Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.
Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
Rutland isn't part of Leicestershire. Historically it's a detached part of Nottinghamshire if you want to be pedantic.
In any case, while it's possible to cite examples of microstates that have populations smaller than some English counties, this really wasn't his implication. It was a bit of daft statement by Foxy in his OP.
I did acknowledge that point - 'Leics with Rutland' - but it doesn't make much difference as you say.
I'm not sure the outcome of the war is of huge significance to the survival of the Russian state. They are likely to face huge sanctions from the west so long as Putin is in power. Many remoter regions were desperately poor already and culturally quite different to Moscow or St Petersburg. In some cases they are even quite resource rich. With a decimated military and less money for his internal security force, the kleptocratic state begins to look unstable. Whether they have a 'land bridge' to Crimea makes little difference.
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.
Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
At one time, some years ago, I used to attend professional conferences as one of the representatives of Essex.The difference in the attention given to the representatives from Northern Island.... separate Society, effectively a semi(at least)-independent state and my group was noticeable, although at, at the time having populations of 1.5 million was noticeable. And given the status of the Norn reps, understandable. Estonia, for example, is a bit smaller, too.
Essex is by no means an average county, in terms of population. Many, indeed most, are much smaller both in populous and land area.
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.
Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
Vatican City has about 800 people, so if we're working off literal meanings, then it's obviously correct but it wasn't really a meaningful statement in the first place.
The background to all this is of a UK state whose instant reaction to indyref is to claim that Scotland (etc) is too small to be independent. How dare they break up the UK! And whose instant reaction to Yorkshire devolution is to make similar claims pro rata - how dare they break up England!
The interesting point is that if the Yorkshire folk win, it opens the gates to a true federation of the UK albeit at reducing England to a number of reasonably sensibly sized units. As much discussed here, so I won't raise the pros and cons - just noting the wider implications of a serious, Holyrood or Cardiff level, Yorkshire devolution.
There is more appetite for an English Parliament than regional assemblies.
Remember the North East rejected a regional assembly in Prescott's referendum and the pro English Parliament English Democrats get some votes too
What happens if/when the Yorkshire Party win in Yorkshire and demand devolution?
They won't win in Yorkshire, any more than the English Democrats will win England.
So unless that changes only the Conservative and Labour views on English devolution matter
“This being the nuclear age, it is the paramount rule of international politics that a great nuclear power should not put another great nuclear power in a position where it must choose between suicide and surrender.”
Walter Lippmann, 1961
That is what we did in the 1980's. The Soviet Union opted against suicide.
They surrendered to a military threat?
Bloody hell, I never realised that. And I was there.
I think Putin considers it to have been a surrender.
On topic, if I wasn’t really busy at work I’d go campaigning for him and do my brilliant knocking up the voters strategy that has worked so successfully in the past, especially in West Yorkshire.
Who can forget my glory days of 2015 when I helped the likes of Andrea Jenkins win?
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.
Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
Vatican City has about 800 people, so if we're working off literal meanings, then it's obviously correct but it wasn't really a meaningful statement in the first place.
The background to all this is of a UK state whose instant reaction to indyref is to claim that Scotland (etc) is too small to be independent. How dare they break up the UK! And whose instant reaction to Yorkshire devolution is to make similar claims pro rata - how dare they break up England!
The interesting point is that if the Yorkshire folk win, it opens the gates to a true federation of the UK albeit at reducing England to a number of reasonably sensibly sized units. As much discussed here, so I won't raise the pros and cons - just noting the wider implications of a serious, Holyrood or Cardiff level, Yorkshire devolution.
There is more appetite for an English Parliament than regional assemblies.
Remember the North East rejected a regional assembly in Prescott's referendum and the pro English Parliament English Democrats get some votes too
What happens if/when the Yorkshire Party win in Yorkshire and demand devolution?
They won't, any more than the English Democrats will.
So unless that changes only the Conservative and Labour views on English devolution matter
Oh, that's a change for you. You actually acknowledge that Labour voters are sentient beings belonging to the human species who are worthy of consideration by your party. Now if you could just keep going ...
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Leics including Leicester is a million people. I am not suggesting independence, but enough for devolution of many issues. Many counties (such as Devon or Hampshire) have bigger populations, not far off devolved Northern Ireland, and more than several EU member states.
Real local devolution is a key to the development of left behind areas. Our country is far too over centralised.
I agree in principle, but the biggest thing should be to tie local taxation to local spending, controlled locally. At the moment central government has too much control over council budgets.
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.
Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
Vatican City has about 800 people, so if we're working off literal meanings, then it's obviously correct but it wasn't really a meaningful statement in the first place.
The background to all this is of a UK state whose instant reaction to indyref is to claim that Scotland (etc) is too small to be independent. How dare they break up the UK! And whose instant reaction to Yorkshire devolution is to make similar claims pro rata - how dare they break up England!
The interesting point is that if the Yorkshire folk win, it opens the gates to a true federation of the UK albeit at reducing England to a number of reasonably sensibly sized units. As much discussed here, so I won't raise the pros and cons - just noting the wider implications of a serious, Holyrood or Cardiff level, Yorkshire devolution.
The problem with balkanisation of England (as proposed by Prescott and apparently by these people) is that the last two years have clearly shown that England needs a government, so that when a national challenge in a devolved area (like, say, a pandemic) comes along, there are four governments working for the four countries, with a UK government on top doing some co-ordination and little else.
Balkanising England into regions without having a place for an England government won't solve any problems. Devolve to England first - then if the English parliament wants to further devolve some powers to the regions, that would work much better.
Opinions well aired on here, as well as others, when we've discussed it. Nevertheless - what happens if the YP win in Yorkshire?
Then hopefully they can be persuaded that a Yorkshire "parliament" under an English parliament is a better solution than direct devolution...
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.
Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
Vatican City has about 800 people, so if we're working off literal meanings, then it's obviously correct but it wasn't really a meaningful statement in the first place.
The background to all this is of a UK state whose instant reaction to indyref is to claim that Scotland (etc) is too small to be independent. How dare they break up the UK! And whose instant reaction to Yorkshire devolution is to make similar claims pro rata - how dare they break up England!
The interesting point is that if the Yorkshire folk win, it opens the gates to a true federation of the UK albeit at reducing England to a number of reasonably sensibly sized units. As much discussed here, so I won't raise the pros and cons - just noting the wider implications of a serious, Holyrood or Cardiff level, Yorkshire devolution.
There is more appetite for an English Parliament than regional assemblies.
Remember the North East rejected a regional assembly in Prescott's referendum and the pro English Parliament English Democrats get some votes too
What happens if/when the Yorkshire Party win in Yorkshire and demand devolution?
They won't win in Yorkshire, any more than the English Democrats will win England.
So unless that changes only the Conservative and Labour views on English devolution matter
UKIP changed the Tories' view on EU membership. The SNP changed Labour's view on devolution.
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.
Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
At one time, some years ago, I used to attend professional conferences as one of the representatives of Essex.The difference in the attention given to the representatives from Northern Island.... separate Society, effectively a semi(at least)-independent state and my group was noticeable, although at, at the time having populations of 1.5 million was noticeable. And given the status of the Norn reps, understandable. Estonia, for example, is a bit smaller, too.
Essex is by no means an average county, in terms of population. Many, indeed most, are much smaller both in populous and land area.
Indeed, Essex has a bigger population than 84 countries in the UN and 12 US states
The YP says It is our view that Yorkshire merits a standalone Regional Parliament, similar to that afforded to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the city of London. - this fails to take into consideration that the London Assembly has a much lower status than the Scottish, Welsh and NI parliaments.
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.
Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
At one time, some years ago, I used to attend professional conferences as one of the representatives of Essex.The difference in the attention given to the representatives from Northern Island.... separate Society, effectively a semi(at least)-independent state and my group was noticeable, although at, at the time having populations of 1.5 million was noticeable. And given the status of the Norn reps, understandable. Estonia, for example, is a bit smaller, too.
Essex is by no means an average county, in terms of population. Many, indeed most, are much smaller both in populous and land area.
Our Epping friend and myself agree, I suspect, on very little indeed, but I think we both regard Essex as above average in many ways!
Why do people persist with the myth that at some point a deal will be done with Russia?
What deal was done with Argentina after the Falklands War? What deal was done with the Axis powers after WWII?
Did Argentina have nuclear weapons? Did WW2 Germany have nuclear weapons?
That's why a lot of people think things will end up coming to some kind of accommodation. That might be wrong, but the nuclear factor is a definite constraint on NATO action that makes "deal" a plausible belief at least. (If this was against a purely conventionally-armed opponent then I'd agree with you.)
Many on here believe that Tom Cruise will swoop in to defeat the Red Peril in aerial combat and we can all walk off into the sunset. They really do believe it is some kind of Hollywood film, as @Dura noted so appositely yesterday.
Nuclear weapons? Well didn't we send Bruce Willis on a daredevil mission to defeat those or something in one of the Die Hards?
Its not a Hollywood film, its a war, and that means sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine who are doing the fighting, and putting pressure on Russia so they lose the war.
It does not require singing Kumbayah or Apprentice style deal making.
I wish I was as certain about anything as you are about everything. What has Russia got that neither Hitler nor Galtieri had? What would Hitler have done if he had them? Clue: what does the V in V1 and V2 stand for?
What makes you think Galtieri would have used nuclear weapons?
Hitler ended up with Germany occupied and partitioned, nobody is proposing that for Russia. Russia losing the war doesn't mean Russia getting occupied and partitioned, it means Russia pulling back to their own borders and that is not something worth them committing suicide over.
If Putin were to order a nuclear strike over Ukraine then the chances are someone close to him would think that they don't want their own family and world destroyed by a nuclear retaliation and put a bullet into him.
Nuclear weapons aren't as significant as you make out to this conflict. Not remotely.
That is so spectacularly wrong it's like saying the Queen has no bearing on this game of chess because, look, we are 20 moves in and she hasn't moved. Or the presence of the ace of trumps in dummy has been irrelevant cos it hasn't been played yet.
