from retaining UK citizenship could they even think about it. Would not surprise me on them welching though.
I'm a British Scot - but know if your lot win I will likely lose my British citizenship.
It'll be Brexit x 10
There is no such thing as British citizenship to lose, you could move to and play your flute there.
At the moment - post iScot; well that will be a matter for negotiation.
It doesn't withstand a moment's thought to condemn as unreasonable the notion that UK funding of Scottish pensions must continue but that Scottish funding of UK pensions won't happen.
If the current UK funding and payment of pensions is divided by Scotland leaving the most obvious and fairest approach is for England, Wales, and Northern Ireland to fund their pensions, and Scotland to fund Scottish pensions.
The idea you can separate then demand citizens of another country wholly fund your 'independent' pensions while contributing absolutely nothing to the other country's pension fund is demented.
You blithering idiot , Scotland would have to pay pensions for English people resident in Scotland when they became pensioners. Take the union Jack blinkers off.
Don't worry, the rUK government will pay the pensions of Scottish-born residents of rUK.
I will just have a house in both and get 2 pensions.
I see we are back to white middle aged men explaining the correct way to deal with racism.
How are middle aged white men going to learn and grow on racial matters without discussing it, and explaining their own view on it, even if misplaced? Even among a group of only other middle aged white men there is unlikely to be uniformity of view, so something useful might come from it.
Mr. Carnyx, your line is completely unsustainable.
You can't just leave a country then demand it pays your pensions. You can't drag with you the payment of pensions and abandon entirely the responsibility for funding them.
You can't have your cake, and eat it.
what utter bollox, people leave the country all the time and get the state pension. Only if England bans all Scottish and English people living in Scotland from retaining UK citizenship could they even think about it. Would not surprise me on them welching though.
I'm a British Scot - but know if your lot win I will likely lose my British citizenship.
It's be Brexit x 10
It’s rarely mentioned, and was talked about little in 2013, but the issue of citizenship will be a big one in the aftermath of a Scottish vote to leave the UK. It’s still an issue between the UK and Ireland, a century later.
Nobody even talks about the most important question.
Mr. Carnyx, your line is completely unsustainable.
You can't just leave a country then demand it pays your pensions. You can't drag with you the payment of pensions and abandon entirely the responsibility for funding them.
You can't have your cake, and eat it.
I'm not demanding that at all - read my post again. Simply considering some of the lines of argument. Of which the notion that Scots no longer being UK subjects is a disqualification is not plausible.
I think you're average rUK voter understands there is a big difference between deciding to retire abroad and the part of the UK you're from seceding it. In the event of independence, their view will be that if the people of Scotland no longer want to be part of the UK, they need to stand on their own two feet. Any Westminster party which agreed for English taxpayers to pay Scottish pensions post-indy would get a worse shellacking at the following election then the Tories got in 97.
Punching up or down is an absolutely foolish line that some people take. If you don't believe in 'nasty' comedy, that's fine. And if you do, that's fine. But having special protected groups or particular targets (who alone can be subjected to the most extreme humour) is to hold no principle on the boundary of taste or free speech at all, but an arbitrary preference for one side or against another.
To concisely rephrase: it's a crock of shit.
I have a theory that the people preoccupied with issues of race are those who are, in actuality, racist. The opposite of a racist isn't an 'anti-racist', it's someone who sees no colour, just likes everyone, with no prior judgements, until given a reason to do otherwise. 'Punching down' is a deeply racist idiom.
I don't think that's a very plausible theory, to be honest. The people I know who think about these issues a lot are mostly people who have experienced racism, frequently pretty nasty racism at that. Accusing them of being racists sounds an awful lot like gaslighting.
I'm not sure the term gaslighting is very helpful, however (it rarely is). That theory may well be wrong, but is someone advaancing it truly gaslighting? It's not been hard to find people who have suggested X cannot be a racist because they are a great anti-racist, yet in fact X has said racist things (the classic example would be the sort of thing Baddiel details). In that situation it wouldn't be gaslighting to call someone a racist even though they would see themselves as anti-racist, even though labelling anyone who who is preoccupied with these issues as racist would be incorrect.
I think that calling someone who talks about racism because they experience racism a racist is a textbook example of gaslighting to be honest.
