Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
aren't you somewhat misrepresenting it? it's obviously supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek article - as are all the Pass Notes series, and it doesn't seem to actually contain any examples?
You must surely mean a completely different article that I can't find on the guardian website
Himterrupting would be better than manterrupting.
Wow.. Manterrupting doesn't get underlined as misspelt!
I’d like to take credit for just this minute inventing the word “quimgument” which deftly captures the way some women seek to end a losing argument by saying “you’re bullying a woman so I am going to ignore you and also you’re wrong but don’t bother answering you awful man because remember I have ovaries”
If this happens to you frequently enough for you to invent a word for it, perhaps that ought to tell you something.
It’s never happened to me because I always win arguments (in my own head) through the use of random photos of me drinking alcohol in beautiful places and saying Look I have a better life then you hahahaha and then I talk about something else
Anyone who feels the need to show off on a minor UK political forum (no offence to pb) about the beautiful places he visits is evidently not as happy as he tries to boast.
I'm sorry Leon that you dislike me but I'm afraid I see right through you.
A tip. Drop the bragging. Drop the deliberate stoking of tandential arguments. Be a little more circumspect and respectful: less reactionary, more conciliatory and definitely less desperately boastful.
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
No, it's a Labour city. The Labour Party, as has often been said, is a coalition of Marxists (socialists) and Methodists, or trade unionists, working men and women who want a better, decent life for themselves and their children. When the two wings are in some sort of equilibrium, them the Labour Party as a whole does well; when one or the other gets a strong advantage, then it doesn't. The Lib/LibDem trick in Liverpool was to persuade the voters that they were the heirs to the Methodist/TU tradition. Once the Labour remnants of that tradition got back into control of the Labour Party, Bobs your uncle, and Labour were back in control. And yes I know Kennedy was RC, as indeed is David Alton; Decent RC's, like Nonconformists, seek to make life better for themselves and their neighbours. Not for them the old Anglican hymn of the 'the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate/God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate".
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
What you told me was bollocks. Laughable, pitiful bollocks.
Do you know what a socialist is? They do not vote LibDem for 12 years. Regardless of who the Labour party leader is. Seriously, you do make an utter tit of yourself.
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
And as I told you on Sunday that is bollocks and I speak as someone who was in the LDs at the time making these decisions. The reaction in Liverpool was against the left wing council not because the LDs were to the left of Labour. Something that was patently obvious to anyone at the time. I assume your expertise comes from your 1 day visit decades later.
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
No, it's a Labour city. The Labour Party, as has often been said, is a coalition of Marxists (socialists) and Methodists, or tase unionists, working men and women who want a better, decent life for themselves and their children. When the two wings are in some sort of equilibrium, them the Labour Party as a whole does well; when one or the other gets a strong advantage, then it doesn't. The Lib/LibDem trick in Liverpool was to persuade the voters that they were the heirs to the Methodist/TU tradition. Once the Labour remnants of that tradition got back into control of the Labour Party, Bobs your uncle, and Labour were back in control. And yes I know Kennedy was RC, as indeed is David Alton; Decent RC's, like Nonconformists, seek to make life better for themselves and their neighbours. Not for them the old Anglican hymn of the 'the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate/God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate".
So now who is showing anti Anglican prejudice? Half the food banks in England are provided by the Church of England
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
And as I told you on Sunday that is bollocks and I speak as someone who was in the LDs at the time making these decisions. The reaction in Liverpool was against the left wing council not because the LDs were to the left of Labour. Something that was patently obvious to anyone at the time. I assume your expertise comes from your 2 day visit decades later.
It isn't and wasn't
Liverpool consistently elected far left Labour Councils in the 1980s, including under the deputy leadership of the Trotskyite Hatton and continues to elect Labour Councils now as it is a socialist city.
The only reason it briefly went LD in the Blair years was as I said because Charles Kennedy positioned them to the left of New Labour
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
No, it's a Labour city. The Labour Party, as has often been said, is a coalition of Marxists (socialists) and Methodists, or tase unionists, working men and women who want a better, decent life for themselves and their children. When the two wings are in some sort of equilibrium, them the Labour Party as a whole does well; when one or the other gets a strong advantage, then it doesn't. The Lib/LibDem trick in Liverpool was to persuade the voters that they were the heirs to the Methodist/TU tradition. Once the Labour remnants of that tradition got back into control of the Labour Party, Bobs your uncle, and Labour were back in control. And yes I know Kennedy was RC, as indeed is David Alton; Decent RC's, like Nonconformists, seek to make life better for themselves and their neighbours. Not for them the old Anglican hymn of the 'the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate/God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate".
So now who is showing anti Anglican prejudice? Half the food banks in England are provided by the Church of England
What on earth has that got to do with anything OKC posted?
Jane Merrick @janemerrick23 · 22m Miliband: “Crypto has crashed and so has the chancellor - how similar they are … came out of nowhere, the value surged, looked like the future, but it’s all turned out to be one giant Ponzi scheme” ouch
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
It wasn't direct rule from London which caused The Troubles. It was pent up anger after many years of a gerrymandered electoral system and a political arrangement which ensure that Catholics were always disadvantaged.
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
And as I told you on Sunday that is bollocks and I speak as someone who was in the LDs at the time making these decisions. The reaction in Liverpool was against the left wing council not because the LDs were to the left of Labour. Something that was patently obvious to anyone at the time. I assume your expertise comes from your 2 day visit decades later.
It isn't and wasn't
Liverpool consistently elected far left Labour Councils in the 1980s, including under the deputy leadership of the Trotskyite Hatton and continues to elect Labour Councils now as it is a socialist city.
The only reason it briefly went LD in the Blair years was as I said because Charles Kennedy positioned them to the left of New Labour
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
I wonder if the Shropshire North result hasn't set the bar too high, to the point that we expect the LibDems to win any by-election anywhere in a rural area, even when a 23% swing is needed. If they merely come close it shouldn't really be a shock.
Labour ought to win Wakefield unless the ructions in the CLP have more impact than I'd expect - e.g. by a Labour councillor standing as a splitter. I doubt if they'll go that far (I'm not bothered there by TUSC, Galloway etc.).
I think you're in danger of conflating the expectations of those with an active interest in politics and betting with those of the man on the Clapham Omnibus.
The headline in the morning if the Tories lose won't be, "Swings broadly in line with recent precedent in by-elections". It will be "Double whammy: Boris hammered in Red Wall and Clotted Cream Belt." And, similarly, the casual observer doesn't really price these things in that much - a by-election loss on a big swing doesn't lose that much impact simply on the basis there was also one in December.
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
No, it's a Labour city. The Labour Party, as has often been said, is a coalition of Marxists (socialists) and Methodists, or tase unionists, working men and women who want a better, decent life for themselves and their children. When the two wings are in some sort of equilibrium, them the Labour Party as a whole does well; when one or the other gets a strong advantage, then it doesn't. The Lib/LibDem trick in Liverpool was to persuade the voters that they were the heirs to the Methodist/TU tradition. Once the Labour remnants of that tradition got back into control of the Labour Party, Bobs your uncle, and Labour were back in control. And yes I know Kennedy was RC, as indeed is David Alton; Decent RC's, like Nonconformists, seek to make life better for themselves and their neighbours. Not for them the old Anglican hymn of the 'the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate/God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate".
So now who is showing anti Anglican prejudice? Half the food banks in England are provided by the Church of England
What on earth has that got to do with anything OKC posted?
Thanks. But I'd doubt it's half. A decent proportion, maybe.
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
What you told me was bollocks. Laughable, pitiful bollocks.
Do you know what a socialist is? They do not vote LibDem for 12 years. Regardless of who the Labour party leader is. Seriously, you do make an utter tit of yourself.
Blair was not a socialist and right of Charles Kennedy, Liverpool rejected Blair not Labour hence it had Labour councils before Blair and once Blair left as PM and Labour leader
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
Truss just explicitly said in the Commons that the Protocol was never intended to be set in stone.
Nor should it be. Evolution works. The Protocol in its 15th Article says how the Protocol can be changed by negotiations and in its 16th provides Safeguards to overwrite parts too. Both are entirely appropriate to use.
Its quite amusing to me how many people who deny my notion that post-Brexit Britain can be more nimble and less sclerotic are being horrified at post-Brexit Britain being nimble and not sclerotic.
It's the dishonesty and lack of trustworthiness that are the problem.
Dishonesty is putting up sanctions on Russia and then creating financial mechanisms to break them. The idea that the EU is some virtuous and completely honest organisation is completely ridiculous.
Siri, provide me with a textbook example of whataboutery.
But you want the UK to trust an inherently untrustworthy organisation. They have proven they are willing to stab Ukraine in the back so Germany can keep selling dishwashers. The evidence is clear that the EU can't be trusted and neither can we.
All along I've said that the UK-EU relationship needs to be a tightly defined set of rules. Trust, doing the other one a favour, or expecting a favour from either party is not going to happen, they are not an informal ally who we can rely on to help us when we need it. This isn't New Zealand and Canada loaning up a few hundred trade negotiators in 2017 and 2018, the EU is ultimately a formal ally with whom we have a trade deal and not a lot else.
Everyone needs to see our relationship with the EU through this lens and give up on the fanciful idea that if we do them a favour they might respond in kind. It's not going to happen.
Isn't the problem that they have always played by the rules and we thought they wouldn't/shouldn't bother.
Like people who bump into non-compete clauses for the first time when they try to ignore them and realise they are deadly serious....
The EU has definitely not "always played by the rules", it breaks them whenever it suits.
Indeed and any examples of such are waved away as "whataboutery" or this new one "factsplaining". I understand why some are so desperate to ignore these actions from the EU as it completely shatters their world view of the EU being some kind of virtuous global force for good but it's becoming tiresome.
Oh I agree absolutely. My point was the EU, just like us, obeys the rules when it suits them to and points to those who don't do it. As is their prerogative. And just like we do. But in those circumstances nevertheless you have one party which is obeying the rules and one that is not. Whatever happens elsewhere is irrelevant.
I have a few contacts in east Devon and Somerset. I think the LibDems look good to take the Tiverton seat. And possibly with something quite seismic.
As for Wakefield, I'm far from sure Labour will win it. It could spell trouble for Starmer not Johnson. SKS acted clumsily over the selection although in Simon Lightwood I think they have probably now recovered the situation.
Of the two by-elections it's Wakefield which most worries me (from an anti-tory pov).