I have no idea in detail what the protocol is for Russia or anyone else to launch a nuke is, but I am bloody certain it is very carefully designed from the ground up to accommodate the fact that things are going to be a tiny bit fraught, it's not a question of could you ask Ivan to get me a cup of tea from the samovar and press the big red button on the way. I would think that security round Putin would be intense and that for every person with a role to play you'd have a dozen to shoot that person if he didn't fulfill it
Absolutely the security round Putin is going to be as intense as the Praetorian Guards were around Roman Emperors.
There is a lesson from history there that you might want to think about ...
That was then, this is now. what Russian leader, and what 20-21st century leader of anywhere, has been taken out by the palace guard? In africa it tends to be the regular army
Why this should be is an interesting Q I hadn't thought of before and will do, but whatever the reason it is, literally, ancient history.
The regular army are the modern day Praetorian Guard though.
If Russia's generals turn against Putin en masse then Putin will be dead and the war over in pretty swift order.
That is far more likely than nuclear weapons firing, because all those generals don't want themselves and all their family and loved ones dead in a nuclear attack any more than you do.
If, if, if. Yet again, you go for the simple and pleasing narrative at the expense of the likely truth. Again, when you set up a nuclear firing protocol you rather factor in the chances of individuals being less than 100% onside, and you compensate (as confirmed by military man @TOPPING). Why would you think anything else would be the case? Your senior nomenklatura and families are in bunkers miles away and the junior ones do what they are told. And then you've got your nuclear subs who are thousands of miles away and safe as houses, with political officers on board and not with Sean Connery in command.
The likely truth is not that we will end up with nuclear weapons firing on both sides, that is paranoia.
Russia has already retreated once. They can and likely will do so a second time.
Boiled down to basics NATO has exactly one supreme power, which it has used now with success for 70 years. That is the power to say to any other power on the planet: If you do X you take on the whole of NATOs power, including its nuclear ones.
The invasion of Ukraine suggests two things: That at some point, however far ahead, NATO's one supreme power will be tested out by someone.
And secondly, with hindsight, it is obvious that the Russian threat to invade Ukraine was the moment, now gone, to have used that power and take the risk. Russia would not have invaded.
But Ukraine was not in NATO. That is precisely the point of NATO - thus far and no further.
We are of course both right. The fact that NATO is at this moment contemplating giving guarantees about the security of Sweden shows that circumstances alter cases.
The best and most workable devolution is the brand pioneered in Greater London, Greater Liverpool, Greater Birmingham and Greater Manchester –– big city metros headed up by an elected mayor with sensible wide boundaries free of outdated parochialism, as in London and Manchester.
The model should be extended to the other core cities – Greater Nottingham, Greater Newcastle, Greater Sheffield, Greater Leeds, Greater Bristol – where it hasn't been already.
And they should be named after the core city itself as above, not some ludicrous politically convenient moniker like The Tyne or West Midlands which fails to project the key city brand.
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.
Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
Vatican City has about 800 people, so if we're working off literal meanings, then it's obviously correct but it wasn't really a meaningful statement in the first place.
The background to all this is of a UK state whose instant reaction to indyref is to claim that Scotland (etc) is too small to be independent. How dare they break up the UK! And whose instant reaction to Yorkshire devolution is to make similar claims pro rata - how dare they break up England!
The interesting point is that if the Yorkshire folk win, it opens the gates to a true federation of the UK albeit at reducing England to a number of reasonably sensibly sized units. As much discussed here, so I won't raise the pros and cons - just noting the wider implications of a serious, Holyrood or Cardiff level, Yorkshire devolution.
There is more appetite for an English Parliament than regional assemblies.
Remember the North East rejected a regional assembly in Prescott's referendum and the pro English Parliament English Democrats get some votes too
What happens if/when the Yorkshire Party win in Yorkshire and demand devolution?
They won't win in Yorkshire, any more than the English Democrats will win England.
So unless that changes only the Conservative and Labour views on English devolution matter
UKIP changed the Tories' view on EU membership. The SNP changed Labour's view on devolution.
You don't always have to win outright.
UKIP won the European elections, the SNP won Holyrood (and it was SLab that delivered and pushed for devolution)
“This being the nuclear age, it is the paramount rule of international politics that a great nuclear power should not put another great nuclear power in a position where it must choose between suicide and surrender.”
Walter Lippmann, 1961
That is what we did in the 1980's. The Soviet Union opted against suicide.
They surrendered to a military threat?
Bloody hell, I never realised that. And I was there.
I think Putin considers it to have been a surrender.
I loath how we have allowed history to be re-written. We wanted to be clear that we had won the cold war but the Soviet Union collapsed from within and against the advice of the US President Ukraine opted for independence. Putin appears to think 'Russia' was annexed by the west akin to Germany post 1945. It's ridiculous.
“This being the nuclear age, it is the paramount rule of international politics that a great nuclear power should not put another great nuclear power in a position where it must choose between suicide and surrender.”
Walter Lippmann, 1961
Russia doesn't have to surrender. Only retreat.
They retreated from Afghanistan, as did the US. No surrenders involved, both retain sovereign control over their internationally recognised territory.
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.
Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
Rutland isn't part of Leicestershire. Historically it's a detached part of Nottinghamshire if you want to be pedantic.
In any case, while it's possible to cite examples of microstates that have populations smaller than some English counties, this really wasn't his implication. It was a bit of daft statement by Foxy in his OP.
Not really, many countries are quite small, not just microstates. There are 73 independent states that are members of the UN which have a population of less than a million.
There are many historic counties in England with populations over a million.
Historic Yorkshire has about the same population as Norway. Historic Staffordshire has about the same population as Slovenia. Historic Cheshire has more population than Bahrain.
Some of the historic counties might be comparable to microstates in population, but microstates are still states, but many of them are not.
I don't support regional Parliaments, but what Foxy said is simply a fact.
On topic, if I wasn’t really busy at work I’d go campaigning for him and do my brilliant knocking up the voters strategy that has worked so successfully in the past, especially in West Yorkshire.
Who can forget my glory days of 2015 when I helped the likes of Andrea Jenkins win?
Against Ed Balls, one of the finest parliamentarians of recent times?
The YP says It is our view that Yorkshire merits a standalone Regional Parliament, similar to that afforded to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the city of London. - this fails to take into consideration that the London Assembly has a much lower status than the Scottish, Welsh and NI parliaments.
Amateurish or simply being all things to all regionalists?
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.
Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
Vatican City has about 800 people, so if we're working off literal meanings, then it's obviously correct but it wasn't really a meaningful statement in the first place.
The background to all this is of a UK state whose instant reaction to indyref is to claim that Scotland (etc) is too small to be independent. How dare they break up the UK! And whose instant reaction to Yorkshire devolution is to make similar claims pro rata - how dare they break up England!
The interesting point is that if the Yorkshire folk win, it opens the gates to a true federation of the UK albeit at reducing England to a number of reasonably sensibly sized units. As much discussed here, so I won't raise the pros and cons - just noting the wider implications of a serious, Holyrood or Cardiff level, Yorkshire devolution.
There is more appetite for an English Parliament than regional assemblies.
Remember the North East rejected a regional assembly in Prescott's referendum and the pro English Parliament English Democrats get some votes too
What happens if/when the Yorkshire Party win in Yorkshire and demand devolution?
They won't win in Yorkshire, any more than the English Democrats will win England.
So unless that changes only the Conservative and Labour views on English devolution matter
UKIP changed the Tories' view on EU membership. The SNP changed Labour's view on devolution.
You don't always have to win outright.
UKIP won the European elections, the SNP won Holyrood (and it was SLab that delivered and pushed for devolution)
You're completely missing the facts
(a) LDs in Scotland and London were critically important to Scottish devolution (b) Slab doesn't and didn't exist as a party - it's all UK Labour, though with at that time a very large Scottish component who were terrified of SNP advances like the Tories are of UKIP and its clones (c) it was quite a while between the implementation of devolution and the SNP victory
DH is quite right. The SNP were nowhere near a majority of MPs in Scotland. Or [edit] from 1997 to 2010, MSPs in Holyrood, even allowing for the deliberate fiddle of the voting system by Labour and the LDs.
Not quite sure what it is the large number of Republicans who agree with Biden's policy find so disappointing about his performance on Ukraine.
Putin appeals greatly to the emergent and increasing dominant 'Dark MAGA' strand of Republican thought. Hates woke, has a combover, fucks shit up. He's everything the deplorables treasure in a leader.
Clearly you are describing yourself, given you supported both Trump and Le Pen's election because it would be "funny".
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Clearly you do not have a sense of how small some countries are. Ignoring Rutland, Isle of White is the smallest English county at 142 k. That would put in at 194 out of 236 countries in terms of population.
On topic, if I wasn’t really busy at work I’d go campaigning for him and do my brilliant knocking up the voters strategy that has worked so successfully in the past, especially in West Yorkshire.
Who can forget my glory days of 2015 when I helped the likes of Andrea Jenkins win?
Against Ed Balls, one of the finest parliamentarians of recent times?
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Clearly you do not have a sense of how small some countries are. Ignoring Rutland, Isle of White is the smallest English county at 142 k. That would put in at 194 out of 236 countries in terms of population.
Deserves an embassy in London, North Island. A seat in the United Nations. And so on ...
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.
Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
Vatican City has about 800 people, so if we're working off literal meanings, then it's obviously correct but it wasn't really a meaningful statement in the first place.
The background to all this is of a UK state whose instant reaction to indyref is to claim that Scotland (etc) is too small to be independent. How dare they break up the UK! And whose instant reaction to Yorkshire devolution is to make similar claims pro rata - how dare they break up England!
The interesting point is that if the Yorkshire folk win, it opens the gates to a true federation of the UK albeit at reducing England to a number of reasonably sensibly sized units. As much discussed here, so I won't raise the pros and cons - just noting the wider implications of a serious, Holyrood or Cardiff level, Yorkshire devolution.
There is more appetite for an English Parliament than regional assemblies.