But that was not the original proposition. The original 'theory' was about people 'preoccupied with issues of race'. That will undoubtedly include people who have experienced racism, but is not the full extent of them. Indeed, many people are rightly and positively interested in issues of race without having experienced racism themselves.
So even if the theory was bollocks I don't think anyone suggested the approach you are calling gaslighting. Indeed, is it gaslighting to imply that was what was suggested? Am I gaslighting by suggesting that your suggestion was not the original suggestion?
I can only go by my own experience, which is that people who are "preoccupied by race" are people who face racism and have the "preoccupation" forced upon them. If there are people who just woke up one day and decided to become obsessed by race for no reason I can only say that I have never met them.
Personally I think the idea those preoccupied by matters of race are likely to be racist is not correct - at what point does it become being 'preoccupied' for a start - though people concerned with such matters are not immune from doing or saying racist things, but I think it is a bit against the current zeitgeist to act as though people who have not experienced racism cannot be reoccupied with racial issues - plenty of allies out there seeking to help raise and address these issues.
Have you really never met anyone who is very keen on racial and equalities matters who is not necessarily someone with personal experience of such matters? I may joke about some politically correct terminology or the like, but I think it is a good thing people beyond an oppressed group can care a lot about these things.
Mr. Carnyx, your line is completely unsustainable.
You can't just leave a country then demand it pays your pensions. You can't drag with you the payment of pensions and abandon entirely the responsibility for funding them.
You can't have your cake, and eat it.
what utter bollox, people leave the country all the time and get the state pension. Only if England bans all Scottish and English people living in Scotland from retaining UK citizenship could they even think about it. Would not surprise me on them welching though.
I'm a British Scot - but know if your lot win I will likely lose my British citizenship.
It's be Brexit x 10
It’s rarely mentioned, and was talked about little in 2013, but the issue of citizenship will be a big one in the aftermath of a Scottish vote to leave the UK. It’s still an issue between the UK and Ireland, a century later.
Nobody even talks about the most important question.
Passports - blue or red?
Nicola will do the opposite to the UK, just to show that she can.
BTW I recall concerning the forthcomijng NI rise that UKG, as reflected by one of us, rather obviously on orders from CCHQ, was recently pushing the spin of "NI is not a tax but a payment for entitlement to pensions etc" in response to general disgust (on PB as elsewhere) at the targeting of working folk rather than wealthy Tory-voting OAPs.
There is an easy way to answer the question on UK or Scotland paying pensions after independence.
How did the matter get arranged when the UK withdrew from its empire?
In India, the answer was that those who retired before independence were paid by the British. Afterwards, they were paid by the government of the country in question.
But - that applied to the defined benefit pension for state employees. Not to the state pension which didn't extend to those countries.
In Ireland - the only place where state pension rules applied - the Irish government had to take them over. And cut them substantially due to their limited financial resources (much more limited than would be available to Scotland).
I suspect the answer would be the same in Scotland. Public sector schemes that had been taken, would keep being paid by the UK government. The state pension however, both existing and commitment, would be a matter for payment by a new Scottish government.
Whether that's the way the SNP would frame it in a referendum campaign, I don't know. But if they want to be credible, they would be wise not only to do so but to have a convincing answer as to what they would do to pay for them
Pensions should be split like any other UK government obligation such as the national debt, i.e. according to population or GDP. So that means that Scotland would pay about 8% of the total legacy UK obligation going forward.
The interesting thing about this entire discussion on PB is that nobody seems to have spotted the implications for the impact on rUK voters - the demonstration that your decades of payments to HMG are worthless in terms of any actual obligation, despite marketing by successive governments of all shades as an insurance policy for your old age. It will need some tricky spin to get round that rather obvious point. So that is an incentive for HMG to negotiate something such as you say.
That really would not be the implication. The implication would be if you decide to cease to be involved in the U.K. you cease to benefit from its perks.
A bit like leaving the EU...
I'm thinking of the ordinary public point of view. That is, a personal contract between UKG and the individual. Chap goes to Australia - he's no longer involved in the UK but gets the pension he has paid for. And so on. But in the Scottish case many people will still be rUK subjects. So ...