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 and are now largest Unionist party.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
One for the PB brains trust, as I'm sure someone will know...
What is it with this modern thing with logging into websites where you have to put your email address in on one page and then the password on a separate page, instead of just putting both in together? Is it really that much more secure that justifies the extra irritation?
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
No, it's a Labour city. The Labour Party, as has often been said, is a coalition of Marxists (socialists) and Methodists, or tase unionists, working men and women who want a better, decent life for themselves and their children. When the two wings are in some sort of equilibrium, them the Labour Party as a whole does well; when one or the other gets a strong advantage, then it doesn't. The Lib/LibDem trick in Liverpool was to persuade the voters that they were the heirs to the Methodist/TU tradition. Once the Labour remnants of that tradition got back into control of the Labour Party, Bobs your uncle, and Labour were back in control. And yes I know Kennedy was RC, as indeed is David Alton; Decent RC's, like Nonconformists, seek to make life better for themselves and their neighbours. Not for them the old Anglican hymn of the 'the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate/God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate".
So now who is showing anti Anglican prejudice? Half the food banks in England are provided by the Church of England
What on earth has that got to do with anything OKC posted?
Thanks. But I'd doubt it's half. A decent proportion, maybe.
Of course, the C of E was very much the default option in the good old days of the Workhouses, in England anyway: not sure about Wales.
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
What you told me was bollocks. Laughable, pitiful bollocks.
Do you know what a socialist is? They do not vote LibDem for 12 years. Regardless of who the Labour party leader is. Seriously, you do make an utter tit of yourself.
Blair was not a socialist and right of Charles Kennedy, Liverpool rejected Blair not Labour hence it had Labour councils before Blair and once Blair left as PM and Labour leader
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 as did the UVF.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
Truss just explicitly said in the Commons that the Protocol was never intended to be set in stone.
Nor should it be. Evolution works. The Protocol in its 15th Article says how the Protocol can be changed by negotiations and in its 16th provides Safeguards to overwrite parts too. Both are entirely appropriate to use.
Its quite amusing to me how many people who deny my notion that post-Brexit Britain can be more nimble and less sclerotic are being horrified at post-Brexit Britain being nimble and not sclerotic.
It's the dishonesty and lack of trustworthiness that are the problem.
Dishonesty is putting up sanctions on Russia and then creating financial mechanisms to break them. The idea that the EU is some virtuous and completely honest organisation is completely ridiculous.
Siri, provide me with a textbook example of whataboutery.
But you want the UK to trust an inherently untrustworthy organisation. They have proven they are willing to stab Ukraine in the back so Germany can keep selling dishwashers. The evidence is clear that the EU can't be trusted and neither can we.
All along I've said that the UK-EU relationship needs to be a tightly defined set of rules. Trust, doing the other one a favour, or expecting a favour from either party is not going to happen, they are not an informal ally who we can rely on to help us when we need it. This isn't New Zealand and Canada loaning up a few hundred trade negotiators in 2017 and 2018, the EU is ultimately a formal ally with whom we have a trade deal and not a lot else.
Everyone needs to see our relationship with the EU through this lens and give up on the fanciful idea that if we do them a favour they might respond in kind. It's not going to happen.
Isn't the problem that they have always played by the rules and we thought they wouldn't/shouldn't bother.
Like people who bump into non-compete clauses for the first time when they try to ignore them and realise they are deadly serious....
The EU has definitely not "always played by the rules", it breaks them whenever it suits.
Indeed and any examples of such are waved away as "whataboutery" or this new one "factsplaining". I understand why some are so desperate to ignore these actions from the EU as it completely shatters their world view of the EU being some kind of virtuous global force for good but it's becoming tiresome.
Oh I agree absolutely. My point was the EU, just like us, obeys the rules when it suits them to and points to those who don't do it. As is their prerogative. And just like we do. But in those circumstances nevertheless you have one party which is obeying the rules and one that is not. Whatever happens elsewhere is irrelevant.
Which is precisely why we need to use every bit of 'the rules' that suits our interests in a maximalist way to force them to compromise.
That means using legislation in the Commons, Article 16 or any other tools at our disposal to give them no choice but to co-operate.
Because the notion of "compromise" or "trust" otherwise is for the fairies or the naive.
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 as did the UVF.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
If even someone as pigheaded as you won't support a terrorist campaign, then who is going to support terrorists?
Or will they be ostracised criminal scum if anyone was stupid enough to try that without a friend in the world who would be rounded up and imprisoned?
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
Are you proposing a handful of landlocked Loyalist enclaves within an otherwise united Ireland?
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
No, it's a Labour city. The Labour Party, as has often been said, is a coalition of Marxists (socialists) and Methodists, or tase unionists, working men and women who want a better, decent life for themselves and their children. When the two wings are in some sort of equilibrium, them the Labour Party as a whole does well; when one or the other gets a strong advantage, then it doesn't. The Lib/LibDem trick in Liverpool was to persuade the voters that they were the heirs to the Methodist/TU tradition. Once the Labour remnants of that tradition got back into control of the Labour Party, Bobs your uncle, and Labour were back in control. And yes I know Kennedy was RC, as indeed is David Alton; Decent RC's, like Nonconformists, seek to make life better for themselves and their neighbours. Not for them the old Anglican hymn of the 'the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate/God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate".
So now who is showing anti Anglican prejudice? Half the food banks in England are provided by the Church of England
What on earth has that got to do with anything OKC posted?
Thanks. But I'd doubt it's half. A decent proportion, maybe.
Of course, the C of E was very much the default option in the good old days of the Workhouses, in England anyway: not sure about Wales.
A 'marriage' had to be in a CoE Church in Wales; until Registry Offices became available, other marriages were not valid.
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 as did the UVF.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
You aren't a British Tory - just an English one. In Wales you are a Plaid Cymru voting nationalist.
Anyway, the problem with your "Panem Now, Panem Forever" approach is that the "loyalist areas" are shrinking. Was the 6 counties a century ago, now pockets inside those counties. You can't administer odd towns, or parts of towns. Unionism is dying out - literally. If the DUP weren't so pious they should be launching a "Shag for Britain" campaign to out-breed the catholics.
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 as did the UVF.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
If even someone as pigheaded as you won't support a terrorist campaign, then who is going to support terrorists?
Or will they be ostracised criminal scum if anyone was stupid enough to try that without a friend in the world who would be rounded up and imprisoned?
They would have support from the local loyalist population, far right British Nationalists on the mainland and on the global criminal black market could easily buy the bombs and guns they would need
I have a few contacts in east Devon and Somerset. I think the LibDems look good to take the Tiverton seat. And possibly with something quite seismic.
As for Wakefield, I'm far from sure Labour will win it. It could spell trouble for Starmer not Johnson. SKS acted clumsily over the selection although in Simon Lightwood I think they have probably now recovered the situation.
Of the two by-elections it's Wakefield which most worries me (from an anti-tory pov).
So which bookie will do them as a double-header and at what odds? Two on one day, lets have some fun. I'm willing to bet actual money on LD in Tiverton AND Labour in Wakeyvegas.
I wonder if the Tories have got some intelligence that Sir Keir will be exonerated by Durham police. If so then a trade war with the EU might be a good distraction from the contrast with Boris. Ultimate dead-cat manoeuvre?
I think you are absolutely right, starkers.
When in power it gives you some control over resetting the narrative to suit you, which is what the Tories are doing, choosing precise time and issue to control the narrative. Even hating Boris and wishing Tories ill, you gave to concede what is actually happening and how it likely plays out, so many posters can’t/won’t do this.
There will be some sort of deal? Of course it will end in a deal very similar to the UK governments proposals.
Will UK government get boost soon as the deal agreed? Of course they will, and we will know because Big G and HY in unison will remind us of this fact soon as deal agreed. St Bart Robert will also get a big boost because the government win with a solution they have pushed on PB for last 5 years (allegedly, I havn’t been around a year yet).
meanwhile the Great Patriotic War puts Labour on back foot now the commons is back in action? Yep, that’s that’s the beautiful timing of the Great Patriotic War.
And it obscures what’s going on in partygate, just as you said! Which will Boris red wallers care about more - supporting Boris in fight with EU or moan at him over Partygate?
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 as did the UVF.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
You aren't a British Tory - just an English one. In Wales you are a Plaid Cymru voting nationalist.
Anyway, the problem with your "Panem Now, Panem Forever" approach is that the "loyalist areas" are shrinking. Was the 6 counties a century ago, now pockets inside those counties. You can't administer odd towns, or parts of towns. Unionism is dying out - literally. If the DUP weren't so pious they should be launching a "Shag for Britain" campaign to out-breed the catholics.
Its their only chance.
In Antrim and Lagan Valley etc Protestants comfortably still outnumber Roman Catholics
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
Are you proposing a handful of landlocked Loyalist enclaves within an otherwise united Ireland?
Which is precisely why we need to use every bit of 'the rules' that suits our interests in a maximalist way to force them to compromise.
That means using legislation in the Commons, Article 16 or any other tools at our disposal to give them no choice but to co-operate.
Because the notion of "compromise" or "trust" otherwise is for the fairies or the naive.
It was trumpeted by the UK Govt as being a fantastic deal. My concern is not with pragmatism in amending a deal but with the sheer idiocy of agreeing one, each element of which (checks on intra-UK ham sandwiches, for example) small children in Hartlepool could have explained to you, and then less than 18 months later saying that precisely those parts of the deal which were agreed are all of a sudden intolerable.
It is the sheer imbecility of Boris and his govt who so transparently agreed something on the spur of the moment, and either did not understand or did but were dishonest about the effects of it and now we are where we are.
You applaud them reneging on a deal they agreed months ago; I think it a sign of incompetence and/or disingenuousness.
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 and are now largest Unionist party.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
The GFA including the future democratic right to self determination was put to a public vote which 71% of the Northern Ireland population voted in favour of. 94% were in favour in the south. None of your 52/ 48 nonsense. Are you an enemy of the people of the island of Ireland?
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
No, it's a Labour city. The Labour Party, as has often been said, is a coalition of Marxists (socialists) and Methodists, or tase unionists, working men and women who want a better, decent life for themselves and their children. When the two wings are in some sort of equilibrium, them the Labour Party as a whole does well; when one or the other gets a strong advantage, then it doesn't. The Lib/LibDem trick in Liverpool was to persuade the voters that they were the heirs to the Methodist/TU tradition. Once the Labour remnants of that tradition got back into control of the Labour Party, Bobs your uncle, and Labour were back in control. And yes I know Kennedy was RC, as indeed is David Alton; Decent RC's, like Nonconformists, seek to make life better for themselves and their neighbours. Not for them the old Anglican hymn of the 'the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate/God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate".