Remember the North East rejected a regional assembly in Prescott's referendum and the pro English Parliament English Democrats get some votes too
What happens if/when the Yorkshire Party win in Yorkshire and demand devolution?
They won't win in Yorkshire, any more than the English Democrats will win England.
So unless that changes only the Conservative and Labour views on English devolution matter
UKIP changed the Tories' view on EU membership. The SNP changed Labour's view on devolution.
You don't always have to win outright.
UKIP won the European elections, the SNP won Holyrood (and it was SLab that delivered and pushed for devolution)
You're completely missing the facts
(a) LDs in Scotland and London were critically important to Scottish devolution (b) Slab doesn't and didn't exist as a party - it's all UK Labour, though with at that time a very large Scottish component who were terrified of SNP advances like the Tories are of UKIP and its clones (c) it was quite a while between the implementation of devolution and the SNP victory
DH is quite right. The SNP were nowhere near a majority of MPs in Scotland. Or MSPs in Holyrood, even allowing for the deliberate fiddle of the voting system by Labour and the LDs.
The point is it was SLAB who had long pushed for devolution within the Labour Party which was accepted by UK Labour and with the LDs delivered devolution in 1999 under PM Blair.
The SNP were largely irrelevant to devolution, though they did push independence up the agenda after they won Holyrood leading to the 2014 independence referendum they lost when SLAB and the LDs joined the Conservatives to oppose it (despite having fought with the SNP against the Conservatives for devolution)
All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.
It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.
Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
"Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."
Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?
571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.
No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.
Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.
But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.
When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.
We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.
Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.
A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.
Depending on how it's going the US will want the conflict to be quiesced by the winter of 23/24 so it's not an unpredictable factor in the election. Until then they will be content to give Ukraine just enough weapons to keep bleeding Russia out.
And the rest of us before the end of this year.
I think it's highly unlikely that there's any desire on the part of the US to keep it going that long, either. The ongoing damage to the world economy is enormous.
If the Russians carry on taking equipment losses at anything like the current rate, there will barely be a Russian military force by the end of this year - except for ships and the WMDs. They can’t keep sending conscripts into the battle without vehicles and weapons.
Precisely, this is what some people don't seem to understand.
Wars are won or lost via logistics. Russia's logistics are royally fucked and they're running out of supplies and can't replace them easily, they don't have self-sufficiency on the electronics etc that they require.
Ukraine's logistics have never been better, they've got the full backing of NATO and are able to replenish their equipment better than anyone would have guessed months ago.
And what you don't understand is the following:
“This being the nuclear age, it is the paramount rule of international politics that a great nuclear power should not put another great nuclear power in a position where it must choose between suicide and surrender.”
Walter Lippmann, 1961
and if that sounds like ancient history, Russia declared in 2020 that it would use nukes in case of
– "the use of conventional weapons against Russia “when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy”.
To which I am sure your response will be I B Roberts wouldn't see any outcome as threatening Russia's existence, and obviously Russians are a load of little B Robertses who think exactly as I do.
Now, OK, it is much more likely than not that Russia will not go nuclear but if good taste permitted I'd have a flutter at anything over 33/1 on a tactical nuke being used this year in Ukraine. And here we are discussing with interest a 130/1 shot in a by election. Your argument that odds against = not worth discussion is at odds (ha!) with the core principles of the site.
Russia losing the war with Ukraine will not threaten Russia's existence any more than Argentina losing the Falklands War threatened Argentina's existence.
I never said that odds against = not worth discussion, I said its not likely. Unlikely outcomes are possible, but they remain unlikely and not as you claimed earlier "the likely truth."
The likely truth is that Russia is lying, just as they were earlier in the year when they claimed they weren't going to invade. Our security services have throughout seemed to have insight into what the Russians were planning before they did it, and that they don't seem bothered about Russia's empty threats is in itself revealing.
Not saying you’re wrong. But is it normal for the US to station a carrier group off the Scottish coast?
I do love the way supporters of parties other than the Tories claim, apparently with a straight face, the Triple Lock (which Theresa May tried to end and which Boris has suspended this year) is an appalling policy which exists because the Conservatives favour their own voters.
It seems to me that the median English historic county has a population over a million, which means most English counties are ahead of plenty of independent UN countries by population.
Rutland isn't, but Rutland is the exception not the rule.
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.
Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
Vatican City has about 800 people, so if we're working off literal meanings, then it's obviously correct but it wasn't really a meaningful statement in the first place.
The background to all this is of a UK state whose instant reaction to indyref is to claim that Scotland (etc) is too small to be independent. How dare they break up the UK! And whose instant reaction to Yorkshire devolution is to make similar claims pro rata - how dare they break up England!
The interesting point is that if the Yorkshire folk win, it opens the gates to a true federation of the UK albeit at reducing England to a number of reasonably sensibly sized units. As much discussed here, so I won't raise the pros and cons - just noting the wider implications of a serious, Holyrood or Cardiff level, Yorkshire devolution.
There is more appetite for an English Parliament than regional assemblies.
Remember the North East rejected a regional assembly in Prescott's referendum and the pro English Parliament English Democrats get some votes too
What happens if/when the Yorkshire Party win in Yorkshire and demand devolution?
They won't win in Yorkshire, any more than the English Democrats will win England.
So unless that changes only the Conservative and Labour views on English devolution matter
UKIP changed the Tories' view on EU membership. The SNP changed Labour's view on devolution.
You don't always have to win outright.
UKIP won the European elections, the SNP won Holyrood (and it was SLab that delivered and pushed for devolution)
You're completely missing the facts
(a) LDs in Scotland and London were critically important to Scottish devolution (b) Slab doesn't and didn't exist as a party - it's all UK Labour, though with at that time a very large Scottish component who were terrified of SNP advances like the Tories are of UKIP and its clones (c) it was quite a while between the implementation of devolution and the SNP victory
DH is quite right. The SNP were nowhere near a majority of MPs in Scotland. Or MSPs in Holyrood, even allowing for the deliberate fiddle of the voting system by Labour and the LDs.
The point is it was SLAB who had long pushed for devolution within the Labour Party which was accepted by UK Labour and with the LDs delivered devolution in 1999 under PM Blair.
The SNP were largely irrelevant to devolution, though they did push independence up the agenda after they won Holyrood leading to the 2014 independence referendum they lost when SLAB and the LDs joined the Conservatives to oppose it (despite having fought with the SNP against the Conservatives for devolution)
I'd sayh you are talking mince, but as we have been reminded that it is a good and useful food whereas ...
In the runup to the devolution referendum, remember, Lord-to-be Robertson justified devolution by saying 'devolution will kill nationalism stone dead.'
He should know. And Prof Curtice also should know. He said
'Labour hoped devolution would persuade voters that Scotland did not need independence and that, consequently, nationalism would be killed “stone dead”.
That, in turn, would help ensure the party at Westminster could continue to rely on a substantial body of Labour MPs being elected from north of the Border.'
The irony, of course, is that a strong showing by Mr Herdson may help the Tories.
Geniune question: is the Yorkshire Party anything other than the unofficial Yorkshire branch of the Tories that gone a bit native? Are their national policies much different?
I'd have thought they'd take two Tory votes for every one Labour vote tbh.
Well they’re clearly not the BNP in disguise!
I assume they’re anti-Brexit as that’s clearly a big issue for David. But other than that, I know little about them.
If I were Labour, I wouldn’t welcome wildcards like Herdson. Sure, he could get second making it a terrrrrible night for the Tories, but it’s much more important that Labour wins. Having a potential none of the above option like the Lib Dems were in North Shropshire, is not ideal.
Is this the same Yorkshire Nationalist Party which advocates for patrol gunboats on the Tees, sniper watchtowers on Stanage Edge, and heavily armed border guards in street checkpoints at Todmorden?
And the stocks for smoggies stealing our daffodils!
Actually, serious question (I suspect you are reading this Dave Herdson) is Yorkshire Party policy that Middlesbrough is part of Yorkshire or not? What borders do the party recognise?
Yes, I am reading.
There's actually no official policy on that at the moment, though I did a draft policy which will be going to the Executive Committee when it has less pressing matters, which touches on that issue, and if adopted would push for two referendums (or, strictly, two types of referendum) on establishing a Yorkshire Regional Parliament.
One would be covering the whole of the existing N/W/S Yorks, plus York, Hull and E Riding councils. That would be the core vote on whether or not to establish the parliament. In addition, the 'lost territories' of Middlesbrough, Saddleworth etc could hold local referendums on whether they wanted to the parliament to cover their area, if it's established. The decision on whether to hold these second types of referendum would be triggered by either a decision of the local council or a petition reaching a trigger level within that authority.
So the answer is that emotionally, yes, we do see Middlesbrough as part of Yorkshire, or at least part of the wider Yorkshire family, but ultimately the question on a political level comes down to whether the people there do.
That is good stuff. Unlike, say, Morris Dancer, I'm an English regionalist at heart - the idea of an all-England parliament leaves me a little cold. Personally, I'd prefer to see super-regionalism, a Northern, Midlands, SE, SW assembly, but I understand that is simply personal preference.
So, more importantly, what I'd love to see is a very substantial freedom of geographic association, organisation and requesting devolved powers, from the civil parish wanting to simply exist (or not) to run its own library, to the local council area, to the metro which is needed for buses, to the region, to.the lord lieutenancies which own traditional ideas of counties and could have, for e.g., small responsibilities for signage design (in your examples, just because Saddleworth feels culturally part of Yorkshire doesn't mean it makes sense to dispatch bin lorries from Huddersfield depot or take whatever services a Yorkshire parliament might run), to simple acknowledgement of 'the North' as a thing that could potentially take powers, all the way up to possible Scottish independence.
What I'd love to see is top to bottom mechanism for any UK locality to take or cede powers and to associate or split freely, within a defined rule set. There's a lot to unpack in this idea, including questions of how long between repeat or overlapping requests, safeguards for limiting unacceptable consequences (e.g. Sharia neighbourhoods), considerations for the GFA, and complex multilayered West Lothianism.