The Fraser of Allander article says in fact tthat that notion - of differentiating on personal citizenship or otherwise - is actually not a workable approach.
The only way round that is as part of the transfer of liabilities and assets.
IScot’s government is a successor to the UK government so takes on those liabilities
The UK government is not going to accept any treaty based obligation to pay going forward as that would make it politically impossibly to change rUK pensions in future to make them worse than the iScot pensions they would be paying
I was thinking today about Dishi’s “so long as I’m in this job” comment at his presser the other day. I think he’s going down on the good ship Johnson, this reported photo of him sitting next to a gurning beer swilling PM might be enough to get him fined. And that would be that. Another person who’s career turns out to be senseless collateral damage in Johnson’s grubby life.
It would sure explain why we seemed to be on the verge of the VONC ages ago but then did not get the nudge over the line from his supporters. There was a story recently with a Sunak loyalist saying “we waited for the nod and it never came”. Would explain why.
Meanwhile it would mean most backbenchers would be looking outside the Cabinet for a replacement, unless they have been seduced by Liz’s fizz or are one of the small number that thinks any of the others are up to it. Which would also explain the delay. If you’re pro Brexit and anti lockdown, who do you go for if Sunak has to recuse himself?
Must be about a month since the peak in cases now, and hospital admissions have also been in sustained decline for some weeks.
Around here cases only just about peaked a little more than a week ago and haven't really declined much off that peak yet. I still have no idea why we're so far off the national trend. Presumably some places conversely have declined a lot since the start of the year to counterbalance.
I was thinking today about Dishi’s “so long as I’m in this job” comment at his presser the other day. I think he’s going down on the good ship Johnson, this reported photo of him sitting next to a gurning beer swilling PM might be enough to get him fined. And that would be that. Another person who’s career turns out to be senseless collateral damage in Johnson’s grubby life.
It would sure explain why we seemed to be on the verge of the VONC ages ago but then did not get the nudge over the line from his supporters. There was a story recently with a Sunak loyalist saying “we waited for the nod and it never came”. Would explain why.
Meanwhile it would mean most backbenchers would be looking outside the Cabinet for a replacement, unless they have been seduced by Liz’s fizz or are one of the small number that thinks any of the others are up to it. Which would also explain the delay. If you’re pro Brexit and anti lockdown, who do you go for if Sunak has to recuse himself?
The appointment of Steve Barclay as Chief of Staff is in the same vein. I have read of him being described as a strong ally of Sunak, so you can read the appointment as either being a price demanded by Sunak for his continued support, or simply recognition that Sunak can't abandon the ship as it goes down, and will help to defend the liquor store.
Incidentally, although it does seem strange to have an MP as Chief of Staff, in theory this should be a good move, as it means that the MP is answerable to the Commons (though that means less now that Johnson has shown you can mislead the Commons and you don't have to correct the record). This should be an improvement on having someone hidden from scrutiny in the role. Also, in terms of precedence, there are a couple of Ministers of State in Ireland who have a role as ministers in the Department of the Taoiseach in addition to their other roles.
Mr. Carnyx, your line is completely unsustainable.
You can't just leave a country then demand it pays your pensions. You can't drag with you the payment of pensions and abandon entirely the responsibility for funding them.
You can't have your cake, and eat it.
what utter bollox, people leave the country all the time and get the state pension. Only if England bans all Scottish and English people living in Scotland from retaining UK citizenship could they even think about it. Would not surprise me on them welching though.
I'm a British Scot - but know if your lot win I will likely lose my British citizenship.
It's be Brexit x 10
It’s rarely mentioned, and was talked about little in 2013, but the issue of citizenship will be a big one in the aftermath of a Scottish vote to leave the UK. It’s still an issue between the UK and Ireland, a century later.
In what way is citizenship an issue between the UK and Ireland?
The only thing I can think of is people being born in Northern Ireland not wanting to have British citizenship, for all other purposes the situation is remarkably fluid and easygoing.
The CTA ensures that British and Irish citizens have full rights to live and work in each country. If I live in Ireland for a period of some years I can claim Irish citizenship. The law in the UK prohibits Irish citizens from being treated as foreigners - they are to be treated as British.
None of this means that Westminster funds Irish state pensions.