So now who is showing anti Anglican prejudice? Half the food banks in England are provided by the Church of England
What on earth has that got to do with anything OKC posted?
Thanks. But I'd doubt it's half. A decent proportion, maybe.
Of course, the C of E was very much the default option in the good old days of the Workhouses, in England anyway: not sure about Wales.
A 'marriage' had to be in a CoE Church in Wales; until Registry Offices became available, other marriages were not valid.
Ugh, my inner pedant hates that term. "Register Office" or "Registry" - "registry office" is a tautology...
I wonder if the Tories have got some intelligence that Sir Keir will be exonerated by Durham police. If so then a trade war with the EU might be a good distraction from the contrast with Boris. Ultimate dead-cat manoeuvre?
I think you are absolutely right, starkers.
When in power it gives you some control over resetting the narrative to suit you, which is what the Tories are doing, choosing precise time and issue to control the narrative. Even hating Boris and wishing Tories ill, you gave to concede what is actually happening and how it likely plays out, so many posters can’t/won’t do this.
There will be some sort of deal? Of course it will end in a deal very similar to the UK governments proposals.
Will UK government get boost soon as the deal agreed? Of course they will, and we will know because Big G and HY in unison will remind us of this fact soon as deal agreed. St Bart Robert will also get a big boost because the government win with a solution they have pushed on PB for last 5 years (allegedly, I havn’t been around a year yet).
meanwhile the Great Patriotic War puts Labour on back foot now the commons is back in action? Yep, that’s that’s the beautiful timing of the Great Patriotic War.
And it obscures what’s going on in partygate, just as you said! Which will Boris red wallers care about more - supporting Boris in fight with EU or moan at him over Partygate?
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
What you told me was bollocks. Laughable, pitiful bollocks.
Do you know what a socialist is? They do not vote LibDem for 12 years. Regardless of who the Labour party leader is. Seriously, you do make an utter tit of yourself.
Blair was not a socialist and right of Charles Kennedy, Liverpool rejected Blair not Labour hence it had Labour councils before Blair and once Blair left as PM and Labour leader
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
What you told me was bollocks. Laughable, pitiful bollocks.
Do you know what a socialist is? They do not vote LibDem for 12 years. Regardless of who the Labour party leader is. Seriously, you do make an utter tit of yourself.
Blair was not a socialist and right of Charles Kennedy, Liverpool rejected Blair not Labour hence it had Labour councils before Blair and once Blair left as PM and Labour leader
So when the LDs campaigned against Labour in Liverpool portraying them as being left wing how did that work if you are right and the LDs were more left wing? You do talk nonsense. How you think it appropriate to actually argue with people who were actually involved when you even admit you have no background in it whatsoever baffles me.
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
Are you proposing a handful of landlocked Loyalist enclaves within an otherwise united Ireland?
Hmmm.
Within the UK still
The proliferation of Customs Posts will be a sight to behold!
Truss just explicitly said in the Commons that the Protocol was never intended to be set in stone.
Nor should it be. Evolution works. The Protocol in its 15th Article says how the Protocol can be changed by negotiations and in its 16th provides Safeguards to overwrite parts too. Both are entirely appropriate to use.
Its quite amusing to me how many people who deny my notion that post-Brexit Britain can be more nimble and less sclerotic are being horrified at post-Brexit Britain being nimble and not sclerotic.
It's the dishonesty and lack of trustworthiness that are the problem.
Where is the the trust from the EU? 20% of customs checks for the whole EU are between GB and NI. Which body first played the A16 card UK or EU?
To be fair under the five second rule the EU’s play doesn’t count… or something
I have a few contacts in east Devon and Somerset. I think the LibDems look good to take the Tiverton seat. And possibly with something quite seismic.
As for Wakefield, I'm far from sure Labour will win it. It could spell trouble for Starmer not Johnson. SKS acted clumsily over the selection although in Simon Lightwood I think they have probably now recovered the situation.
Of the two by-elections it's Wakefield which most worries me (from an anti-tory pov).
So which bookie will do them as a double-header and at what odds? Two on one day, lets have some fun. I'm willing to bet actual money on LD in Tiverton AND Labour in Wakeyvegas.
The graphic in the header is from Smarkets. Conventional bookies don't usually allow multiples on constituency bets, IIRC, as they see them as not independent events.
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 as did the UVF.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
You aren't a British Tory - just an English one. In Wales you are a Plaid Cymru voting nationalist.
Anyway, the problem with your "Panem Now, Panem Forever" approach is that the "loyalist areas" are shrinking. Was the 6 counties a century ago, now pockets inside those counties. You can't administer odd towns, or parts of towns. Unionism is dying out - literally. If the DUP weren't so pious they should be launching a "Shag for Britain" campaign to out-breed the catholics.
Its their only chance.
In Antrim and Lagan Valley etc Protestants comfortably still outnumber Roman Catholics
And how do you make these pockets of loyalists into a working administrative area?
It doesn't matter if Antrim and Lagan Valley want to stay in the Union if they are outvoted by the people not in Antrim and Lagan Valley.
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
And as I told you on Sunday that is bollocks and I speak as someone who was in the LDs at the time making these decisions. The reaction in Liverpool was against the left wing council not because the LDs were to the left of Labour. Something that was patently obvious to anyone at the time. I assume your expertise comes from your 2 day visit decades later.
It isn't and wasn't
Liverpool consistently elected far left Labour Councils in the 1980s, including under the deputy leadership of the Trotskyite Hatton and continues to elect Labour Councils now as it is a socialist city.
The only reason it briefly went LD in the Blair years was as I said because Charles Kennedy positioned them to the left of New Labour
Liverpool was Liberal led for periods in the 1970s (and elected many Tories - indeed Tory dominated in the very early 70s), and many of its Labour leaders have been fairly moderate (e.g. John Hamilton was a Quaker of the Christian Socialist school, and Harry Rimmer was a pretty conventional Labour civic leader).
It's certainly true that the far left have organised and secured sway in periods. But your position on both the Council and the City as a whole over the sweep of recent history, and dismissal of it as some kind of seething mass of Trots, is just ignorant.
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
What you told me was bollocks. Laughable, pitiful bollocks.
Do you know what a socialist is? They do not vote LibDem for 12 years. Regardless of who the Labour party leader is. Seriously, you do make an utter tit of yourself.
Blair was not a socialist and right of Charles Kennedy, Liverpool rejected Blair not Labour hence it had Labour councils before Blair and once Blair left as PM and Labour leader
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
What you told me was bollocks. Laughable, pitiful bollocks.
Do you know what a socialist is? They do not vote LibDem for 12 years. Regardless of who the Labour party leader is. Seriously, you do make an utter tit of yourself.
Blair was not a socialist and right of Charles Kennedy, Liverpool rejected Blair not Labour hence it had Labour councils before Blair and once Blair left as PM and Labour leader
So when the LDs campaigned against Labour in Liverpool portraying them as being left wing how did that work if you are right and the LDs were more left wing? You do talk nonsense. How you think it appropriate to actually argue with people who were actually involved when you even admit you have no background in it whatsoever baffles me.
He is a Tory We are the plebs Tories can lie to plebs because we are stupid
Works for their core vote anyway. Problem is that sop many of their voters now see through it. Hence the need to keep insisting that the voters who gave Bonzo a big majority are "not true Tories". You have to vote Plaid Cymru like HY to be a true Tory. All the rest as socialist traitors.
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
Are you proposing a handful of landlocked Loyalist enclaves within an otherwise united Ireland?
Hmmm.
Within the UK still
I thought that's what you meant, and it's bonkers.
How do you propose to restock the East Londonderry branch of the NAFI?
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 as did the UVF.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
You aren't a British Tory - just an English one. In Wales you are a Plaid Cymru voting nationalist.
Anyway, the problem with your "Panem Now, Panem Forever" approach is that the "loyalist areas" are shrinking. Was the 6 counties a century ago, now pockets inside those counties. You can't administer odd towns, or parts of towns. Unionism is dying out - literally. If the DUP weren't so pious they should be launching a "Shag for Britain" campaign to out-breed the catholics.
Its their only chance.
In Antrim and Lagan Valley etc Protestants comfortably still outnumber Roman Catholics
And how do you make these pockets of loyalists into a working administrative area?
It doesn't matter if Antrim and Lagan Valley want to stay in the Union if they are outvoted by the people not in Antrim and Lagan Valley.
It's not ALL of A &LV, is it? It's some towns. Other areas will be happy to join the RoI.
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 as did the UVF.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
You aren't a British Tory - just an English one. In Wales you are a Plaid Cymru voting nationalist.
Anyway, the problem with your "Panem Now, Panem Forever" approach is that the "loyalist areas" are shrinking. Was the 6 counties a century ago, now pockets inside those counties. You can't administer odd towns, or parts of towns. Unionism is dying out - literally. If the DUP weren't so pious they should be launching a "Shag for Britain" campaign to out-breed the catholics.
Its their only chance.
In Antrim and Lagan Valley etc Protestants comfortably still outnumber Roman Catholics
And how do you make these pockets of loyalists into a working administrative area?
It doesn't matter if Antrim and Lagan Valley want to stay in the Union if they are outvoted by the people not in Antrim and Lagan Valley.
Yes it does, you can keep them in the UK and send the rest off Northern Ireland to the Republic. Just redraw the boundaries.
Northern Ireland was created 100 years ago after the threat of loyalist violence from the Ulster Volunteer Force if they were forced into the new Irish Free State after the Irish War of Independence and the Sinn Fein win in the rest of Ireland in the 1918 general election.
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 as did the UVF.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
You aren't a British Tory - just an English one. In Wales you are a Plaid Cymru voting nationalist.
Anyway, the problem with your "Panem Now, Panem Forever" approach is that the "loyalist areas" are shrinking. Was the 6 counties a century ago, now pockets inside those counties. You can't administer odd towns, or parts of towns. Unionism is dying out - literally. If the DUP weren't so pious they should be launching a "Shag for Britain" campaign to out-breed the catholics.
Its their only chance.
In Antrim and Lagan Valley etc Protestants comfortably still outnumber Roman Catholics
What happened to the argument that if you win then tough on the losers that you keep spouting on about. If NI votes to join Ireland surely your argument is its tough on the losers. That is what you have said about non Tory voters in the UK or the Scots.
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
No, it's a Labour city. The Labour Party, as has often been said, is a coalition of Marxists (socialists) and Methodists, or tase unionists, working men and women who want a better, decent life for themselves and their children. When the two wings are in some sort of equilibrium, them the Labour Party as a whole does well; when one or the other gets a strong advantage, then it doesn't. The Lib/LibDem trick in Liverpool was to persuade the voters that they were the heirs to the Methodist/TU tradition. Once the Labour remnants of that tradition got back into control of the Labour Party, Bobs your uncle, and Labour were back in control. And yes I know Kennedy was RC, as indeed is David Alton; Decent RC's, like Nonconformists, seek to make life better for themselves and their neighbours. Not for them the old Anglican hymn of the 'the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate/God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate".
So now who is showing anti Anglican prejudice? Half the food banks in England are provided by the Church of England
What on earth has that got to do with anything OKC posted?
Thanks. But I'd doubt it's half. A decent proportion, maybe.
Of course, the C of E was very much the default option in the good old days of the Workhouses, in England anyway: not sure about Wales.
A 'marriage' had to be in a CoE Church in Wales; until Registry Offices became available, other marriages were not valid.
Didn't know that. Rather mean.
The Scots were more sensible, didn't treat marriage as a great holy sacrament like the English and Roman Catholic churches. It was a legal contract, you didn't need a minister, let alone one from the Established kirk rather than one of the free and seceded (generally speaking) kirks. But this causes big problems when someone from down south is in C of E mode when doing archival or fgamily history work and assumes that everyone is recorded on the books of the Kirk of Scotland (before Government registration, of course). I've had to correct the odd massive howler now and then that arises from this.
"Should the UK decide to move ahead with a bill disapplying constitutive elements of the Protocol as announced today by the UK government, the EU will need to respond with all measures at its disposal"
That last part does sound a bit like Vlad's thinly veiled nuke threats.
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 as did the UVF.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
You aren't a British Tory - just an English one. In Wales you are a Plaid Cymru voting nationalist.
Anyway, the problem with your "Panem Now, Panem Forever" approach is that the "loyalist areas" are shrinking. Was the 6 counties a century ago, now pockets inside those counties. You can't administer odd towns, or parts of towns. Unionism is dying out - literally. If the DUP weren't so pious they should be launching a "Shag for Britain" campaign to out-breed the catholics.
Its their only chance.
In Antrim and Lagan Valley etc Protestants comfortably still outnumber Roman Catholics
And how do you make these pockets of loyalists into a working administrative area?
It doesn't matter if Antrim and Lagan Valley want to stay in the Union if they are outvoted by the people not in Antrim and Lagan Valley.
Yes it does, you can keep them in the UK and send the rest off Northern Ireland to the Republic. Just redraw the boundaries.
Northern Ireland was created 100 years ago after the threat of loyalist violence from the Ulster Volunteer Force if they were forced into the new Irish Free State after the Irish War of Independence and the Sinn Fein win in the rest of Ireland in the 1918 general election.
Little has changed on that point a century later
'send the rest off NI to the republic'. I hope you aren't talkiing about ethnic cleansing.
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
What you told me was bollocks. Laughable, pitiful bollocks.
Do you know what a socialist is? They do not vote LibDem for 12 years. Regardless of who the Labour party leader is. Seriously, you do make an utter tit of yourself.
Blair was not a socialist and right of Charles Kennedy, Liverpool rejected Blair not Labour hence it had Labour councils before Blair and once Blair left as PM and Labour leader
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
What you told me was bollocks. Laughable, pitiful bollocks.
Do you know what a socialist is? They do not vote LibDem for 12 years. Regardless of who the Labour party leader is. Seriously, you do make an utter tit of yourself.
Blair was not a socialist and right of Charles Kennedy, Liverpool rejected Blair not Labour hence it had Labour councils before Blair and once Blair left as PM and Labour leader
So when the LDs campaigned against Labour in Liverpool portraying them as being left wing how did that work if you are right and the LDs were more left wing? You do talk nonsense. How you think it appropriate to actually argue with people who were actually involved when you even admit you have no background in it whatsoever baffles me.
It has got nothing to do with background. Liverpool elected a Trotskyite Labour Council for many years, including under Deputy Leader Derek Hatton and elected 100% Labour MPs when Corbyn was Labour leader in 2017 and 2019 as it is a socialist city.
The only reason it voted LD locally was because Blair was too right-wing for Liverpool
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 as did the UVF.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
You aren't a British Tory - just an English one. In Wales you are a Plaid Cymru voting nationalist.
Anyway, the problem with your "Panem Now, Panem Forever" approach is that the "loyalist areas" are shrinking. Was the 6 counties a century ago, now pockets inside those counties. You can't administer odd towns, or parts of towns. Unionism is dying out - literally. If the DUP weren't so pious they should be launching a "Shag for Britain" campaign to out-breed the catholics.
Its their only chance.
In Antrim and Lagan Valley etc Protestants comfortably still outnumber Roman Catholics
And how do you make these pockets of loyalists into a working administrative area?
It doesn't matter if Antrim and Lagan Valley want to stay in the Union if they are outvoted by the people not in Antrim and Lagan Valley.
Yes it does, you can keep them in the UK and send the rest off Northern Ireland to the Republic. Just redraw the boundaries.
Northern Ireland was created 100 years ago after the threat of loyalist violence from the Ulster Volunteer Force if they were forced into the new Irish Free State after the Irish War of Independence and the Sinn Fein win in the rest of Ireland in the 1918 general election.
Little has changed on that point a century later
'send the rest off NI to the republic'. I hope you aren't talkiing about ethnic cleansing.
No more ethnic cleansing than the partition of Ireland in 1922
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
Are you proposing a handful of landlocked Loyalist enclaves within an otherwise united Ireland?
Hmmm.
Within the UK still
The proliferation of Customs Posts will be a sight to behold!
Given the boundary length/area scaling relationship, and the density of population of some of those areas, rather a large part of the population would be workign as HMRC staff to control themselves smuggling.
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 as did the UVF.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
You aren't a British Tory - just an English one. In Wales you are a Plaid Cymru voting nationalist.
Anyway, the problem with your "Panem Now, Panem Forever" approach is that the "loyalist areas" are shrinking. Was the 6 counties a century ago, now pockets inside those counties. You can't administer odd towns, or parts of towns. Unionism is dying out - literally. If the DUP weren't so pious they should be launching a "Shag for Britain" campaign to out-breed the catholics.
Its their only chance.
In Antrim and Lagan Valley etc Protestants comfortably still outnumber Roman Catholics
What happened to the argument that if you win then tough on the losers that you keep spouting on about. If NI votes to join Ireland surely your argument is its tough on the losers. That is what you have said about non Tory voters in the UK or the Scots.
Does that mean we 48% Remainers can set up EU enclaves here in Brexitland? I am quite excited that HY has given the green light to such a project.
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 as did the UVF.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
You aren't a British Tory - just an English one. In Wales you are a Plaid Cymru voting nationalist.
Anyway, the problem with your "Panem Now, Panem Forever" approach is that the "loyalist areas" are shrinking. Was the 6 counties a century ago, now pockets inside those counties. You can't administer odd towns, or parts of towns. Unionism is dying out - literally. If the DUP weren't so pious they should be launching a "Shag for Britain" campaign to out-breed the catholics.
Its their only chance.
In Antrim and Lagan Valley etc Protestants comfortably still outnumber Roman Catholics
And how do you make these pockets of loyalists into a working administrative area?
It doesn't matter if Antrim and Lagan Valley want to stay in the Union if they are outvoted by the people not in Antrim and Lagan Valley.
Yes it does, you can keep them in the UK and send the rest off Northern Ireland to the Republic. Just redraw the boundaries.
Northern Ireland was created 100 years ago after the threat of loyalist violence from the Ulster Volunteer Force if they were forced into the new Irish Free State after the Irish War of Independence and the Sinn Fein win in the rest of Ireland in the 1918 general election.
Little has changed on that point a century later
'send the rest off NI to the republic'. I hope you aren't talkiing about ethnic cleansing.
No more ethnic cleansing than the partition of Ireland in 1922
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
No, it's a Labour city. The Labour Party, as has often been said, is a coalition of Marxists (socialists) and Methodists, or tase unionists, working men and women who want a better, decent life for themselves and their children. When the two wings are in some sort of equilibrium, them the Labour Party as a whole does well; when one or the other gets a strong advantage, then it doesn't. The Lib/LibDem trick in Liverpool was to persuade the voters that they were the heirs to the Methodist/TU tradition. Once the Labour remnants of that tradition got back into control of the Labour Party, Bobs your uncle, and Labour were back in control. And yes I know Kennedy was RC, as indeed is David Alton; Decent RC's, like Nonconformists, seek to make life better for themselves and their neighbours. Not for them the old Anglican hymn of the 'the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate/God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate".
So now who is showing anti Anglican prejudice? Half the food banks in England are provided by the Church of England
What on earth has that got to do with anything OKC posted?
Thanks. But I'd doubt it's half. A decent proportion, maybe.
Of course, the C of E was very much the default option in the good old days of the Workhouses, in England anyway: not sure about Wales.
A 'marriage' had to be in a CoE Church in Wales; until Registry Offices became available, other marriages were not valid.
Didn't know that. Rather mean.
The Scots were more sensible, didn't treat marriage as a great holy sacrament like the English and Roman Catholic churches. It was a legal contract, you didn't need a minister, let alone one from the Established kirk rather than one of the free and seceded (generally speaking) kirks. But this causes big problems when someone from down south is in C of E mode when doing archival or fgamily history work and assumes that everyone is recorded on the books of the Kirk of Scotland (before Government registration, of course). I've had to correct the odd massive howler now and then that arises from this.
Most of my ancestors appear to have been fairly law-abiding, and married in CoE churches, although they weren't always CoE baptisms.
The real problem was in the Courts, where only English was used, and the defendant (poacher or similar) might well be monoglot Welsh.
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 as did the UVF.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
You aren't a British Tory - just an English one. In Wales you are a Plaid Cymru voting nationalist.
Anyway, the problem with your "Panem Now, Panem Forever" approach is that the "loyalist areas" are shrinking. Was the 6 counties a century ago, now pockets inside those counties. You can't administer odd towns, or parts of towns. Unionism is dying out - literally. If the DUP weren't so pious they should be launching a "Shag for Britain" campaign to out-breed the catholics.
Its their only chance.
In Antrim and Lagan Valley etc Protestants comfortably still outnumber Roman Catholics
And how do you make these pockets of loyalists into a working administrative area?
It doesn't matter if Antrim and Lagan Valley want to stay in the Union if they are outvoted by the people not in Antrim and Lagan Valley.
Yes it does, you can keep them in the UK and send the rest off Northern Ireland to the Republic. Just redraw the boundaries.
Northern Ireland was created 100 years ago after the threat of loyalist violence from the Ulster Volunteer Force if they were forced into the new Irish Free State after the Irish War of Independence and the Sinn Fein win in the rest of Ireland in the 1918 general election.
Little has changed on that point a century later
'send the rest off NI to the republic'. I hope you aren't talkiing about ethnic cleansing.
His lot are deporting people to a country so dangerous that 100% of asylum claims from there are accepted. Of course he is talking about ethnic cleansing.
"Just redraw the boundaries" is as preposterous as "Liverpool is and always the most socialist city"
aren't you somewhat misrepresenting it? it's obviously supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek article - as are all the Pass Notes series, and it doesn't seem to actually contain any examples?
You must surely mean a completely different article that I can't find on the guardian website
Himterrupting would be better than manterrupting.
Wow.. Manterrupting doesn't get underlined as misspelt!
I’d like to take credit for just this minute inventing the word “quimgument” which deftly captures the way some women seek to end a losing argument by saying “you’re bullying a woman so I am going to ignore you and also you’re wrong but don’t bother answering you awful man because remember I have ovaries”
My favourite of these portmanteau words is “factsplain” which is, I kid you not, the process of winning an argument - unfairly! - by presenting actual facts which undermine the ludicrously weak argument of the gay/woman/trans/BAME at the other end
My guess is that it was invented as a joke, but I’ve seen it used in seriousness on Twitter. Stop factsplaining me!
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
No, it's a Labour city. The Labour Party, as has often been said, is a coalition of Marxists (socialists) and Methodists, or tase unionists, working men and women who want a better, decent life for themselves and their children. When the two wings are in some sort of equilibrium, them the Labour Party as a whole does well; when one or the other gets a strong advantage, then it doesn't. The Lib/LibDem trick in Liverpool was to persuade the voters that they were the heirs to the Methodist/TU tradition. Once the Labour remnants of that tradition got back into control of the Labour Party, Bobs your uncle, and Labour were back in control. And yes I know Kennedy was RC, as indeed is David Alton; Decent RC's, like Nonconformists, seek to make life better for themselves and their neighbours. Not for them the old Anglican hymn of the 'the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate/God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate".
So now who is showing anti Anglican prejudice? Half the food banks in England are provided by the Church of England
What on earth has that got to do with anything OKC posted?
Thanks. But I'd doubt it's half. A decent proportion, maybe.
Of course, the C of E was very much the default option in the good old days of the Workhouses, in England anyway: not sure about Wales.
A 'marriage' had to be in a CoE Church in Wales; until Registry Offices became available, other marriages were not valid.
Didn't know that. Rather mean.
The Scots were more sensible, didn't treat marriage as a great holy sacrament like the English and Roman Catholic churches. It was a legal contract, you didn't need a minister, let alone one from the Established kirk rather than one of the free and seceded (generally speaking) kirks. But this causes big problems when someone from down south is in C of E mode when doing archival or fgamily history work and assumes that everyone is recorded on the books of the Kirk of Scotland (before Government registration, of course). I've had to correct the odd massive howler now and then that arises from this.
Most of my ancestors appear to have been fairly law-abiding, and married in CoE churches, although they weren't always CoE baptisms.
The real problem was in the Courts, where only English was used, and the defendant (poacher or similar) might well be monoglot Welsh.
Oh dear, and of course the witnesses too - especially the defending ones (less likely to be at the beck and call of the landlords, in contrast to the gamekeepers ...).
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 as did the UVF.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
You aren't a British Tory - just an English one. In Wales you are a Plaid Cymru voting nationalist.
Anyway, the problem with your "Panem Now, Panem Forever" approach is that the "loyalist areas" are shrinking. Was the 6 counties a century ago, now pockets inside those counties. You can't administer odd towns, or parts of towns. Unionism is dying out - literally. If the DUP weren't so pious they should be launching a "Shag for Britain" campaign to out-breed the catholics.
Its their only chance.
In Antrim and Lagan Valley etc Protestants comfortably still outnumber Roman Catholics
What happened to the argument that if you win then tough on the losers that you keep spouting on about. If NI votes to join Ireland surely your argument is its tough on the losers. That is what you have said about non Tory voters in the UK or the Scots.
Does that mean we 48% Remainers can set up EU enclaves here in Brexitland? I am quite excited that HY has given the green light to such a project.
"The will of the people. Create enclaves. Redraw the boundaries"
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 as did the UVF.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
You aren't a British Tory - just an English one. In Wales you are a Plaid Cymru voting nationalist.
Anyway, the problem with your "Panem Now, Panem Forever" approach is that the "loyalist areas" are shrinking. Was the 6 counties a century ago, now pockets inside those counties. You can't administer odd towns, or parts of towns. Unionism is dying out - literally. If the DUP weren't so pious they should be launching a "Shag for Britain" campaign to out-breed the catholics.
Its their only chance.
In Antrim and Lagan Valley etc Protestants comfortably still outnumber Roman Catholics
What happened to the argument that if you win then tough on the losers that you keep spouting on about. If NI votes to join Ireland surely your argument is its tough on the losers. That is what you have said about non Tory voters in the UK or the Scots.
Sinn Fein overwhelmingly won the 1918 general election in Ireland. On that argument Northern Ireland should never have been created.
It was created as the areas in the North which still voted for Protestant Unionists led by the UVF threatened civil war if it was not created and were arming themselves for that.
Violence would again result from the UVF if loyalists were ignored.
I have yet to see terrorist violence from Labour or LD voters if they have to have a Tory government or indeed even from Scottish Nationalists in Glasgow who voted by a majority for independence in 2014 but have been kept in the UK because Scotland overall voted to stay British
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 as did the UVF.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
You aren't a British Tory - just an English one. In Wales you are a Plaid Cymru voting nationalist.
Anyway, the problem with your "Panem Now, Panem Forever" approach is that the "loyalist areas" are shrinking. Was the 6 counties a century ago, now pockets inside those counties. You can't administer odd towns, or parts of towns. Unionism is dying out - literally. If the DUP weren't so pious they should be launching a "Shag for Britain" campaign to out-breed the catholics.
Its their only chance.
In Antrim and Lagan Valley etc Protestants comfortably still outnumber Roman Catholics
What happened to the argument that if you win then tough on the losers that you keep spouting on about. If NI votes to join Ireland surely your argument is its tough on the losers. That is what you have said about non Tory voters in the UK or the Scots.
Does that mean we 48% Remainers can set up EU enclaves here in Brexitland? I am quite excited that HY has given the green light to such a project.
Scotland, London, OxfordBletchleyCambridgeRailwayLand, etc.
aren't you somewhat misrepresenting it? it's obviously supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek article - as are all the Pass Notes series, and it doesn't seem to actually contain any examples?
You must surely mean a completely different article that I can't find on the guardian website
Himterrupting would be better than manterrupting.
Wow.. Manterrupting doesn't get underlined as misspelt!
I’d like to take credit for just this minute inventing the word “quimgument” which deftly captures the way some women seek to end a losing argument by saying “you’re bullying a woman so I am going to ignore you and also you’re wrong but don’t bother answering you awful man because remember I have ovaries”
My favourite of these portmanteau words is “factsplain” which is, I kid you not, the process of winning an argument - unfairly! - by presenting actual facts which undermine the ludicrously weak argument of the gay/woman/trans/BAME at the other end
My guess is that it was invented as a joke, but I’ve seen it used in seriousness on Twitter. Stop factsplaining me!
As so often, Dilbert was there first...
Of course these days there is a scientific study to support every point of view in any given argument.
"Should the UK decide to move ahead with a bill disapplying constitutive elements of the Protocol as announced today by the UK government, the EU will need to respond with all measures at its disposal"
That last part does sound a bit like Vlad's thinly veiled nuke threats.
Except the EU will probably carry their threat out.
I wonder if the Tories have got some intelligence that Sir Keir will be exonerated by Durham police. If so then a trade war with the EU might be a good distraction from the contrast with Boris. Ultimate dead-cat manoeuvre?
I think you are absolutely right, starkers.
When in power it gives you some control over resetting the narrative to suit you, which is what the Tories are doing, choosing precise time and issue to control the narrative. Even hating Boris and wishing Tories ill, you gave to concede what is actually happening and how it likely plays out, so many posters can’t/won’t do this.
There will be some sort of deal? Of course it will end in a deal very similar to the UK governments proposals.
Will UK government get boost soon as the deal agreed? Of course they will, and we will know because Big G and HY in unison will remind us of this fact soon as deal agreed. St Bart Robert will also get a big boost because the government win with a solution they have pushed on PB for last 5 years (allegedly, I havn’t been around a year yet).
meanwhile the Great Patriotic War puts Labour on back foot now the commons is back in action? Yep, that’s that’s the beautiful timing of the Great Patriotic War.
And it obscures what’s going on in partygate, just as you said! Which will Boris red wallers care about more - supporting Boris in fight with EU or moan at him over Partygate?
Did you vote to Brexit?
She's already answered that question today.
I must spend less time reading her posts than you. What was the answer?
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 as did the UVF.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
You aren't a British Tory - just an English one. In Wales you are a Plaid Cymru voting nationalist.
Anyway, the problem with your "Panem Now, Panem Forever" approach is that the "loyalist areas" are shrinking. Was the 6 counties a century ago, now pockets inside those counties. You can't administer odd towns, or parts of towns. Unionism is dying out - literally. If the DUP weren't so pious they should be launching a "Shag for Britain" campaign to out-breed the catholics.
Its their only chance.
In Antrim and Lagan Valley etc Protestants comfortably still outnumber Roman Catholics
What happened to the argument that if you win then tough on the losers that you keep spouting on about. If NI votes to join Ireland surely your argument is its tough on the losers. That is what you have said about non Tory voters in the UK or the Scots.
Does that mean we 48% Remainers can set up EU enclaves here in Brexitland? I am quite excited that HY has given the green light to such a project.
If you had started a terrorist campaign to do so maybe.
However most of the Remain areas of the UK did not even vote for parties like the LDs and SNP committed to reject the Brexit vote in 2019, let alone to stay in the EU and leave the UK
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 as did the UVF.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
You aren't a British Tory - just an English one. In Wales you are a Plaid Cymru voting nationalist.
Anyway, the problem with your "Panem Now, Panem Forever" approach is that the "loyalist areas" are shrinking. Was the 6 counties a century ago, now pockets inside those counties. You can't administer odd towns, or parts of towns. Unionism is dying out - literally. If the DUP weren't so pious they should be launching a "Shag for Britain" campaign to out-breed the catholics.
Its their only chance.
In Antrim and Lagan Valley etc Protestants comfortably still outnumber Roman Catholics
What happened to the argument that if you win then tough on the losers that you keep spouting on about. If NI votes to join Ireland surely your argument is its tough on the losers. That is what you have said about non Tory voters in the UK or the Scots.
Does that mean we 48% Remainers can set up EU enclaves here in Brexitland? I am quite excited that HY has given the green light to such a project.
Scotland, London, OxfordBletchleyCambridgeRailwayLand, etc.
I thought by the look of the Northern Ireland model proposed by HY, it would be at least local authority areas, and quite possibly selected wards.
Just reviewed the thread and @HYUFD with his fantasy world has made me decide that a cup of tea and a biscuit on the patio with my beloved is a better way to spend this pm
aren't you somewhat misrepresenting it? it's obviously supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek article - as are all the Pass Notes series, and it doesn't seem to actually contain any examples?
You must surely mean a completely different article that I can't find on the guardian website
Himterrupting would be better than manterrupting.
Wow.. Manterrupting doesn't get underlined as misspelt!
I’d like to take credit for just this minute inventing the word “quimgument” which deftly captures the way some women seek to end a losing argument by saying “you’re bullying a woman so I am going to ignore you and also you’re wrong but don’t bother answering you awful man because remember I have ovaries”
The other day I 'invented' a word whist talking to Mrs J about a mutual friend: "Coddult". An adult who is still coddled, and perhaps living with, their parents. A portmanteau for a coddled adult.
A couple of years ago I also came up with 'mantage': for a montage featuring a man doing manly things, after seeing an Ant Middleton advert. Sadly I found it was already in the Urban Dictionary.
Today I have invented 'awegeous'. So gorgeous it inspires awe. Sure it already exists.
Just reviewed the thread and @HYUFD with his fantasy world has made me decide that a cup of tea and a biscuit on the patio with my beloved is a better way to spend this pm
Careful now. Your biscuit isn't a Garibaldi is it? They were socialist.
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
What you told me was bollocks. Laughable, pitiful bollocks.
Do you know what a socialist is? They do not vote LibDem for 12 years. Regardless of who the Labour party leader is. Seriously, you do make an utter tit of yourself.
Blair was not a socialist and right of Charles Kennedy, Liverpool rejected Blair not Labour hence it had Labour councils before Blair and once Blair left as PM and Labour leader
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
What you told me was bollocks. Laughable, pitiful bollocks.
Do you know what a socialist is? They do not vote LibDem for 12 years. Regardless of who the Labour party leader is. Seriously, you do make an utter tit of yourself.
Blair was not a socialist and right of Charles Kennedy, Liverpool rejected Blair not Labour hence it had Labour councils before Blair and once Blair left as PM and Labour leader
So when the LDs campaigned against Labour in Liverpool portraying them as being left wing how did that work if you are right and the LDs were more left wing? You do talk nonsense. How you think it appropriate to actually argue with people who were actually involved when you even admit you have no background in it whatsoever baffles me.
It has got nothing to do with background. Liverpool elected a Trotskyite Labour Council for many years, including under Deputy Leader Derek Hatton and elected 100% Labour MPs when Corbyn was Labour leader in 2017 and 2019 as it is a socialist city.
The only reason it voted LD locally was because Blair was too right-wing for Liverpool
62% of Liverpool voted Liberal (33%) or Tory (29%) in 1980. Indeed the two parties regularly polled above 50% combined in the 1980s. Liverpool voted 60% Tory in 1969. Lib Dems drew level with Labour in 1994 after being pretty close for a long while - and that was with John Smith as Labour leader, not Blair.
How does this all fit with your narrative of a fundamentally Trotskyite Liverpool that only departs from them to steer them back to the far left?
I'm afraid you're talking total balls and repeating it ad infinitum just makes you look silly.
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
What you told me was bollocks. Laughable, pitiful bollocks.
Do you know what a socialist is? They do not vote LibDem for 12 years. Regardless of who the Labour party leader is. Seriously, you do make an utter tit of yourself.
Blair was not a socialist and right of Charles Kennedy, Liverpool rejected Blair not Labour hence it had Labour councils before Blair and once Blair left as PM and Labour leader
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
What you told me was bollocks. Laughable, pitiful bollocks.
Do you know what a socialist is? They do not vote LibDem for 12 years. Regardless of who the Labour party leader is. Seriously, you do make an utter tit of yourself.
Blair was not a socialist and right of Charles Kennedy, Liverpool rejected Blair not Labour hence it had Labour councils before Blair and once Blair left as PM and Labour leader
So when the LDs campaigned against Labour in Liverpool portraying them as being left wing how did that work if you are right and the LDs were more left wing? You do talk nonsense. How you think it appropriate to actually argue with people who were actually involved when you even admit you have no background in it whatsoever baffles me.
It has got nothing to do with background. Liverpool elected a Trotskyite Labour Council for many years, including under Deputy Leader Derek Hatton and elected 100% Labour MPs when Corbyn was Labour leader in 2017 and 2019 as it is a socialist city.
The only reason it voted LD locally was because Blair was too right-wing for Liverpool
So how do explain the liberals gaining 43 seats and effective control in the 70s then from Labour. You aren't going to claim the liberals were to the left of Labour then I assume? You do talk nonsense don't you?
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
Are you proposing a handful of landlocked Loyalist enclaves within an otherwise united Ireland?
Hmmm.
Within the UK still
Well that was how Northern Ireland was created in the first place - 6 of the 9 counties in Ulster - so that the Protestants were in a majority.
Just reviewed the thread and @HYUFD with his fantasy world has made me decide that a cup of tea and a biscuit on the patio with my beloved is a better way to spend this pm
Careful now. Your biscuit isn't a Garibaldi is it? They were socialist.
I wonder if the Tories have got some intelligence that Sir Keir will be exonerated by Durham police. If so then a trade war with the EU might be a good distraction from the contrast with Boris. Ultimate dead-cat manoeuvre?
I think you are absolutely right, starkers.
When in power it gives you some control over resetting the narrative to suit you, which is what the Tories are doing, choosing precise time and issue to control the narrative. Even hating Boris and wishing Tories ill, you gave to concede what is actually happening and how it likely plays out, so many posters can’t/won’t do this.
There will be some sort of deal? Of course it will end in a deal very similar to the UK governments proposals.
Will UK government get boost soon as the deal agreed? Of course they will, and we will know because Big G and HY in unison will remind us of this fact soon as deal agreed. St Bart Robert will also get a big boost because the government win with a solution they have pushed on PB for last 5 years (allegedly, I havn’t been around a year yet).
meanwhile the Great Patriotic War puts Labour on back foot now the commons is back in action? Yep, that’s that’s the beautiful timing of the Great Patriotic War.
And it obscures what’s going on in partygate, just as you said! Which will Boris red wallers care about more - supporting Boris in fight with EU or moan at him over Partygate?
Did you vote to Brexit?
She's already answered that question today.
I must spend less time reading her posts than you. What was the answer?
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 as did the UVF.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
You aren't a British Tory - just an English one. In Wales you are a Plaid Cymru voting nationalist.
Anyway, the problem with your "Panem Now, Panem Forever" approach is that the "loyalist areas" are shrinking. Was the 6 counties a century ago, now pockets inside those counties. You can't administer odd towns, or parts of towns. Unionism is dying out - literally. If the DUP weren't so pious they should be launching a "Shag for Britain" campaign to out-breed the catholics.
Its their only chance.
In Antrim and Lagan Valley etc Protestants comfortably still outnumber Roman Catholics
What happened to the argument that if you win then tough on the losers that you keep spouting on about. If NI votes to join Ireland surely your argument is its tough on the losers. That is what you have said about non Tory voters in the UK or the Scots.
Does that mean we 48% Remainers can set up EU enclaves here in Brexitland? I am quite excited that HY has given the green light to such a project.
Scotland, London, OxfordBletchleyCambridgeRailwayLand, etc.
Why do you think Gove flushed the Oxbridge Arc plan down the toilet?
Just reviewed the thread and @HYUFD with his fantasy world has made me decide that a cup of tea and a biscuit on the patio with my beloved is a better way to spend this pm
Careful now. Your biscuit isn't a Garibaldi is it? They were socialist.
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 as did the UVF.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
You aren't a British Tory - just an English one. In Wales you are a Plaid Cymru voting nationalist.
Anyway, the problem with your "Panem Now, Panem Forever" approach is that the "loyalist areas" are shrinking. Was the 6 counties a century ago, now pockets inside those counties. You can't administer odd towns, or parts of towns. Unionism is dying out - literally. If the DUP weren't so pious they should be launching a "Shag for Britain" campaign to out-breed the catholics.
Its their only chance.
In Antrim and Lagan Valley etc Protestants comfortably still outnumber Roman Catholics
What happened to the argument that if you win then tough on the losers that you keep spouting on about. If NI votes to join Ireland surely your argument is its tough on the losers. That is what you have said about non Tory voters in the UK or the Scots.
Does that mean we 48% Remainers can set up EU enclaves here in Brexitland? I am quite excited that HY has given the green light to such a project.
If you had started a terrorist campaign to do so maybe.
However most of the Remain areas of the UK did not even vote for parties like the LDs and SNP committed to reject the Brexit vote in 2019, let alone to stay in the EU and leave the UK
Now there's a thrown down gauntlet to be picked up.
aren't you somewhat misrepresenting it? it's obviously supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek article - as are all the Pass Notes series, and it doesn't seem to actually contain any examples?
You must surely mean a completely different article that I can't find on the guardian website
Himterrupting would be better than manterrupting.
Wow.. Manterrupting doesn't get underlined as misspelt!
I’d like to take credit for just this minute inventing the word “quimgument” which deftly captures the way some women seek to end a losing argument by saying “you’re bullying a woman so I am going to ignore you and also you’re wrong but don’t bother answering you awful man because remember I have ovaries”
The other day I 'invented' a word whist talking to Mrs J about a mutual friend: "Coddult". An adult who is still coddled, and perhaps living with, their parents. A portmanteau for a coddled adult.
A couple of years ago I also came up with 'mantage': for a montage featuring a man doing manly things, after seeing an Ant Middleton advert. Sadly I found it was already in the Urban Dictionary.
Today I have invented 'awegeous'. So gorgeous it inspires awe. Sure it already exists.
Just reviewed the thread and @HYUFD with his fantasy world has made me decide that a cup of tea and a biscuit on the patio with my beloved is a better way to spend this pm
Careful now. Your biscuit isn't a Garibaldi is it? They were socialist.
Just reviewed the thread and @HYUFD with his fantasy world has made me decide that a cup of tea and a biscuit on the patio with my beloved is a better way to spend this pm
Careful now. Your biscuit isn't a Garibaldi is it? They were socialist.
Despite the endless commentary on here, I strongly suspect that the typical mainland voter is disengaged from the battle over the NI protocol, and it won't swing more than a handful of votes whatever happens.
Unless serious violence breaks out in NI. Then there would be a concerted attempt by the government to blame the EU. However, I'm not convinced that would work. People may be more inclined to blame the government whose doorstep the violence erupts on.
Yes, agreed. Northern Ireland is a distant country of which we know little, I'm afraid. Arguments over its future will be seen by Leavers as proof the untrustworthiness of the EU and by Remainers as proof of the awfulness of Boris, but if the province were to secede and join the ROI or just quietly go away the vast majority on the mainland would neither notice nor care.
The Scots would notice, for sure.
I wonder in the event of a united Ireland if the loyalists would become more virulently enthusiastic about displaying their ‘kultur’?
Horrid thought, they may pop over even more frequently to Scotland for such displays. Worse, they may just cut their losses and move here. I think Arlene has said as much.
No, there won't be a united Ireland
As you repeatedly tell us that the monarchy will last another 1000 years then I will use the same argument back at you.
Of course there will be a united Ireland. One day.
There won't, you cannot force loyalist Protestant areas of Northern Ireland like Antrim and Lagan Valley and East Londonderry into the Republic of Ireland against their will without loyalist paramilitary terrorism in Ireland and a return to the Troubles.
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
You're not altogether 'up' on NI are you?
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
So what, the loyalist Protestant areas of Antrim, East Londonderry and Lagan Valley would still have Protestant and Unionist majorities even if the rest of Northern Ireland didn't in 100 years.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The 'loyalists' agreed to letting any possible future reunification to be agreed democratically.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
No they didn't. The UUP did when they were largest Unionist party and backed the GFA. The DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 as did the UVF.
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
You aren't a British Tory - just an English one. In Wales you are a Plaid Cymru voting nationalist.
Anyway, the problem with your "Panem Now, Panem Forever" approach is that the "loyalist areas" are shrinking. Was the 6 counties a century ago, now pockets inside those counties. You can't administer odd towns, or parts of towns. Unionism is dying out - literally. If the DUP weren't so pious they should be launching a "Shag for Britain" campaign to out-breed the catholics.
Its their only chance.
In Antrim and Lagan Valley etc Protestants comfortably still outnumber Roman Catholics
And how do you make these pockets of loyalists into a working administrative area?
It doesn't matter if Antrim and Lagan Valley want to stay in the Union if they are outvoted by the people not in Antrim and Lagan Valley.
Yes it does, you can keep them in the UK and send the rest off Northern Ireland to the Republic. Just redraw the boundaries.
Northern Ireland was created 100 years ago after the threat of loyalist violence from the Ulster Volunteer Force if they were forced into the new Irish Free State after the Irish War of Independence and the Sinn Fein win in the rest of Ireland in the 1918 general election.
Little has changed on that point a century later
'send the rest off NI to the republic'. I hope you aren't talkiing about ethnic cleansing.
Of course the GFA ceded the future of NI to the people of Ireland. It became part of the constitution of two countries - the UK and the Republic of Ireland. Amongst other things it led to the revocation of the government of Ireland act. The agreement reached was that Northern Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, and would remain so until a majority of the people both of Northern Ireland and of the Republic of Ireland wished otherwise. Should that happen, then the British and Irish governments are under "a binding obligation" to implement that choice. So no option to declare Ballymena independent- not just by internal law but by international treaty which was guaranteed by the US. The GFA remains a rare consensus point in US politics. No winding the clock back on that one.
aren't you somewhat misrepresenting it? it's obviously supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek article - as are all the Pass Notes series, and it doesn't seem to actually contain any examples?
You must surely mean a completely different article that I can't find on the guardian website
Himterrupting would be better than manterrupting.
Wow.. Manterrupting doesn't get underlined as misspelt!
I’d like to take credit for just this minute inventing the word “quimgument” which deftly captures the way some women seek to end a losing argument by saying “you’re bullying a woman so I am going to ignore you and also you’re wrong but don’t bother answering you awful man because remember I have ovaries”
My favourite of these portmanteau words is “factsplain” which is, I kid you not, the process of winning an argument - unfairly! - by presenting actual facts which undermine the ludicrously weak argument of the gay/woman/trans/BAME at the other end
My guess is that it was invented as a joke, but I’ve seen it used in seriousness on Twitter. Stop factsplaining me!
As so often, Dilbert was there first...
Of course these days there is a scientific study to support every point of view in any given argument.
I think you mean 'scientific' study
Not to worry though, the systematic review sorts that out.
And when there are lots of conflicting systematic reviews the umbrella review sorts that out.
I'm awaiting with interest the solution to lots of conflicting umbrella reviews. Maybe an awning review...
Can we place an administrative border round HY's house? Would make life a lot easier for the rest of us.
"Just redraw the boundaries"
On his logic, we could take it seriously only if he started a terrorist campaign. Or am I misynderstanding it?
He is waging a terrorist war against fact. And logic. And rational argument.
BUILD THE WALL
Northern Ireland was only created in the first place as Carson had gathered 100,000 armed Protestant volunteers threatening civil war in Ireland if it wasn't.
Just reviewed the thread and @HYUFD with his fantasy world has made me decide that a cup of tea and a biscuit on the patio with my beloved is a better way to spend this pm
Careful now. Your biscuit isn't a Garibaldi is it? They were socialist.
And, still worse, nationalist. We don't want him upsetting our friend inadvertently.
No, nationalist is allowable. Remember the PC vote!
Sorry, how could I forget? BTW, if it is not too intrusive, which bit of Wales did your forebears come from, just out of interest?
My paternal ancestors were mostly from Carmarthenshire, although one married a girl from Mid-Wales. Agriculture, then the mines, then, many of them to England for work.
Which is precisely why we need to use every bit of 'the rules' that suits our interests in a maximalist way to force them to compromise.
That means using legislation in the Commons, Article 16 or any other tools at our disposal to give them no choice but to co-operate.
Because the notion of "compromise" or "trust" otherwise is for the fairies or the naive.
It was trumpeted by the UK Govt as being a fantastic deal. My concern is not with pragmatism in amending a deal but with the sheer idiocy of agreeing one, each element of which (checks on intra-UK ham sandwiches, for example) small children in Hartlepool could have explained to you, and then less than 18 months later saying that precisely those parts of the deal which were agreed are all of a sudden intolerable.
It is the sheer imbecility of Boris and his govt who so transparently agreed something on the spur of the moment, and either did not understand or did but were dishonest about the effects of it and now we are where we are.
You applaud them reneging on a deal they agreed months ago; I think it a sign of incompetence and/or disingenuousness.
Utter bullshit, bollocks and codswallop.
A deal was needed to get Brexit done and get us out of the Article 50 quagmire, that's been achieved. Now its time for the deal to be renegotiated. That was the plan all along. It was always said that the Irish issue could be revisited once we had a trade deal, so to revisit it now is the system working as designed its not a failure.
PA GOP primary looks to be competitive, have backed Kathy Barnette - Mehmet Oz 1-2, she is ~ 9-4.
It will be a major test of Trump's awesome powers as Oz is his man. "He's been on tv for 18 years - that tells you all you need to know about his popularity" is the rough Trump quote.
I think Barnette looks a bit of value there. I might take a nibble, as its a long time to the 23rd June and our own by-elections.
Just reviewed the thread and @HYUFD with his fantasy world has made me decide that a cup of tea and a biscuit on the patio with my beloved is a better way to spend this pm
Careful now. Your biscuit isn't a Garibaldi is it? They were socialist.
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
What you told me was bollocks. Laughable, pitiful bollocks.
Do you know what a socialist is? They do not vote LibDem for 12 years. Regardless of who the Labour party leader is. Seriously, you do make an utter tit of yourself.
Blair was not a socialist and right of Charles Kennedy, Liverpool rejected Blair not Labour hence it had Labour councils before Blair and once Blair left as PM and Labour leader
Labour-Tory deal in Stirling Council. Not a formal alliance, but not exactly the impression Mr Sarwar gave before the election of no coalitions with other parties.
However, in the wider scope of things suich deals are unremarkable - except, as noted above, in Mr Sarwar's overt opposotion.
Labour and the Tories are both Unionist parties, it makes sense they would work together if they can keep out the Nationalist SNP
You keep telling us Labour is a socialist party, though ...
It was under Corbyn under Starmer social democrat like the SNP but Unionist like the Tories but unlike the SNP
You said the other day Liverpool is socialist cos it has Labour MPs right now. You can't change your mind just like that *snaps fingers* and expect to ibe treated as a serious and rigorous discutant.
Yes Liverpool is socialist as every MP it elected in 2019 was Labour when Labour was a socialist party under Corbyn.
Corbyn has now been replaced as Labour leader by the social democrat Labour leader Starmer but that does not change the fact Liverpool is a socialist city at all as it voted for Corbyn unlike the UK
It had a LibDem council for the 12 years to 2010. You don't elect LibDems year after year in preference over Liverpool's trot-leaning brand of Labourite if you are socialists.
I know you keep posting "Liverpool is the most socialist city". But as it is patently not true you just make yourself look even more buffoonish every time. I know that is a badge of honour in Bonzo the Clown's Tory Party but even so, have some dignity man.
And as I told you on Sunday the only reason it had a LD council in the New Labour years was because Charles Kennedy positioned the LDs to the left of New Labour. It did not go Tory in the Blair years, it went to the LDs who were then to the left of Labour.
Throughout most of the 1980s and early 1990s Liverpool elected Trotskyite Labour councils, even with Derek Hatton as Deputy Leader who was too leftwing even for Kinnock as it is a socialist city. The fact it has elected Labour controlled councils again ever since Blair left as Labour leader and PM only confirms that.
What you told me was bollocks. Laughable, pitiful bollocks.
Do you know what a socialist is? They do not vote LibDem for 12 years. Regardless of who the Labour party leader is. Seriously, you do make an utter tit of yourself.
Blair was not a socialist and right of Charles Kennedy, Liverpool rejected Blair not Labour hence it had Labour councils before Blair and once Blair left as PM and Labour leader
So when the LDs campaigned against Labour in Liverpool portraying them as being left wing how did that work if you are right and the LDs were more left wing? You do talk nonsense. How you think it appropriate to actually argue with people who were actually involved when you even admit you have no background in it whatsoever baffles me.
It has got nothing to do with background. Liverpool elected a Trotskyite Labour Council for many years, including under Deputy Leader Derek Hatton and elected 100% Labour MPs when Corbyn was Labour leader in 2017 and 2019 as it is a socialist city.
The only reason it voted LD locally was because Blair was too right-wing for Liverpool
62% of Liverpool voted Liberal (33%) or Tory (29%) in 1980. Indeed the two parties regularly polled above 50% combined in the 1980s. Liverpool voted 60% Tory in 1969. Lib Dems drew level with Labour in 1994 after being pretty close for a long while - and that was with John Smith as Labour leader, not Blair.
How does this all fit with your narrative of a fundamentally Trotskyite Liverpool that only departs from them to steer them back to the far left?
I'm afraid you're talking total balls and repeating it ad infinitum just makes you look silly.
The Tories often elected MPs in Liverpool in much of the pre 1980s period last century. Liverpool was at one stage quite a wealthy trading port.
I never said Liverpool was always a socialist city, however it certainly is a socialist city now and has been since the mid 1980s
Can we place an administrative border round HY's house? Would make life a lot easier for the rest of us.
"Just redraw the boundaries"
On his logic, we could take it seriously only if he started a terrorist campaign. Or am I misynderstanding it?
He is waging a terrorist war against fact. And logic. And rational argument.
BUILD THE WALL
Northern Ireland was only created in the first place as Carson had gathered 100,000 armed Protestant volunteers threatening civil war in Ireland if it wasn't.
Feelings ran very high. I used to know a man who claimed that his father had signed the Ulster Covenant in his own blood.
Comments
Most of the Welsh LibDem websites are only in English
https://www.brlibdems.org.uk
It would be no different to the IRA terrorist violence in Northern Ireland and GB when Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland faced direct rule from London
I'm sorry Leon that you dislike me but I'm afraid I see right through you.
A tip. Drop the bragging. Drop the deliberate stoking of tandential arguments. Be a little more circumspect and respectful: less reactionary, more conciliatory and definitely less desperately boastful.
x
The Lib/LibDem trick in Liverpool was to persuade the voters that they were the heirs to the Methodist/TU tradition. Once the Labour remnants of that tradition got back into control of the Labour Party, Bobs your uncle, and Labour were back in control.
And yes I know Kennedy was RC, as indeed is David Alton; Decent RC's, like Nonconformists, seek to make life better for themselves and their neighbours.
Not for them the old Anglican hymn of the 'the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate/God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate".
Do you know what a socialist is? They do not vote LibDem for 12 years. Regardless of who the Labour party leader is. Seriously, you do make an utter tit of yourself.
If you left the province alone for 100 years, let alone 1000, the RC's will have an overwhelming majority.
Liverpool consistently elected far left Labour Councils in the 1980s, including under the deputy leadership of the Trotskyite Hatton and continues to elect Labour Councils now as it is a socialist city.
The only reason it briefly went LD in the Blair years was as I said because Charles Kennedy positioned them to the left of New Labour
@janemerrick23
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22m
Miliband: “Crypto has crashed and so has the chancellor - how similar they are … came out of nowhere, the value surged, looked like the future, but it’s all turned out to be one giant Ponzi scheme” ouch
https://twitter.com/janemerrick23/status/1526559307164274688
Laughable.
Pitiful.
Bollocks.
The loyalist paramilitaries, led by the UVF, would then pursue a terrorist campaign across Ireland if forced into the Republic against their will
The headline in the morning if the Tories lose won't be, "Swings broadly in line with recent precedent in by-elections". It will be "Double whammy: Boris hammered in Red Wall and Clotted Cream Belt." And, similarly, the casual observer doesn't really price these things in that much - a by-election loss on a big swing doesn't lose that much impact simply on the basis there was also one in December.
If they went back on that, they'd find themselves absolutely friendless. England would be glad to see the back of Northern Ireland if that's what they democratically choose and nobody would be funnelling weaponry or money to any murderous terrorists who'd deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they chose to do something so utterly futile.
As for Wakefield, I'm far from sure Labour will win it. It could spell trouble for Starmer not Johnson. SKS acted clumsily over the selection although in Simon Lightwood I think they have probably now recovered the situation.
Of the two by-elections it's Wakefield which most worries me (from an anti-tory pov).
The UVF are already threatening terrorist attacks on Irish leaders in the Republic until the Sea border is removed let alone if forced into a united Ireland against their will.
https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/uvf-is-actively-planning-to-target-more-irish-politicians-41492302.html
As a British Tory I would certainly support keeping loyalist areas of Northern Ireland in the UK if they wish to remain so, even if I would not support a terrorist campaign
What is it with this modern thing with logging into websites where you have to put your email address in on one page and then the password on a separate page, instead of just putting both in together? Is it really that much more secure that justifies the extra irritation?
That means using legislation in the Commons, Article 16 or any other tools at our disposal to give them no choice but to co-operate.
Because the notion of "compromise" or "trust" otherwise is for the fairies or the naive.
Or will they be ostracised criminal scum if anyone was stupid enough to try that without a friend in the world who would be rounded up and imprisoned?
https://twitter.com/davenewworld_2/status/1526377623533850625?t=z7xj42ElBRA6Jjq76GRVrw&s=19
Hmmm.
Anyway, the problem with your "Panem Now, Panem Forever" approach is that the "loyalist areas" are shrinking. Was the 6 counties a century ago, now pockets inside those counties. You can't administer odd towns, or parts of towns. Unionism is dying out - literally. If the DUP weren't so pious they should be launching a "Shag for Britain" campaign to out-breed the catholics.
Its their only chance.
It is the sheer imbecility of Boris and his govt who so transparently agreed something on the spur of the moment, and either did not understand or did but were dishonest about the effects of it and now we are where we are.
You applaud them reneging on a deal they agreed months ago; I think it a sign of incompetence and/or disingenuousness.
It doesn't matter if Antrim and Lagan Valley want to stay in the Union if they are outvoted by the people not in Antrim and Lagan Valley.
It's certainly true that the far left have organised and secured sway in periods. But your position on both the Council and the City as a whole over the sweep of recent history, and dismissal of it as some kind of seething mass of Trots, is just ignorant.
We are the plebs
Tories can lie to plebs because we are stupid
Works for their core vote anyway. Problem is that sop many of their voters now see through it. Hence the need to keep insisting that the voters who gave Bonzo a big majority are "not true Tories". You have to vote Plaid Cymru like HY to be a true Tory. All the rest as socialist traitors.
How do you propose to restock the East Londonderry branch of the NAFI?
Northern Ireland was created 100 years ago after the threat of loyalist violence from the Ulster Volunteer Force if they were forced into the new Irish Free State after the Irish War of Independence and the Sinn Fein win in the rest of Ireland in the 1918 general election.
Little has changed on that point a century later
The Scots were more sensible, didn't treat marriage as a great holy sacrament like the English and Roman Catholic churches. It was a legal contract, you didn't need a minister, let alone one from the Established kirk rather than one of the free and seceded (generally speaking) kirks. But this causes big problems when someone from down south is in C of E mode when doing archival or fgamily history work and assumes that everyone is recorded on the books of the Kirk of Scotland (before Government registration, of course). I've had to correct the odd massive howler now and then that arises from this.
That last part does sound a bit like Vlad's thinly veiled nuke threats.
The only reason it voted LD locally was because Blair was too right-wing for Liverpool
The real problem was in the Courts, where only English was used, and the defendant (poacher or similar) might well be monoglot Welsh.
"Just redraw the boundaries" is as preposterous as "Liverpool is and always the most socialist city"
vs
"No Scottish referendum even if you vote for one"
It was created as the areas in the North which still voted for Protestant Unionists led by the UVF threatened civil war if it was not created and were arming themselves for that.
Violence would again result from the UVF if loyalists were ignored.
I have yet to see terrorist violence from Labour or LD voters if they have to have a Tory government or indeed even from Scottish Nationalists in Glasgow who voted by a majority for independence in 2014 but have been kept in the UK because Scotland overall voted to stay British
"Just redraw the boundaries"
However most of the Remain areas of the UK did not even vote for parties like the LDs and SNP committed to reject the Brexit vote in 2019, let alone to stay in the EU and leave the UK
Just reviewed the thread and @HYUFD with his fantasy world has made me decide that a cup of tea and a biscuit on the patio with my beloved is a better way to spend this pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHMuSA63eoA
How does this all fit with your narrative of a fundamentally Trotskyite Liverpool that only departs from them to steer them back to the far left?
I'm afraid you're talking total balls and repeating it ad infinitum just makes you look silly.
BUILD THE WALL
Not to worry though, the systematic review sorts that out.
And when there are lots of conflicting systematic reviews the umbrella review sorts that out.
I'm awaiting with interest the solution to lots of conflicting umbrella reviews. Maybe an awning review...
A deal was needed to get Brexit done and get us out of the Article 50 quagmire, that's been achieved. Now its time for the deal to be renegotiated. That was the plan all along. It was always said that the Irish issue could be revisited once we had a trade deal, so to revisit it now is the system working as designed its not a failure.
I think Barnette looks a bit of value there. I might take a nibble, as its a long time to the 23rd June and our own by-elections.
I never said Liverpool was always a socialist city, however it certainly is a socialist city now and has been since the mid 1980s
I used to know a man who claimed that his father had signed the Ulster Covenant in his own blood.