I'd consider such a substantially-developed Labour policy as something to put on the table and tell the SNP, this is how we propose to handle it, support us.
Maybe you should read the article because it does not say that
It does say that. The analysis tries to seperate out covid and war effects from brexit ones by looking at different items. Pork vs poneapples for example.
@Scott_xP said brexit has caused a 6% rise in food prices
The whole article is far more nuanced than that and actually affirms benefits the UK has received by leaving the EU
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.
Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
Vatican City has about 800 people, so if we're working off literal meanings, then it's obviously correct but it wasn't really a meaningful statement in the first place.
The background to all this is of a UK state whose instant reaction to indyref is to claim that Scotland (etc) is too small to be independent. How dare they break up the UK! And whose instant reaction to Yorkshire devolution is to make similar claims pro rata - how dare they break up England!
The interesting point is that if the Yorkshire folk win, it opens the gates to a true federation of the UK albeit at reducing England to a number of reasonably sensibly sized units. As much discussed here, so I won't raise the pros and cons - just noting the wider implications of a serious, Holyrood or Cardiff level, Yorkshire devolution.
There is more appetite for an English Parliament than regional assemblies.
Remember the North East rejected a regional assembly in Prescott's referendum and the pro English Parliament English Democrats get some votes too
What happens if/when the Yorkshire Party win in Yorkshire and demand devolution?
They won't win in Yorkshire, any more than the English Democrats will win England.
So unless that changes only the Conservative and Labour views on English devolution matter
UKIP changed the Tories' view on EU membership. The SNP changed Labour's view on devolution.
You don't always have to win outright.
UKIP won the European elections, the SNP won Holyrood (and it was SLab that delivered and pushed for devolution)
You're completely missing the facts
(a) LDs in Scotland and London were critically important to Scottish devolution (b) Slab doesn't and didn't exist as a party - it's all UK Labour, though with at that time a very large Scottish component who were terrified of SNP advances like the Tories are of UKIP and its clones (c) it was quite a while between the implementation of devolution and the SNP victory
DH is quite right. The SNP were nowhere near a majority of MPs in Scotland. Or MSPs in Holyrood, even allowing for the deliberate fiddle of the voting system by Labour and the LDs.
The point is it was SLAB who had long pushed for devolution within the Labour Party which was accepted by UK Labour and with the LDs delivered devolution in 1999 under PM Blair.
The SNP were largely irrelevant to devolution, though they did push independence up the agenda after they won Holyrood leading to the 2014 independence referendum they lost when SLAB and the LDs joined the Conservatives to oppose it (despite having fought with the SNP against the Conservatives for devolution)
I'd sayh you are talking mince, but as we have been reminded that it is a good and useful food whereas ...
In the runup to the devolution referendum, remember, Lord-to-be Robertson justified devolution by saying 'devolution will kill nationalism stone dead.'
He should know. And Prof Curtice also should know. He said
'Labour hoped devolution would persuade voters that Scotland did not need independence and that, consequently, nationalism would be killed “stone dead”.
That, in turn, would help ensure the party at Westminster could continue to rely on a substantial body of Labour MPs being elected from north of the Border.'
Maybe you should read the article because it does not say that
It does say that. The analysis tries to seperate out covid and war effects from brexit ones by looking at different items. Pork vs poneapples for example.
@Scott_xP said brexit has caused a 6% rise in food prices
The whole article is far more nuanced than that and actually affirms benefits the UK has received by leaving the EU
what benefits do they claim
Bent bananas, sold in fractions of a Winchester hundredweight.
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.
Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
Rutland isn't part of Leicestershire. Historically it's a detached part of Nottinghamshire if you want to be pedantic.
In any case, while it's possible to cite examples of microstates that have populations smaller than some English counties, this really wasn't his implication. It was a bit of a daft statement by Foxy in his OP.
Nah. You're just not admitting you were wrong on the statement you criticized, as you yourself bolded.
On topic, if I wasn’t really busy at work I’d go campaigning for him and do my brilliant knocking up the voters strategy that has worked so successfully in the past, especially in West Yorkshire.
Who can forget my glory days of 2015 when I helped the likes of Andrea Jenkins win?
Against Ed Balls, one of the finest parliamentarians of recent times?
You should hang your head in perennial shame.
There was another Ed Balls?
I don't know whether I am on a political journey gradually leftwards, but I used to loathe Ed Balls and yet now I really like him. The world has definitely changed, or is it just me?
On topic, if I wasn’t really busy at work I’d go campaigning for him and do my brilliant knocking up the voters strategy that has worked so successfully in the past, especially in West Yorkshire.
Who can forget my glory days of 2015 when I helped the likes of Andrea Jenkins win?
Against Ed Balls, one of the finest parliamentarians of recent times?
You should hang your head in perennial shame.
There was another Ed Balls?
I don't know whether I am on a political journey gradually leftwards, but I used to loathe Ed Balls and yet now I really like him. The world has definitely changed, or is it just me?
I used to like him, but rightly or wrongly I blamed him for the Brown/Blair wars which did huge damage to the Labour Party and the sensible governing of the country.
It seems to me that the median English historic county has a population over a million, which means most English counties are ahead of plenty of independent UN countries by population.
Rutland isn't, but Rutland is the exception not the rule.
That must be the mean, rather than the median? There are a few large ones (Lancashire, Middlesex) and a long string of small-ish ones. (This is peak internet, by the way - quibbles over which definition of averages you use for historical counties...)
EDIT: This source has the median county as Berkshire, which in 1971 had a population of 636,000. But Modern Berkshire+Vale of the White Horse is now over a million. So you may be right.
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.
Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
Vatican City has about 800 people, so if we're working off literal meanings, then it's obviously correct but it wasn't really a meaningful statement in the first place.
The background to all this is of a UK state whose instant reaction to indyref is to claim that Scotland (etc) is too small to be independent. How dare they break up the UK! And whose instant reaction to Yorkshire devolution is to make similar claims pro rata - how dare they break up England!
The interesting point is that if the Yorkshire folk win, it opens the gates to a true federation of the UK albeit at reducing England to a number of reasonably sensibly sized units. As much discussed here, so I won't raise the pros and cons - just noting the wider implications of a serious, Holyrood or Cardiff level, Yorkshire devolution.
There is more appetite for an English Parliament than regional assemblies.
Remember the North East rejected a regional assembly in Prescott's referendum and the pro English Parliament English Democrats get some votes too
What happens if/when the Yorkshire Party win in Yorkshire and demand devolution?
They won't win in Yorkshire, any more than the English Democrats will win England.
So unless that changes only the Conservative and Labour views on English devolution matter
UKIP changed the Tories' view on EU membership. The SNP changed Labour's view on devolution.
You don't always have to win outright.
HY doesn't do subtle nuance. He is a "my party right or wrong" man. Or perhaps under its current leadership he has to adapt to "my party normally wrong".
On topic, if I wasn’t really busy at work I’d go campaigning for him and do my brilliant knocking up the voters strategy that has worked so successfully in the past, especially in West Yorkshire.
Who can forget my glory days of 2015 when I helped the likes of Andrea Jenkins win?
Against Ed Balls, one of the finest parliamentarians of recent times?
You should hang your head in perennial shame.
There was another Ed Balls?
I don't know whether I am on a political journey gradually leftwards, but I used to loathe Ed Balls and yet now I really like him. The world has definitely changed, or is it just me?
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.
Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
Vatican City has about 800 people, so if we're working off literal meanings, then it's obviously correct but it wasn't really a meaningful statement in the first place.
The background to all this is of a UK state whose instant reaction to indyref is to claim that Scotland (etc) is too small to be independent. How dare they break up the UK! And whose instant reaction to Yorkshire devolution is to make similar claims pro rata - how dare they break up England!
The interesting point is that if the Yorkshire folk win, it opens the gates to a true federation of the UK albeit at reducing England to a number of reasonably sensibly sized units. As much discussed here, so I won't raise the pros and cons - just noting the wider implications of a serious, Holyrood or Cardiff level, Yorkshire devolution.
There is more appetite for an English Parliament than regional assemblies.
Remember the North East rejected a regional assembly in Prescott's referendum and the pro English Parliament English Democrats get some votes too
What happens if/when the Yorkshire Party win in Yorkshire and demand devolution?
They won't win in Yorkshire, any more than the English Democrats will win England.
So unless that changes only the Conservative and Labour views on English devolution matter
UKIP changed the Tories' view on EU membership. The SNP changed Labour's view on devolution.
You don't always have to win outright.
UKIP won the European elections, the SNP won Holyrood (and it was SLab that delivered and pushed for devolution)
You're completely missing the facts
(a) LDs in Scotland and London were critically important to Scottish devolution (b) Slab doesn't and didn't exist as a party - it's all UK Labour, though with at that time a very large Scottish component who were terrified of SNP advances like the Tories are of UKIP and its clones (c) it was quite a while between the implementation of devolution and the SNP victory
DH is quite right. The SNP were nowhere near a majority of MPs in Scotland. Or MSPs in Holyrood, even allowing for the deliberate fiddle of the voting system by Labour and the LDs.
The point is it was SLAB who had long pushed for devolution within the Labour Party which was accepted by UK Labour and with the LDs delivered devolution in 1999 under PM Blair.
The SNP were largely irrelevant to devolution, though they did push independence up the agenda after they won Holyrood leading to the 2014 independence referendum they lost when SLAB and the LDs joined the Conservatives to oppose it (despite having fought with the SNP against the Conservatives for devolution)
I'd sayh you are talking mince, but as we have been reminded that it is a good and useful food whereas ...
In the runup to the devolution referendum, remember, Lord-to-be Robertson justified devolution by saying 'devolution will kill nationalism stone dead.'
He should know. And Prof Curtice also should know. He said
'Labour hoped devolution would persuade voters that Scotland did not need independence and that, consequently, nationalism would be killed “stone dead”.
That, in turn, would help ensure the party at Westminster could continue to rely on a substantial body of Labour MPs being elected from north of the Border.'