People in Scotland will be able to retain their British citizenship, and if they come to live in the rump UK will be able to claim a state pension as normal (indeed I am fairly certain that it is the case that an Irish citizen moving to Britain can currently convert their Irish state pension into a British one, and vice versa), but their entitlement to a state pension will be based on contributions that they made while living in Scotland, and so while they are resident in Scotland it will be assumed that the pension would be paid by current contributions made in Scotland - i.e. by a future independent Scotland - and not by rump UK. Effectively, for the purposes of pension entitlement, the existence of an independent Scotland will be back-projected, since the contributions paid to accrue that entitlement were made in Scotland.
It gets a bit more complicated if someone who has lived and worked in both Scotland and the rump UK then moves abroad - but I would assume that there is established practice to deal with such cases in respect to pensions between Ireland and Britain. Spoiler: it won't be Westminster picking up the tab for all of them.
The idea that in 2100 the rump UK will still be paying for some of the pension accrued by some of today's 22 year olds who have lived their entire lives in a Scotland that became independent in, 2025, say, is a complete and absurd fantasy.
Comments
Passports - blue or red?
Have you really never met anyone who is very keen on racial and equalities matters who is not necessarily someone with personal experience of such matters? I may joke about some politically correct terminology or the like, but I think it is a good thing people beyond an oppressed group can care a lot about these things.
The UK government is not going to accept any treaty based obligation to pay going forward as that would make it politically impossibly to change rUK pensions in future to make them worse than the iScot pensions they would be paying
It would sure explain why we seemed to be on the verge of the VONC ages ago but then did not get the nudge over the line from his supporters. There was a story recently with a Sunak loyalist saying “we waited for the nod and it never came”. Would explain why.
Meanwhile it would mean most backbenchers would be looking outside the Cabinet for a replacement, unless they have been seduced by Liz’s fizz or are one of the small number that thinks any of the others are up to it. Which would also explain the delay. If you’re pro Brexit and anti lockdown, who do you go for if Sunak has to recuse himself?
Barclay’s appointment as head of the new Office of the Prime Minister confirms that the Cabinet Office is effectively being split up. https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1490023412059844620/photo/1
This is wrong.
It is a sign of desperation that the only people who will take the jobs are those with no options outside Westminster.
https://twitter.com/pollymackenzie/status/1490024180615729157
Incidentally, although it does seem strange to have an MP as Chief of Staff, in theory this should be a good move, as it means that the MP is answerable to the Commons (though that means less now that Johnson has shown you can mislead the Commons and you don't have to correct the record). This should be an improvement on having someone hidden from scrutiny in the role. Also, in terms of precedence, there are a couple of Ministers of State in Ireland who have a role as ministers in the Department of the Taoiseach in addition to their other roles.
The only thing I can think of is people being born in Northern Ireland not wanting to have British citizenship, for all other purposes the situation is remarkably fluid and easygoing.
The CTA ensures that British and Irish citizens have full rights to live and work in each country. If I live in Ireland for a period of some years I can claim Irish citizenship. The law in the UK prohibits Irish citizens from being treated as foreigners - they are to be treated as British.
None of this means that Westminster funds Irish state pensions.
People in Scotland will be able to retain their British citizenship, and if they come to live in the rump UK will be able to claim a state pension as normal (indeed I am fairly certain that it is the case that an Irish citizen moving to Britain can currently convert their Irish state pension into a British one, and vice versa), but their entitlement to a state pension will be based on contributions that they made while living in Scotland, and so while they are resident in Scotland it will be assumed that the pension would be paid by current contributions made in Scotland - i.e. by a future independent Scotland - and not by rump UK. Effectively, for the purposes of pension entitlement, the existence of an independent Scotland will be back-projected, since the contributions paid to accrue that entitlement were made in Scotland.
It gets a bit more complicated if someone who has lived and worked in both Scotland and the rump UK then moves abroad - but I would assume that there is established practice to deal with such cases in respect to pensions between Ireland and Britain. Spoiler: it won't be Westminster picking up the tab for all of them.
The idea that in 2100 the rump UK will still be paying for some of the pension accrued by some of today's 22 year olds who have lived their entire lives in a Scotland that became independent in, 2025, say, is a complete and absurd fantasy.