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Leics including Leicester is a million people. I am not suggesting independence, but enough for devolution of many issues. Many counties (such as Devon or Hampshire) have bigger populations, not far off devolved Northern Ireland, and more than several EU member states.
Real local devolution is a key to the development of left behind areas. Our country is far too over centralised.
Yes and many more have much smaller populations. The likes of Rutland have a population of 40,000. They don't make any sense as devolved units.
Why not?
Seriously.
There are indeed states of this size, and the discussion is not talking about independence for Rutland but rather a measure of devolution.
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.
Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
Vatican City has about 800 people, so if we're working off literal meanings, then it's obviously correct but it wasn't really a meaningful statement in the first place.
The background to all this is of a UK state whose instant reaction to indyref is to claim that Scotland (etc) is too small to be independent. How dare they break up the UK! And whose instant reaction to Yorkshire devolution is to make similar claims pro rata - how dare they break up England!
The interesting point is that if the Yorkshire folk win, it opens the gates to a true federation of the UK albeit at reducing England to a number of reasonably sensibly sized units. As much discussed here, so I won't raise the pros and cons - just noting the wider implications of a serious, Holyrood or Cardiff level, Yorkshire devolution.
There is more appetite for an English Parliament than regional assemblies.
Remember the North East rejected a regional assembly in Prescott's referendum and the pro English Parliament English Democrats get some votes too
What happens if/when the Yorkshire Party win in Yorkshire and demand devolution?
They won't win in Yorkshire, any more than the English Democrats will win England.
So unless that changes only the Conservative and Labour views on English devolution matter
UKIP changed the Tories' view on EU membership. The SNP changed Labour's view on devolution.
You don't always have to win outright.
UKIP won the European elections, the SNP won Holyrood (and it was SLab that delivered and pushed for devolution)
You're completely missing the facts
(a) LDs in Scotland and London were critically important to Scottish devolution (b) Slab doesn't and didn't exist as a party - it's all UK Labour, though with at that time a very large Scottish component who were terrified of SNP advances like the Tories are of UKIP and its clones (c) it was quite a while between the implementation of devolution and the SNP victory
DH is quite right. The SNP were nowhere near a majority of MPs in Scotland. Or MSPs in Holyrood, even allowing for the deliberate fiddle of the voting system by Labour and the LDs.
The point is it was SLAB who had long pushed for devolution within the Labour Party which was accepted by UK Labour and with the LDs delivered devolution in 1999 under PM Blair.
The SNP were largely irrelevant to devolution, though they did push independence up the agenda after they won Holyrood leading to the 2014 independence referendum they lost when SLAB and the LDs joined the Conservatives to oppose it (despite having fought with the SNP against the Conservatives for devolution)
I'd sayh you are talking mince, but as we have been reminded that it is a good and useful food whereas ...
In the runup to the devolution referendum, remember, Lord-to-be Robertson justified devolution by saying 'devolution will kill nationalism stone dead.'
He should know. And Prof Curtice also should know. He said
'Labour hoped devolution would persuade voters that Scotland did not need independence and that, consequently, nationalism would be killed “stone dead”.
That, in turn, would help ensure the party at Westminster could continue to rely on a substantial body of Labour MPs being elected from north of the Border.'
Starmer: "There's no place place for sexism or misogony, or looking down on someone because of where they come from in *his* party or in this house."
Wise words. I'd hope there's no place for it in *his* party either.
And as for looking down on someone because of where they come from: it'd be good if the anti-private school people thought on those words a little.
Indeed. They think that 9% of the population should be forever condemned for a decision made by their parents. Left wingers can sometimes be surprisingly biblical.
On topic, if I wasn’t really busy at work I’d go campaigning for him and do my brilliant knocking up the voters strategy that has worked so successfully in the past, especially in West Yorkshire.
Who can forget my glory days of 2015 when I helped the likes of Andrea Jenkins win?
Against Ed Balls, one of the finest parliamentarians of recent times?
You should hang your head in perennial shame.
There was another Ed Balls?
I don't know whether I am on a political journey gradually leftwards, but I used to loathe Ed Balls and yet now I really like him. The world has definitely changed, or is it just me?
Or Ed Balls has changed.
Can you imagine Gordon Brown going to America and letting us film him being tasered?
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.
Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
Vatican City has about 800 people, so if we're working off literal meanings, then it's obviously correct but it wasn't really a meaningful statement in the first place.
The background to all this is of a UK state whose instant reaction to indyref is to claim that Scotland (etc) is too small to be independent. How dare they break up the UK! And whose instant reaction to Yorkshire devolution is to make similar claims pro rata - how dare they break up England!
The interesting point is that if the Yorkshire folk win, it opens the gates to a true federation of the UK albeit at reducing England to a number of reasonably sensibly sized units. As much discussed here, so I won't raise the pros and cons - just noting the wider implications of a serious, Holyrood or Cardiff level, Yorkshire devolution.
There is more appetite for an English Parliament than regional assemblies.
Remember the North East rejected a regional assembly in Prescott's referendum and the pro English Parliament English Democrats get some votes too
What happens if/when the Yorkshire Party win in Yorkshire and demand devolution?
They won't win in Yorkshire, any more than the English Democrats will win England.
So unless that changes only the Conservative and Labour views on English devolution matter
UKIP changed the Tories' view on EU membership. The SNP changed Labour's view on devolution.
You don't always have to win outright.
I’d say SNP victories in the 1970s (there were damn few for the next 20 years) left their mark on Labour, though in spite of George Robertson’s famously foolish prediction there were definitely sincere devolutionists in their ranks. Fwiw I hope you do well. The only way things change in the UK is when Cons and Lab have the crap scared out of them, which more or less agrees with your original point.
It seems to me that the median English historic county has a population over a million, which means most English counties are ahead of plenty of independent UN countries by population.
Rutland isn't, but Rutland is the exception not the rule.
That must be the mean, rather than the median? There are a few large ones (Lancashire, Middlesex) and a long string of small-ish ones. (This is peak internet, by the way - quibbles over which definition of averages you use for historical counties...)
No, median, that surprised me too.
There are 39 historical counties and by my reckoning 20+ of them have a population over a million.
That means that the median historical county is ahead of a plethora of independent countries like Fiji that are sub one million.
On topic, if I wasn’t really busy at work I’d go campaigning for him and do my brilliant knocking up the voters strategy that has worked so successfully in the past, especially in West Yorkshire.
Who can forget my glory days of 2015 when I helped the likes of Andrea Jenkins win?
Against Ed Balls, one of the finest parliamentarians of recent times?
You should hang your head in perennial shame.
There was another Ed Balls?
I don't know whether I am on a political journey gradually leftwards, but I used to loathe Ed Balls and yet now I really like him. The world has definitely changed, or is it just me?
Ed Balls is the Michael Portillo of Labour, now more involved in making TV programmes than frontline politics
On topic, if I wasn’t really busy at work I’d go campaigning for him and do my brilliant knocking up the voters strategy that has worked so successfully in the past, especially in West Yorkshire.
Who can forget my glory days of 2015 when I helped the likes of Andrea Jenkins win?
Against Ed Balls, one of the finest parliamentarians of recent times?
You should hang your head in perennial shame.
There was another Ed Balls?
I don't know whether I am on a political journey gradually leftwards, but I used to loathe Ed Balls and yet now I really like him. The world has definitely changed, or is it just me?
Or Ed Balls has changed.
Can you imagine Gordon Brown going to America and letting us film him being tasered?
I am slightly disturbed by the fact that I was thinking that I might pay money to watch that.
On topic, if I wasn’t really busy at work I’d go campaigning for him and do my brilliant knocking up the voters strategy that has worked so successfully in the past, especially in West Yorkshire.
Who can forget my glory days of 2015 when I helped the likes of Andrea Jenkins win?
Against Ed Balls, one of the finest parliamentarians of recent times?
You should hang your head in perennial shame.
There was another Ed Balls?
I don't know whether I am on a political journey gradually leftwards, but I used to loathe Ed Balls and yet now I really like him. The world has definitely changed, or is it just me?
He stopped being a senior politician...
It is a good point, but it is perhaps the system or our own conscious and unconscious bias that doesn't allow us to see the humanity in our politicians, particularly those on an opposing party.
We are currently facing a massive gas and oil crisis in Europe. Is this moment the right one to start talking about taxing the gas and oil companies much more heavily, at a time we need them to invest and be part of the solution to this problem?
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.
Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
Vatican City has about 800 people, so if we're working off literal meanings, then it's obviously correct but it wasn't really a meaningful statement in the first place.
The background to all this is of a UK state whose instant reaction to indyref is to claim that Scotland (etc) is too small to be independent. How dare they break up the UK! And whose instant reaction to Yorkshire devolution is to make similar claims pro rata - how dare they break up England!
The interesting point is that if the Yorkshire folk win, it opens the gates to a true federation of the UK albeit at reducing England to a number of reasonably sensibly sized units. As much discussed here, so I won't raise the pros and cons - just noting the wider implications of a serious, Holyrood or Cardiff level, Yorkshire devolution.
There is more appetite for an English Parliament than regional assemblies.
Remember the North East rejected a regional assembly in Prescott's referendum and the pro English Parliament English Democrats get some votes too
What happens if/when the Yorkshire Party win in Yorkshire and demand devolution?
They won't win in Yorkshire, any more than the English Democrats will win England.
So unless that changes only the Conservative and Labour views on English devolution matter
UKIP changed the Tories' view on EU membership. The SNP changed Labour's view on devolution.
You don't always have to win outright.
UKIP won the European elections, the SNP won Holyrood (and it was SLab that delivered and pushed for devolution)
Cameron's Bloomberg Speech, committing the Tories to an In/Out referendum was made in Jan 2013, well before UKIP won the European elections.
But in truth, the European elections were seen far less seriously than the Westminster one. It was the prospect of UKIP taking a double-digit share in that vote, mostly from the Tories, which was putting the wind up CCHQ.
On topic, if I wasn’t really busy at work I’d go campaigning for him and do my brilliant knocking up the voters strategy that has worked so successfully in the past, especially in West Yorkshire.
Who can forget my glory days of 2015 when I helped the likes of Andrea Jenkins win?
Against Ed Balls, one of the finest parliamentarians of recent times?
You should hang your head in perennial shame.
There was another Ed Balls?
I don't know whether I am on a political journey gradually leftwards, but I used to loathe Ed Balls and yet now I really like him. The world has definitely changed, or is it just me?
Ed Balls is the Michael Portillo of Labour, now more involved in making TV programmes than frontline politics
On topic, if I wasn’t really busy at work I’d go campaigning for him and do my brilliant knocking up the voters strategy that has worked so successfully in the past, especially in West Yorkshire.
Who can forget my glory days of 2015 when I helped the likes of Andrea Jenkins win?
Against Ed Balls, one of the finest parliamentarians of recent times?
You should hang your head in perennial shame.
There was another Ed Balls?
I don't know whether I am on a political journey gradually leftwards, but I used to loathe Ed Balls and yet now I really like him. The world has definitely changed, or is it just me?
Ed Balls is the Michael Portillo of Labour, now more involved in making TV programmes than frontline politics
I think he is best off out of politics. He seems much more at ease with himself. I have warmed to him far more than when he was in his most adversarial mode in parliament.
It seems to me that the median English historic county has a population over a million, which means most English counties are ahead of plenty of independent UN countries by population.
Rutland isn't, but Rutland is the exception not the rule.
That must be the mean, rather than the median? There are a few large ones (Lancashire, Middlesex) and a long string of small-ish ones. (This is peak internet, by the way - quibbles over which definition of averages you use for historical counties...)
No, median, that surprised me too.
There are 39 historical counties and by my reckoning 20+ of them have a population over a million.
That means that the median historical county is ahead of a plethora of independent countries like Fiji that are sub one million.
You may have seen my edit - I concede the point. Though there are different ways of slicing it - do you separate out the Yorkshire ridings? East and West Suffolk? And some counties have grown more than others. Norfolk, which was next in the list after Berkshire, is still under a million. But even if you can wangle it so the answer is under a million, it's not under by much.
We are currently facing a massive gas and oil crisis in Europe. Is this moment the right one to start talking about taxing the gas and oil companies much more heavily, at a time we need them to invest and be part of the solution to this problem?
On topic, if I wasn’t really busy at work I’d go campaigning for him and do my brilliant knocking up the voters strategy that has worked so successfully in the past, especially in West Yorkshire.
Who can forget my glory days of 2015 when I helped the likes of Andrea Jenkins win?
Against Ed Balls, one of the finest parliamentarians of recent times?
You should hang your head in perennial shame.
There was another Ed Balls?
I don't know whether I am on a political journey gradually leftwards, but I used to loathe Ed Balls and yet now I really like him. The world has definitely changed, or is it just me?
Ed Balls is the Michael Portillo of Labour, now more involved in making TV programmes than frontline politics
I think he is best off out of politics. He seems much more at ease with himself. I have warmed to him far more than when he was in his most adversarial mode in parliament.
Yes, cheers were heard when Portillo lost his seat in 1997 and Balls lost his in 2015.
However both have emerged into confident and likeable media personalities
Maybe you should read the article because it does not say that
It does say that. The analysis tries to seperate out covid and war effects from brexit ones by looking at different items. Pork vs poneapples for example.
@Scott_xP said brexit has caused a 6% rise in food prices
The whole article is far more nuanced than that and actually affirms benefits the UK has received by leaving the EU
what benefits do they claim
Nigel Farage is no longer "an elected member" (by PR, given he couldn't get elected to the HoC by FPTP)
We are currently facing a massive gas and oil crisis in Europe. Is this moment the right one to start talking about taxing the gas and oil companies much more heavily, at a time we need them to invest and be part of the solution to this problem?
Is oil and gas investment the best solution?
Perhaps taxing them to invest in wind turbines and battery factories would be a better approach?
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.
Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
Vatican City has about 800 people, so if we're working off literal meanings, then it's obviously correct but it wasn't really a meaningful statement in the first place.
The background to all this is of a UK state whose instant reaction to indyref is to claim that Scotland (etc) is too small to be independent. How dare they break up the UK! And whose instant reaction to Yorkshire devolution is to make similar claims pro rata - how dare they break up England!
The interesting point is that if the Yorkshire folk win, it opens the gates to a true federation of the UK albeit at reducing England to a number of reasonably sensibly sized units. As much discussed here, so I won't raise the pros and cons - just noting the wider implications of a serious, Holyrood or Cardiff level, Yorkshire devolution.
There is more appetite for an English Parliament than regional assemblies.
Remember the North East rejected a regional assembly in Prescott's referendum and the pro English Parliament English Democrats get some votes too
What happens if/when the Yorkshire Party win in Yorkshire and demand devolution?
They won't win in Yorkshire, any more than the English Democrats will win England.
So unless that changes only the Conservative and Labour views on English devolution matter
UKIP changed the Tories' view on EU membership. The SNP changed Labour's view on devolution.
You don't always have to win outright.
UKIP won the European elections, the SNP won Holyrood (and it was SLab that delivered and pushed for devolution)
You're completely missing the facts
(a) LDs in Scotland and London were critically important to Scottish devolution (b) Slab doesn't and didn't exist as a party - it's all UK Labour, though with at that time a very large Scottish component who were terrified of SNP advances like the Tories are of UKIP and its clones (c) it was quite a while between the implementation of devolution and the SNP victory
DH is quite right. The SNP were nowhere near a majority of MPs in Scotland. Or MSPs in Holyrood, even allowing for the deliberate fiddle of the voting system by Labour and the LDs.
The point is it was SLAB who had long pushed for devolution within the Labour Party which was accepted by UK Labour and with the LDs delivered devolution in 1999 under PM Blair.
The SNP were largely irrelevant to devolution, though they did push independence up the agenda after they won Holyrood leading to the 2014 independence referendum they lost when SLAB and the LDs joined the Conservatives to oppose it (despite having fought with the SNP against the Conservatives for devolution)
I'd sayh you are talking mince, but as we have been reminded that it is a good and useful food whereas ...
In the runup to the devolution referendum, remember, Lord-to-be Robertson justified devolution by saying 'devolution will kill nationalism stone dead.'
He should know. And Prof Curtice also should know. He said
'Labour hoped devolution would persuade voters that Scotland did not need independence and that, consequently, nationalism would be killed “stone dead”.
That, in turn, would help ensure the party at Westminster could continue to rely on a substantial body of Labour MPs being elected from north of the Border.'
This puts the YP picture very much in DH's light rather than yours.
Scots still voted for devolution in 1997 but rejected independence in 2014.
So Robertson was not far out, even if he underestimated the SNP threat to SLAB
Doesn't change the fact you were wrong about the origins of devolution. Which is the relevant bit to the YP discussion today.
I wasn't, it was in Labour not the SNP where it really originated and was pushed through.
But only because they were terrified of the SNP. Like youjr party and Labour will be of the YP if it starts making gains. Which I think is quite likely.
All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.
It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.
Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
"Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."
Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?
571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.
No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.
Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.
But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.
When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.
We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.
Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.
A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.
Depending on how it's going the US will want the conflict to be quiesced by the winter of 23/24 so it's not an unpredictable factor in the election. Until then they will be content to give Ukraine just enough weapons to keep bleeding Russia out.
And the rest of us before the end of this year.
I think it's highly unlikely that there's any desire on the part of the US to keep it going that long, either. The ongoing damage to the world economy is enormous.
If the Russians carry on taking equipment losses at anything like the current rate, there will barely be a Russian military force by the end of this year - except for ships and the WMDs. They can’t keep sending conscripts into the battle without vehicles and weapons, and they have limited manufacturing capabilities for these.
By some accounts they have lost 4% of their MBT capability.
I've seen it stated that they had 2,800 tanks in actual use, plus 10,000 in storage.
Where ‘storage’ for many of them, is a euphemism for a cold and wet open field in Siberia, from where they haven’t be started or moved for half a century.
On topic, if I wasn’t really busy at work I’d go campaigning for him and do my brilliant knocking up the voters strategy that has worked so successfully in the past, especially in West Yorkshire.
Who can forget my glory days of 2015 when I helped the likes of Andrea Jenkins win?
Against Ed Balls, one of the finest parliamentarians of recent times?
You should hang your head in perennial shame.
There was another Ed Balls?
I don't know whether I am on a political journey gradually leftwards, but I used to loathe Ed Balls and yet now I really like him. The world has definitely changed, or is it just me?
It's clealry the 'Strictly' effect. I believe it's a thing.
On topic, if I wasn’t really busy at work I’d go campaigning for him and do my brilliant knocking up the voters strategy that has worked so successfully in the past, especially in West Yorkshire.
Who can forget my glory days of 2015 when I helped the likes of Andrea Jenkins win?
Against Ed Balls, one of the finest parliamentarians of recent times?
You should hang your head in perennial shame.
There was another Ed Balls?
I don't know whether I am on a political journey gradually leftwards, but I used to loathe Ed Balls and yet now I really like him. The world has definitely changed, or is it just me?
Or Ed Balls has changed.
Can you imagine Gordon Brown going to America and letting us film him being tasered?
Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.
Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
Er, umm?
Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?
Clearly you do not.
Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.
Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
Vatican City has about 800 people, so if we're working off literal meanings, then it's obviously correct but it wasn't really a meaningful statement in the first place.
The background to all this is of a UK state whose instant reaction to indyref is to claim that Scotland (etc) is too small to be independent. How dare they break up the UK! And whose instant reaction to Yorkshire devolution is to make similar claims pro rata - how dare they break up England!
The interesting point is that if the Yorkshire folk win, it opens the gates to a true federation of the UK albeit at reducing England to a number of reasonably sensibly sized units. As much discussed here, so I won't raise the pros and cons - just noting the wider implications of a serious, Holyrood or Cardiff level, Yorkshire devolution.
There is more appetite for an English Parliament than regional assemblies.
Remember the North East rejected a regional assembly in Prescott's referendum and the pro English Parliament English Democrats get some votes too
What happens if/when the Yorkshire Party win in Yorkshire and demand devolution?
They won't win in Yorkshire, any more than the English Democrats will win England.
So unless that changes only the Conservative and Labour views on English devolution matter
UKIP changed the Tories' view on EU membership. The SNP changed Labour's view on devolution.
You don't always have to win outright.
UKIP won the European elections, the SNP won Holyrood (and it was SLab that delivered and pushed for devolution)
You're completely missing the facts
(a) LDs in Scotland and London were critically important to Scottish devolution (b) Slab doesn't and didn't exist as a party - it's all UK Labour, though with at that time a very large Scottish component who were terrified of SNP advances like the Tories are of UKIP and its clones (c) it was quite a while between the implementation of devolution and the SNP victory
DH is quite right. The SNP were nowhere near a majority of MPs in Scotland. Or MSPs in Holyrood, even allowing for the deliberate fiddle of the voting system by Labour and the LDs.
The point is it was SLAB who had long pushed for devolution within the Labour Party which was accepted by UK Labour and with the LDs delivered devolution in 1999 under PM Blair.
The SNP were largely irrelevant to devolution, though they did push independence up the agenda after they won Holyrood leading to the 2014 independence referendum they lost when SLAB and the LDs joined the Conservatives to oppose it (despite having fought with the SNP against the Conservatives for devolution)
I'd sayh you are talking mince, but as we have been reminded that it is a good and useful food whereas ...
In the runup to the devolution referendum, remember, Lord-to-be Robertson justified devolution by saying 'devolution will kill nationalism stone dead.'
He should know. And Prof Curtice also should know. He said
'Labour hoped devolution would persuade voters that Scotland did not need independence and that, consequently, nationalism would be killed “stone dead”.
That, in turn, would help ensure the party at Westminster could continue to rely on a substantial body of Labour MPs being elected from north of the Border.'
This puts the YP picture very much in DH's light rather than yours.
Scots still voted for devolution in 1997 but rejected independence in 2014.
So Robertson was not far out, even if he underestimated the SNP threat to SLAB
Doesn't change the fact you were wrong about the origins of devolution. Which is the relevant bit to the YP discussion today.
I wasn't, it was in Labour not the SNP where it really originated and was pushed through.
But only because they were terrified of the SNP. Like youjr party and Labour will be of the YP if it starts making gains. Which I think is quite likely.
No more because Labour were angry that Labour won Scotland but not the UK in the Thatcher years with all Scottish domestic politics still decided at Westminster.
Labour still had a big lead in Scotland and were miles ahead of the SNP until years into devolution.
The Yorkshire Party has not even elected one Yorkshire MP yet or gained control of a single Yorkshire council
Struggling to see how what Johnson is saying in PMQs even remotely matches up to reality
Starmer has a point - Johnson talks like the economy is booming.
Decidedly not booming. But unemployment being very low is a bright spot, and deserves mention.
But this is the problem. The economy is running hot - high inflation, low unemployment - even while growth is low.
Now, there are several major reasons for that, including ones well outside the government's control (but also some which are optional, unforced policy). But the reasons matter a lot less than the effects.
It seems to me that the median English historic county has a population over a million, which means most English counties are ahead of plenty of independent UN countries by population.
Rutland isn't, but Rutland is the exception not the rule.
That must be the mean, rather than the median? There are a few large ones (Lancashire, Middlesex) and a long string of small-ish ones. (This is peak internet, by the way - quibbles over which definition of averages you use for historical counties...)
No, median, that surprised me too.
There are 39 historical counties and by my reckoning 20+ of them have a population over a million.
That means that the median historical county is ahead of a plethora of independent countries like Fiji that are sub one million.
You may have seen my edit - I concede the point. Though there are different ways of slicing it - do you separate out the Yorkshire ridings? East and West Suffolk? And some counties have grown more than others. Norfolk, which was next in the list after Berkshire, is still under a million. But even if you can wangle it so the answer is under a million, it's not under by much.
You seem to have decided that "historical" in "historical county population" referred to the population, as well as/instead of the counties!
On topic, if I wasn’t really busy at work I’d go campaigning for him and do my brilliant knocking up the voters strategy that has worked so successfully in the past, especially in West Yorkshire.
Who can forget my glory days of 2015 when I helped the likes of Andrea Jenkins win?
Against Ed Balls, one of the finest parliamentarians of recent times?
You should hang your head in perennial shame.
There was another Ed Balls?
I don't know whether I am on a political journey gradually leftwards, but I used to loathe Ed Balls and yet now I really like him. The world has definitely changed, or is it just me?
He stopped being a senior politician...
Most UK voters are centrists. Many are also wanting a degree of honesty, integrity and seriousness. Brexit muddied the waters for a long time, including vast numbers of centrists voting for a sub optimal person in 2019, given a choice between 2 vastly sub optimal persons.
Labour is closer than the Tories to a return to normal centrism. I doubt if left and right come into it. I am centre right. I shall vote Labour for now.
We are currently facing a massive gas and oil crisis in Europe. Is this moment the right one to start talking about taxing the gas and oil companies much more heavily, at a time we need them to invest and be part of the solution to this problem?
Is oil and gas investment the best solution?
Perhaps taxing them to invest in wind turbines and battery factories would be a better approach?
On topic, if I wasn’t really busy at work I’d go campaigning for him and do my brilliant knocking up the voters strategy that has worked so successfully in the past, especially in West Yorkshire.
Who can forget my glory days of 2015 when I helped the likes of Andrea Jenkins win?
Against Ed Balls, one of the finest parliamentarians of recent times?
You should hang your head in perennial shame.
There was another Ed Balls?
I don't know whether I am on a political journey gradually leftwards, but I used to loathe Ed Balls and yet now I really like him. The world has definitely changed, or is it just me?
Ed Balls is the Michael Portillo of Labour, now more involved in making TV programmes than frontline politics
Yes but Portillo still comes over as a cock. And where does he buy his clothes from? Is he colour blind?
All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.
It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.
Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
"Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."
Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?
571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.
No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.
Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.
But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.
When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.
We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.
Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.
A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.
Depending on how it's going the US will want the conflict to be quiesced by the winter of 23/24 so it's not an unpredictable factor in the election. Until then they will be content to give Ukraine just enough weapons to keep bleeding Russia out.
And the rest of us before the end of this year.
I think it's highly unlikely that there's any desire on the part of the US to keep it going that long, either. The ongoing damage to the world economy is enormous.
If the Russians carry on taking equipment losses at anything like the current rate, there will barely be a Russian military force by the end of this year - except for ships and the WMDs. They can’t keep sending conscripts into the battle without vehicles and weapons, and they have limited manufacturing capabilities for these.
By some accounts they have lost 4% of their MBT capability.
I've seen it stated that they had 2,800 tanks in actual use, plus 10,000 in storage.
Where ‘storage’ for many of them, is a euphemism for a cold and wet open field in Siberia, from where they haven’t be started or moved for half a century.
Behold the mighty ten thousand tanks of the Russian Army.
On topic, if I wasn’t really busy at work I’d go campaigning for him and do my brilliant knocking up the voters strategy that has worked so successfully in the past, especially in West Yorkshire.
Who can forget my glory days of 2015 when I helped the likes of Andrea Jenkins win?
Against Ed Balls, one of the finest parliamentarians of recent times?
You should hang your head in perennial shame.
There was another Ed Balls?
I don't know whether I am on a political journey gradually leftwards, but I used to loathe Ed Balls and yet now I really like him. The world has definitely changed, or is it just me?
Ed Balls is the Michael Portillo of Labour, now more involved in making TV programmes than frontline politics
Yes but Portillo still comes over as a cock. And where does he buy his clothes from? Is he colour blind?
All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.
It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.
Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
"Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."
Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?
571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.
No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.
Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.
But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.
When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.
We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.
Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.
A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.
Depending on how it's going the US will want the conflict to be quiesced by the winter of 23/24 so it's not an unpredictable factor in the election. Until then they will be content to give Ukraine just enough weapons to keep bleeding Russia out.
And the rest of us before the end of this year.
I think it's highly unlikely that there's any desire on the part of the US to keep it going that long, either. The ongoing damage to the world economy is enormous.
If the Russians carry on taking equipment losses at anything like the current rate, there will barely be a Russian military force by the end of this year - except for ships and the WMDs. They can’t keep sending conscripts into the battle without vehicles and weapons, and they have limited manufacturing capabilities for these.
By some accounts they have lost 4% of their MBT capability.
I've seen it stated that they had 2,800 tanks in actual use, plus 10,000 in storage.
Britain has pretty much the feeblest local government in the OECD.
No wonder productivity is fucked outside of London and it’s commuter zone.
We need 12 or so metros And 38 counties With the ability to tax and spend at least 30% of all government spending.
50-odd units in all.
The idea that productivity is aided by having more politicians I find greatly amusing.
Almost as amusing as the idea that prioritising the importing of unskilled workers over skilled ones is what's needed to boost productivity.
If you ran a business you might observe that it depends what type of worker is needed to ensure productivity. Productivity in a food factory might not be greatly improved by importing people with PhDs when you actually need fork lift truck drivers.
Durham Police to review Keir Starmer's attendance at an event during lockdown
LOL, that might take the wind out of his sails somewhat!
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
I presume if he's fined he'll feel somewhat obliged to resign. I doubt he will, and unless its an outrageous breech I'm not sure he should. Whereas Boris has cumulatively done enough that I think he should go. Nonetheless we could have a Labour leadership contest before a Tory one!
We are currently facing a massive gas and oil crisis in Europe. Is this moment the right one to start talking about taxing the gas and oil companies much more heavily, at a time we need them to invest and be part of the solution to this problem?
No, it's complete madness.
It's hard to take the opposition seriously when their solution to the "cost of living crisis" due to inflation involves things like higher pay settlements and benefits. The words come out of their mouths, and nobody, not even the government, seems to question the logic of tackling inflation with inherently inflationary measures.
On topic, if I wasn’t really busy at work I’d go campaigning for him and do my brilliant knocking up the voters strategy that has worked so successfully in the past, especially in West Yorkshire.
Who can forget my glory days of 2015 when I helped the likes of Andrea Jenkins win?
Against Ed Balls, one of the finest parliamentarians of recent times?
You should hang your head in perennial shame.
There was another Ed Balls?
I don't know whether I am on a political journey gradually leftwards, but I used to loathe Ed Balls and yet now I really like him. The world has definitely changed, or is it just me?
It's probably a combination of him leaving front-line politics and the post-Brexit re-alignment of politics. It's the same reason why I now love Sir John Major.
On topic, if I wasn’t really busy at work I’d go campaigning for him and do my brilliant knocking up the voters strategy that has worked so successfully in the past, especially in West Yorkshire.
Who can forget my glory days of 2015 when I helped the likes of Andrea Jenkins win?
Against Ed Balls, one of the finest parliamentarians of recent times?
You should hang your head in perennial shame.
There was another Ed Balls?
I don't know whether I am on a political journey gradually leftwards, but I used to loathe Ed Balls and yet now I really like him. The world has definitely changed, or is it just me?
He stopped being a senior politician...
Most UK voters are centrists. Many are also wanting a degree of honesty, integrity and seriousness. Brexit muddied the waters for a long time, including vast numbers of centrists voting for a sub optimal person in 2019, given a choice between 2 vastly sub optimal persons.
Labour is closer than the Tories to a return to normal centrism. I doubt if left and right come into it. I am centre right. I shall vote Labour for now.
I am also moderate right of centre, but haven't quite moved to Labour, but wouldn't rule it out. I won't be voting Tory again until The Clown and his ridiculous acolytes like Dorries and Rees-Mogg are removed
Comments
So unless that changes only the Conservative and Labour views on English devolution matter
I think Putin considers it to have been a surrender.
Who can forget my glory days of 2015 when I helped the likes of Andrea Jenkins win?
The SNP changed Labour's view on devolution.
You don't always have to win outright.
The model should be extended to the other core cities – Greater Nottingham, Greater Newcastle, Greater Sheffield, Greater Leeds, Greater Bristol – where it hasn't been already.
And they should be named after the core city itself as above, not some ludicrous politically convenient moniker like The Tyne or West Midlands which fails to project the key city brand.
They retreated from Afghanistan, as did the US. No surrenders involved, both retain sovereign control over their internationally recognised territory.
There are many historic counties in England with populations over a million.
Historic Yorkshire has about the same population as Norway. Historic Staffordshire has about the same population as Slovenia. Historic Cheshire has more population than Bahrain.
Some of the historic counties might be comparable to microstates in population, but microstates are still states, but many of them are not.
I don't support regional Parliaments, but what Foxy said is simply a fact.
You should hang your head in perennial shame.
(a) LDs in Scotland and London were critically important to Scottish devolution
(b) Slab doesn't and didn't exist as a party - it's all UK Labour, though with at that time a very large Scottish component who were terrified of SNP advances like the Tories are of UKIP and its clones
(c) it was quite a while between the implementation of devolution and the SNP victory
DH is quite right. The SNP were nowhere near a majority of MPs in Scotland. Or [edit] from 1997 to 2010, MSPs in Holyrood, even allowing for the deliberate fiddle of the voting system by Labour and the LDs.
The SNP were largely irrelevant to devolution, though they did push independence up the agenda after they won Holyrood leading to the 2014 independence referendum they lost when SLAB and the LDs joined the Conservatives to oppose it (despite having fought with the SNP against the Conservatives for devolution)
Amusing, therefore, to read these:
https://citywire.com/funds-insider/news/corbyn-commits-to-keeping-state-pension-triple-lock/a1159539
https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/government-must-reverse-decision-suspend-pensions-triple-lock-amid-cost-living-crisis-tuc
https://twitter.com/jreynoldsmp/status/1455595329844301833
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59142477
https://www.alistaircarmichael.co.uk/broken_triple_lock_promise_for_pensioners_creates_cost_of_living_black_hole
https://www.snp.org/revealed-tory-cuts-cost-pensioners-520-in-2022/
Rutland isn't, but Rutland is the exception not the rule.
In the runup to the devolution referendum, remember, Lord-to-be Robertson justified devolution by saying 'devolution will kill nationalism stone dead.'
He should know. And Prof Curtice also should know. He said
'Labour hoped devolution would persuade voters that Scotland did not need independence and that, consequently, nationalism would be killed “stone dead”.
That, in turn, would help ensure the party at Westminster could continue to rely on a substantial body of Labour MPs being elected from north of the Border.'
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17634887.sir-john-curtice-devolution-supposed-kill-nationalism-stone-dead---much-alive/
This puts the YP picture very much in DH's light rather than yours.
So, more importantly, what I'd love to see is a very substantial freedom of geographic association, organisation and requesting devolved powers, from the civil parish wanting to simply exist (or not) to run its own library, to the local council area, to the metro which is needed for buses, to the region, to.the lord lieutenancies which own traditional ideas of counties and could have, for e.g., small responsibilities for signage design (in your examples, just because Saddleworth feels culturally part of Yorkshire doesn't mean it makes sense to dispatch bin lorries from Huddersfield depot or take whatever services a Yorkshire parliament might run), to simple acknowledgement of 'the North' as a thing that could potentially take powers, all the way up to possible Scottish independence.
What I'd love to see is top to bottom mechanism for any UK locality to take or cede powers and to associate or split freely, within a defined rule set. There's a lot to unpack in this idea, including questions of how long between repeat or overlapping requests, safeguards for limiting unacceptable consequences (e.g. Sharia neighbourhoods), considerations for the GFA, and complex multilayered West Lothianism.
I'd consider such a substantially-developed Labour policy as something to put on the table and tell the SNP, this is how we propose to handle it, support us.
So Robertson was not far out, even if he underestimated the SNP threat to SLAB
"There's no place place for sexism or misogony, or looking down on someone because of where they come from in *his* party or in this house."
Wise words. I'd hope there's no place for it in *his* party either.
And as for looking down on someone because of where they come from: it'd be good if the anti-private school people thought on those words a little.
Difficult to forgive him for that.
(This is peak internet, by the way - quibbles over which definition of averages you use for historical counties...)
EDIT: This source has the median county as Berkshire, which in 1971 had a population of 636,000. But Modern Berkshire+Vale of the White Horse is now over a million. So you may be right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_counties_of_England_by_population_in_1971
Seriously.
There are indeed states of this size, and the discussion is not talking about independence for Rutland but rather a measure of devolution.
Anyway, Rutland is exceptional.
Can you imagine Gordon Brown going to America and letting us film him being tasered?
Fwiw I hope you do well. The only way things change in the UK is when Cons and Lab have the crap scared out of them, which more or less agrees with your original point.
There are 39 historical counties and by my reckoning 20+ of them have a population over a million.
That means that the median historical county is ahead of a plethora of independent countries like Fiji that are sub one million.
*Rayner checking her diary to see if she was at the same event....*
Rank Canton Population
1 Zürich 1,487,969
2 Bern 1,026,513
3 Vaud 784,822
4 Aargau 663,462
5 St. Gallen 502,552
6 Geneva 489,524
7 Luzern 403,397
8 Ticino 354,375
9 Valais 339,176
10 Fribourg 311,914
11 Basel-Landschaft 286,848
12 Thurgau 270,709
13 Solothurn 269,441
14 Basel-Stadt 198,249
15 Grisons 197,550
16 Neuchâtel 178,567
17 Schwyz 155,863
18 Zug 123,948
19 Schaffhausen 80,769
20 Jura 73,122
21 Appenzell Ausserrhoden 54,954
22 Nidwalden 42,556
23 Glarus 40,147
24 Obwalden 37,378
25 Uri 36,145
26 Appenzell Innerrhoden 16,003
But in truth, the European elections were seen far less seriously than the Westminster one. It was the prospect of UKIP taking a double-digit share in that vote, mostly from the Tories, which was putting the wind up CCHQ.
Starmer has a point - Johnson talks like the economy is booming.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_counties_of_England_by_population_in_1971
You may have seen my edit - I concede the point. Though there are different ways of slicing it - do you separate out the Yorkshire ridings? East and West Suffolk? And some counties have grown more than others. Norfolk, which was next in the list after Berkshire, is still under a million. But even if you can wangle it so the answer is under a million, it's not under by much.
However both have emerged into confident and likeable media personalities
Almost any fool.
I would be surprised if it happens though
Perhaps taxing them to invest in wind turbines and battery factories would be a better approach?
Telegraph blog
Peskov is the world's greatest comedian. How he can do this stuff with a straight face is amazing.
The difference in style between both the leaders was perfectly evident.
Also noted ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE WEARING TROUSERS OR LEGGINGS today. Even the lady who sits behind Boris flashing her knickers for the camera.
Trinny and Susannah and Gok Wan will likely disagree with me, but imo all the ladies in the chamber look so much smarter and the business like this.
No wonder productivity is fucked outside of London and it’s commuter zone.
We need 12 or so metros
And 38 counties
With the ability to tax and spend at least 30% of all government spending.
50-odd units in all.
Labour still had a big lead in Scotland and were miles ahead of the SNP until years into devolution.
The Yorkshire Party has not even elected one Yorkshire MP yet or gained control of a single Yorkshire council
Now, there are several major reasons for that, including ones well outside the government's control (but also some which are optional, unforced policy). But the reasons matter a lot less than the effects.
Almost as amusing as the idea that prioritising the importing of unskilled workers over skilled ones is what's needed to boost productivity.
Try this:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/971694/county-population-england/
Labour is closer than the Tories to a return to normal centrism. I doubt if left and right come into it. I am centre right. I shall vote Labour for now.
Germany needs gas now. Poland needs gas now.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1349861623322836993
This is quite interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHhgVrKJJoA