Re a referendum. It will get harder to say no and harder to 'win' the longer it goes on and given the electoral situation in Scotland the more GEs and Holyroods that pass by with thumping SNP majorities the more convincing and irrefutable the argument. Authorise it, make the case for Union and let the Scots decide. If they vote to leave, they vote to leave. If they vote to stay it reaffirms the bond that exists. As long as the SNP are completely dominant, this issue needs to be addressed, not hidden from. There are worse things in the world than a short term row, an amicable divorce (or a renewal of vows) and an ongoing lifelong friendship. If unionism doesnt want to make the case, what does unionism think will happen eventually?
BTW why is Drakeford proposing to stop those under 16 buying tea and coffee?
Is this some sort of joke?
Because hes a branch manager who has just got back from a blue sky thinking course and has decided to adopt the joke example from the first seminar. Or he has a bet on for craziest shit with the other uk leaders.
Because childhood obesity apparently.
Lot of fat arsed kids round here scoring tea after dark. Quite frightening. Some of them do a whole flask of typhoo as pre drinks before they hit the cafes.
Sadly many are also added digestive biscuits to the toxic mix. 'Dunking' is the unfortunate term for the practise. By the time adulthood hits, they're on 3 cups of day with anything from jaffa cakes to a kitkat. Then they're the state's problem.
I'm sure this point will have been answered somewhere as I work through the thread, but on this Sindy business what does the next GE being a 'de facto referendum' mean?
I'm technically if unhappily on the side of those saying a referendum should be held given the electoral results, but I genuinely don't get what the above means give nit is in the event the SC rules Holyrood does not have the power to hold a referendum.
AIUI, to treat it as an explicitly and formally designated mandate to negotiate indepndence in the event of a victory, on the ground that all other legal routes to the present mandate to have a referendum as such have been blocked.
After all, even Mrs T regarded the result of a majority of MPs within Scotland as being sufficient to trigger independence.
Yep. If they stand at the GE with just one policy (independence) and win most seats in Scotland they have a mandate to implement that policy. I think Sturgeon’s plan is pretty good, inc the step1 of referral to the courts.
They really don’t have a mandate to “implement independence” if they win a majority of seats under FPTP
The Nats got nearly alll the seats in 2019 yet they got 45% of the popular vote. Less than half
That is not a “mandate” for anything, certainly not tearing Scotland out of the UK
For that they need a referendum, and they need to win it
We have the electoral system that we have. If they win most seats with ONE policy it's a mandate for that policy. A strong one. It won't lead to UDI but it'll crank up the pressure. A Referendum will then be framed as a compromise solution. That's the plan, I reckon, and it's pretty solid imo.
Re a referendum. It will get harder to say no and harder to 'win' the longer it goes on and given the electoral situation in Scotland the more GEs and Holyroods that pass by with thumping SNP majorities the more convincing and irrefutable the argument. Authorise it, make the case for Union and let the Scots decide. If they vote to leave, they vote to leave. If they vote to stay it reaffirms the bond that exists. As long as the SNP are completely dominant, this issue needs to be addressed, not hidden from. There are worse things in the world than a short term row, an amicable divorce (or a renewal of vows) and an ongoing lifelong friendship. If unionism doesnt want to make the case, what does unionism think will happen eventually?
The government certainly needs to get proactive for the Union. It does not need to yield every time the SNP demands a referendum
Rather enjoying the England v South Africa women's cricket Test which I've got on in the background. The skill of women's cricket is every bit as good as the mens game.
Rather like the mens game too, England collapsed with 5 wickets rapidly out, only to have a big stand for the sixth wicket with both batters now centurions - one of them a centurion on her debut.
Remarkably the lady who has taken a century on her debut also took a wicket yesterday. Only the second person ever to take a wicket and bat a century for England on their debut - the only other one to do it was W G Grace in 1880.
I am sorry, this is just not true. The standard of women's cricket is very poor.
Put it this way, if your average club player tried to play a top women's tennis player or tried to compete against any international women's elite athletics competitor they would be absolutely rinsed. I could train every day of my life and never get close to elite women athletes.
Saturday reasonable level of amateur club cricket is a better standard than women's international cricket, let alone the semi-pro "premier" leagues. I played in one of these semi-pro leagues and wasn't really quick enough to be a big threat as a bowler, even though I bowled mid 70s mph (which is faster than any woman international bowler). Even at that level, I faced 80+ every week, the spinners were as fast as the women's seam bowlers.
The problem for talented women there isn't any real money in women's cricket, if you are strong, powerful, athletic, coordinated, there is good money to be made in tennis, golf, athletics. Football is still not great, but cricket is not really a sensible career option at all.
Feels like a few women at least should be able to get up to the standard of a good medium pacer or spinner, but sounds like that is not yet the case.
When I was coming up I faced an England ladies seam bowler and it was relevantly very slow and very easy. In comparison, I faced the likes of Mushtaq Ahmed and Imran Tahir who despite being spin bowlers, sent it down quicker and it these things were like hand grenades coming down....then I also faced a number of international quicks, likes of Alex Tudor, and it was shit you pants stuff (and he wasn't even 95 mph Archer / Wood / Brett Lee pace).
The batters in women cricket also don't have the sort of hitting ability we are now seeing where the men commonly launch it just incredible distances.
My guess would be if you are a lady who clearly very powerful upper body, the likes of discus, shot, javelin are all calling. As is tennis, as being able to whip down a 100+ mph serve is very well paid.
Men today are hitting incredible distances, but it was not traditionally done that way, so I'd assume that the physicality of batting might be easier to achieve than bowling? Though it would rely on being a more traditional, timing and keeping it on the deck kind of batter.
My understanding listening to Livingstone and Bairstow is yes strength, but also they changed their technique. All the traditional lessons of how to hit it are basically "wrong". There was a great video of Flintoff (who was thought of a meaty hitter) and Buttler doing range hitting and Flintoff looked like some weak OAP in comparison. Buttler basically explained to him his technique is all wrong. The straight bat, the solid hands, its much more like baseball, getting hips and wrists through the ball.
Don’t ignore the bats though. Today’s bats are heavier and better than those that say Botham used. Yes there is also technique, but physics is physics. Timing, bat speed and weight are all key. And I’ve seen players 30 and 40 years ago hit shots as big as the current ones. Frankly, it’s more the licence to play the shots that’s changed.
BTW why is Drakeford proposing to stop those under 16 buying tea and coffee?
Is this some sort of joke?
Because hes a branch manager who has just got back from a blue sky thinking course and has decided to adopt the joke example from the first seminar. Or he has a bet on for craziest shit with the other uk leaders.
Because childhood obesity apparently.
Lot of fat arsed kids round here scoring tea after dark. Quite frightening. Some of them do a whole flask of typhoo as pre drinks before they hit the cafes.
Sadly many are also added digestive biscuits to the toxic mix. 'Dunking' is the unfortunate term for the practise. By the time adulthood hits, they're on 3 cups of day with anything from jaffa cakes to a kitkat. Then they're the state's problem.
There could be a whole new meaning to term tea bagging in Wales.....
All referendums are non binding. The Brexit referendum was non binding.
The AV referendum was binding.
Does that mean we have FPTP forever more?
What TSE means is that there was, in fact, legislation specifically enacting AV (the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011). The legislation required ("must" rather than "may") the Government to make an order bringing the relevant provisions into force if the referendum result was "Yes" and repealing them if it was "No".
I believe (although haven't checked) that the Licensing Act 1961 was similar. This was specific to Wales and repealed about 20 years ago, but it provided for a referendum every seven years in each county or borough in Wales (if 500 voters requested it) with the question being whether alcohol could be sold on a Sunday, the result being binding - it required the bringing into or out of force of very specific, pre-prepared legislative provisions.
There is a lot to be said for binding referendums of this type - the legislation is all in place and the question is simply "do we bring it into force or repeal it?" Regardless of your view on the result of the Brexit referendum (and the same is true for Scotland had they voted for independence) it's undeniable that there was a lack of clarity about what a Leave vote meant - it started a process rather than ending it. That was the source of huge problems.
That was a feature not a bugdeliberately designed that way by Cameron so that he could play the Project Fear card of "you don't know what Brexit actually means". I fear that a UK government that allows a second Scottish referendum would do the same, even though it's clearly not fair on the voters.
I don't think that's right.
He literally couldn't do the Brexit referendum in the same way as the AV one as the terms of departure needed to be negotiated with the EU, and the EU simply wasn't going to do that simply in order to facilitate a referendum that Cameron wanted to hold purely in order to appease a wing of his party. With AV, it was pretty easy - it's not even that complex a bit of legislation, and we have AV in several types of election, so they cut and paste that and added a simple go/don't go provision.
But the Brexit referendum could never just "trigger" a predefined thing. At most, it could have required Article 50 to be triggered, either immediately or within a defined period. But that doesn't answer the question of what Brexit would look like - and, indeed, when Article 50 was triggered there was no clarity over the eventual outcome.
One thing that could have been there was a double referendum (if you vote to Leave, we'll negotiate it and have a confirmatory referendum when a deal is in place). Of course that's what some Remainers later argued for. But Cameron had excluded it for a reason - he'd both have been criticised for it by the right, and it would have made a Brexit vote more likely. Ultimately, he lost his referendum and his job anyway, and the fact a confirmatory referendum had not been part of it from the start meant that arguing for one later understandably felt to a lot of people like purely a way to reverse what a majority had voted for.
Re a referendum. It will get harder to say no and harder to 'win' the longer it goes on and given the electoral situation in Scotland the more GEs and Holyroods that pass by with thumping SNP majorities the more convincing and irrefutable the argument. Authorise it, make the case for Union and let the Scots decide. If they vote to leave, they vote to leave. If they vote to stay it reaffirms the bond that exists. As long as the SNP are completely dominant, this issue needs to be addressed, not hidden from. There are worse things in the world than a short term row, an amicable divorce (or a renewal of vows) and an ongoing lifelong friendship. If unionism doesnt want to make the case, what does unionism think will happen eventually?
The government certainly needs to get proactive for the Union. It does not need to yield every time the SNP demands a referendum
True, but it hasn't. It has been 8 years after all.
But the question is not so much for me if they will not yield - they are definitely not going to, for reasons of practicality (it's risky) and perhaps principle (they had their chance) - but whether they have other plans besides a waiting game.
BTW why is Drakeford proposing to stop those under 16 buying tea and coffee?
Is this some sort of joke?
Because hes a branch manager who has just got back from a blue sky thinking course and has decided to adopt the joke example from the first seminar. Or he has a bet on for craziest shit with the other uk leaders.
Because childhood obesity apparently.
Lot of fat arsed kids round here scoring tea after dark. Quite frightening. Some of them do a whole flask of typhoo as pre drinks before they hit the cafes.
Sadly many are also added digestive biscuits to the toxic mix. 'Dunking' is the unfortunate term for the practise. By the time adulthood hits, they're on 3 cups of day with anything from jaffa cakes to a kitkat. Then they're the state's problem.
Ive seen the effects of cutting tea with a variety pack amongst the hardcore caffers. It changed me.
Re a referendum. It will get harder to say no and harder to 'win' the longer it goes on and given the electoral situation in Scotland the more GEs and Holyroods that pass by with thumping SNP majorities the more convincing and irrefutable the argument. Authorise it, make the case for Union and let the Scots decide. If they vote to leave, they vote to leave. If they vote to stay it reaffirms the bond that exists. As long as the SNP are completely dominant, this issue needs to be addressed, not hidden from. There are worse things in the world than a short term row, an amicable divorce (or a renewal of vows) and an ongoing lifelong friendship. If unionism doesnt want to make the case, what does unionism think will happen eventually?
Spain has managed for over 5 years to refuse an independence referendum despite a Nationalist majority in Catalonia's parliament for one
I'm sure this point will have been answered somewhere as I work through the thread, but on this Sindy business what does the next GE being a 'de facto referendum' mean?
I'm technically if unhappily on the side of those saying a referendum should be held given the electoral results, but I genuinely don't get what the above means give nit is in the event the SC rules Holyrood does not have the power to hold a referendum.
AIUI, to treat it as an explicitly and formally designated mandate to negotiate indepndence in the event of a victory, on the ground that all other legal routes to the present mandate to have a referendum as such have been blocked.
After all, even Mrs T regarded the result of a majority of MPs within Scotland as being sufficient to trigger independence.
Yep. If they stand at the GE with just one policy (independence) and win most seats in Scotland they have a mandate to implement that policy. I think Sturgeon’s plan is pretty good, inc the step1 of referral to the courts.
They really don’t have a mandate to “implement independence” if they win a majority of seats under FPTP
The Nats got nearly alll the seats in 2019 yet they got 45% of the popular vote. Less than half
That is not a “mandate” for anything, certainly not tearing Scotland out of the UK
For that they need a referendum, and they need to win it
We have the electoral system that we have. If they win most seats with ONE policy it's a mandate for that policy. A strong one. It won't lead to UDI but it'll crank up the pressure. A Referendum will then be framed as a compromise solution. That's the plan, I reckon, and it's pretty solid imo.
Well that’s not what you said originally. Because what you said originally was dumb
This is somewhat more sensible. Yes her idea is to crank up moral pressure. Might work - but might not. She might galvanise tactical voting against her and actually lose seats in 2024. Then what?
Suddenly she has no mandate at all
If her gamble does pay off it will probably be PM Starmer who will be dealing with Sturgeon’s demands. I wonder what Sir Beer will do
He won’t want to lose a referendum either. Because it really will fuck the UK economy for a decade, for a start
Re a referendum. It will get harder to say no and harder to 'win' the longer it goes on and given the electoral situation in Scotland the more GEs and Holyroods that pass by with thumping SNP majorities the more convincing and irrefutable the argument. Authorise it, make the case for Union and let the Scots decide. If they vote to leave, they vote to leave. If they vote to stay it reaffirms the bond that exists. As long as the SNP are completely dominant, this issue needs to be addressed, not hidden from. There are worse things in the world than a short term row, an amicable divorce (or a renewal of vows) and an ongoing lifelong friendship. If unionism doesnt want to make the case, what does unionism think will happen eventually?
Rather enjoying the England v South Africa women's cricket Test which I've got on in the background. The skill of women's cricket is every bit as good as the mens game.
Rather like the mens game too, England collapsed with 5 wickets rapidly out, only to have a big stand for the sixth wicket with both batters now centurions - one of them a centurion on her debut.
Remarkably the lady who has taken a century on her debut also took a wicket yesterday. Only the second person ever to take a wicket and bat a century for England on their debut - the only other one to do it was W G Grace in 1880.
I am sorry, this is just not true. The standard of women's cricket is very poor.
Put it this way, if your average club player tried to play a top women's tennis player or tried to compete against any international women's elite athletics competitor they would be absolutely rinsed. I could train every day of my life and never get close to elite women athletes.
Saturday reasonable level of amateur club cricket is a better standard than women's international cricket, let alone the semi-pro "premier" leagues. I played in one of these semi-pro leagues and wasn't really quick enough to be a big threat as a bowler, even though I bowled mid 70s mph (which is faster than any woman international bowler). Even at that level, I faced 80+ every week, the spinners were as fast as the women's seam bowlers.
The problem for talented women there isn't any real money in women's cricket, if you are strong, powerful, athletic, coordinated, there is good money to be made in tennis, golf, athletics. Football is still not great, but cricket is not really a sensible career option at all.
Feels like a few women at least should be able to get up to the standard of a good medium pacer or spinner, but sounds like that is not yet the case.
When I was coming up I faced an England ladies seam bowler and it was relevantly very slow and very easy. In comparison, I faced the likes of Mushtaq Ahmed and Imran Tahir who despite being spin bowlers, sent it down quicker and it these things were like hand grenades coming down....then I also faced a number of international quicks, likes of Alex Tudor, and it was shit you pants stuff (and he wasn't even 95 mph Archer / Wood / Brett Lee pace).
The batters in women cricket also don't have the sort of hitting ability we are now seeing where the men commonly launch it just incredible distances.
My guess would be if you are a lady who clearly very powerful upper body, the likes of discus, shot, javelin are all calling. As is tennis, as being able to whip down a 100+ mph serve is very well paid.
Men today are hitting incredible distances, but it was not traditionally done that way, so I'd assume that the physicality of batting might be easier to achieve than bowling? Though it would rely on being a more traditional, timing and keeping it on the deck kind of batter.
My understanding listening to Livingstone and Bairstow is yes strength, but also they changed their technique. All the traditional lessons of how to hit it are basically "wrong". There was a great video of Flintoff (who was thought of a meaty hitter) and Buttler doing range hitting and Flintoff looked like some weak OAP in comparison. Buttler basically explained to him his technique is all wrong. The straight bat, the solid hands, its much more like baseball, getting hips and wrists through the ball.
Don’t ignore the bats though. Today’s bats are heavier and better than those that say Botham used. Yes there is also technique, but physics is physics. Timing, bat speed and weight are all key. And I’ve seen players 30 and 40 years ago hit shots as big as the current ones. Frankly, it’s more the licence to play the shots that’s changed.
It is true the bats are different, in fact they use different bats for Test, ODI / T20. I believe in the final of the world cup win, Stokes broke his bat and they brought out a test bat by accident. For T20 in particular the "pitch hitters" have crafted ones for exactly that.
But technique really have evolved. Its a very different way of thinking, and behind it, is the idea not only that the pure strike goes the distance, but that the slight mishit also goes. Liam Livingstone did a good bit with Kevin Pietersen and KP admitted that the game just have moved on leaps and bounds from even when he revolutionised T20. Livingstone was very clear he is constantly working on the ability to hit the ball so far beyond the boundary that mishits don't matter, they still go for 6 and that Jos Butler had been instrumental in showing him how wrists come into play (very like hitting a golf ball) and that had added a large amount of distance to his strikes.
Re a referendum. It will get harder to say no and harder to 'win' the longer it goes on and given the electoral situation in Scotland the more GEs and Holyroods that pass by with thumping SNP majorities the more convincing and irrefutable the argument. Authorise it, make the case for Union and let the Scots decide. If they vote to leave, they vote to leave. If they vote to stay it reaffirms the bond that exists. As long as the SNP are completely dominant, this issue needs to be addressed, not hidden from. There are worse things in the world than a short term row, an amicable divorce (or a renewal of vows) and an ongoing lifelong friendship. If unionism doesnt want to make the case, what does unionism think will happen eventually?
Before the Act of Union England had fought more wars v Scotland than any other nation except France.
The idea Scottish independence would lead to a future love in with England is ludicrous, it would be as bitter a divorce as Brexit was from the EU, if not worse given the even closer ties
All referendums are non binding. The Brexit referendum was non binding.
The AV referendum was binding.
Does that mean we have FPTP forever more?
What TSE means is that there was, in fact, legislation specifically enacting AV (the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011). The legislation required ("must" rather than "may") the Government to make an order bringing the relevant provisions into force if the referendum result was "Yes" and repealing them if it was "No".
I believe (although haven't checked) that the Licensing Act 1961 was similar. This was specific to Wales and repealed about 20 years ago, but it provided for a referendum every seven years in each county or borough in Wales (if 500 voters requested it) with the question being whether alcohol could be sold on a Sunday, the result being binding - it required the bringing into or out of force of very specific, pre-prepared legislative provisions.
There is a lot to be said for binding referendums of this type - the legislation is all in place and the question is simply "do we bring it into force or repeal it?" Regardless of your view on the result of the Brexit referendum (and the same is true for Scotland had they voted for independence) it's undeniable that there was a lack of clarity about what a Leave vote meant - it started a process rather than ending it. That was the source of huge problems.
That was a feature not a bugdeliberately designed that way by Cameron so that he could play the Project Fear card of "you don't know what Brexit actually means". I fear that a UK government that allows a second Scottish referendum would do the same, even though it's clearly not fair on the voters.
I don't think that's right.
He literally couldn't do the Brexit referendum in the same way as the AV one as the terms of departure needed to be negotiated with the EU, and the EU simply wasn't going to do that simply in order to facilitate a referendum that Cameron wanted to hold purely in order to appease a wing of his party. With AV, it was pretty easy - it's not even that complex a bit of legislation, and we have AV in several types of election, so they cut and paste that and added a simple go/don't go provision.
But the Brexit referendum could never just "trigger" a predefined thing. At most, it could have required Article 50 to be triggered, either immediately or within a defined period. But that doesn't answer the question of what Brexit would look like - and, indeed, when Article 50 was triggered there was no clarity over the eventual outcome.
One thing that could have been there was a double referendum (if you vote to Leave, we'll negotiate it and have a confirmatory referendum when a deal is in place). Of course that's what some Remainers later argued for. But Cameron had excluded it for a reason - he'd both have been criticised for it by the right, and it would have made a Brexit vote more likely. Ultimately, he lost his referendum and his job anyway, and the fact a confirmatory referendum had not been part of it from the start meant that arguing for one later understandably felt to a lot of people like purely a way to reverse what a majority had voted for.
Yes.
The AV referendum was confirmation of a piece of legislation agreed by both Houses of Parliament, sent to the People and with no further permissions required. If the People had voted to enact the Act of Parliament, it would have been enacted.
The UK leaving the EU, and Scotland leaving the UK, are not simply Bills to be enacted, but require processes to be fulfilled and negotiations to be had, with thirds parties, after the vote.
Re a referendum. It will get harder to say no and harder to 'win' the longer it goes on and given the electoral situation in Scotland the more GEs and Holyroods that pass by with thumping SNP majorities the more convincing and irrefutable the argument. Authorise it, make the case for Union and let the Scots decide. If they vote to leave, they vote to leave. If they vote to stay it reaffirms the bond that exists. As long as the SNP are completely dominant, this issue needs to be addressed, not hidden from. There are worse things in the world than a short term row, an amicable divorce (or a renewal of vows) and an ongoing lifelong friendship. If unionism doesnt want to make the case, what does unionism think will happen eventually?
Spain has managed for over 5 years to refuse an independence referendum despite a Nationalist majority in Catalonia's parliament for one
I'm not Spanish and have no desire to emulate them, nor do i wish to treat my friends north of the border like insurgents.
"It seems that every large city in America has marked off a neighbourhood where drug addicts are free to die in the streets. San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, downtown Portland, Skid Row in Los Angeles, Hunts Point in New York, Kensington in Philadelphia: These are places where, by unspoken agreement between society and its outcasts, the normal rules cease to apply and the bodies are collected.
Where it’s warm enough, people sleep in tents or on the streets. Drugs and sex are openly sold and laws are enforced erratically. The result, which I observed during a 2019 trip to Skid Row, was a “hellish concentration of deprivation and disorder”, interspersed with a concentrated complex of non-profit and social service organisations."
Re a referendum. It will get harder to say no and harder to 'win' the longer it goes on and given the electoral situation in Scotland the more GEs and Holyroods that pass by with thumping SNP majorities the more convincing and irrefutable the argument. Authorise it, make the case for Union and let the Scots decide. If they vote to leave, they vote to leave. If they vote to stay it reaffirms the bond that exists. As long as the SNP are completely dominant, this issue needs to be addressed, not hidden from. There are worse things in the world than a short term row, an amicable divorce (or a renewal of vows) and an ongoing lifelong friendship. If unionism doesnt want to make the case, what does unionism think will happen eventually?
Before the Act of Union England had fought more wars v Scotland than any other nation except France.
The idea Scottish independence would lead to a future love in with England is ludicrous, it would be as bitter a divorce as Brexit was from the EU, if not worse given the even closer ties
I predict, if Scottish Indy ever did happen, all those English people on here who are blithely cheering it on or complacently saying “WTF who cares”, will suddenly care a great deal as the pound goes into semi-permanent nosedive, inflation runs rampant, the economy absolutely tanks for years, investment flees these shores, and the Bank of England has to bail out independent Scotland which will default immediately otherwise
Yes, it would be a truly bitter divorce. It would make Brexit look like a modest prank, soon forgotten
Re a referendum. It will get harder to say no and harder to 'win' the longer it goes on and given the electoral situation in Scotland the more GEs and Holyroods that pass by with thumping SNP majorities the more convincing and irrefutable the argument. Authorise it, make the case for Union and let the Scots decide. If they vote to leave, they vote to leave. If they vote to stay it reaffirms the bond that exists. As long as the SNP are completely dominant, this issue needs to be addressed, not hidden from. There are worse things in the world than a short term row, an amicable divorce (or a renewal of vows) and an ongoing lifelong friendship. If unionism doesnt want to make the case, what does unionism think will happen eventually?
The government certainly needs to get proactive for the Union. It does not need to yield every time the SNP demands a referendum
No, but i think the continuing dominance of the SNP means this needs addressing now. A 'save the UK' result would probably break apart the SNP dominance short term and a 'leave' result will mean that its that time. If it IS that time, not having the vote willl just see that sentiment grow and grow until it explodes. If it isnt that time, winning the ref will strengthen the Union.
Re a referendum. It will get harder to say no and harder to 'win' the longer it goes on and given the electoral situation in Scotland the more GEs and Holyroods that pass by with thumping SNP majorities the more convincing and irrefutable the argument. Authorise it, make the case for Union and let the Scots decide. If they vote to leave, they vote to leave. If they vote to stay it reaffirms the bond that exists. As long as the SNP are completely dominant, this issue needs to be addressed, not hidden from. There are worse things in the world than a short term row, an amicable divorce (or a renewal of vows) and an ongoing lifelong friendship. If unionism doesnt want to make the case, what does unionism think will happen eventually?
The government certainly needs to get proactive for the Union. It does not need to yield every time the SNP demands a referendum
No, but i think the continuing dominance of the SNP means this needs addressing now. A 'save the UK' result would probably break apart the SNP dominance short term and a 'leave' result will mean that its that time. If it IS that time, not having the vote willl just see that sentiment grow and grow until it explodes. If it isnt that time, winning the ref will strengthen the Union.
Has there ever been a previous case where one side of a potential referendum (and the side with the power to authorise it) block it at every turn while weedily insisting they’d win it and the other side are entirely up for it despite not having any certainty of the result?
Rather enjoying the England v South Africa women's cricket Test which I've got on in the background. The skill of women's cricket is every bit as good as the mens game.
Rather like the mens game too, England collapsed with 5 wickets rapidly out, only to have a big stand for the sixth wicket with both batters now centurions - one of them a centurion on her debut.
Remarkably the lady who has taken a century on her debut also took a wicket yesterday. Only the second person ever to take a wicket and bat a century for England on their debut - the only other one to do it was W G Grace in 1880.
I am sorry, this is just not true. The standard of women's cricket is very poor.
Put it this way, if your average club player tried to play a top women's tennis player or tried to compete against any international women's elite athletics competitor they would be absolutely rinsed. I could train every day of my life and never get close to elite women athletes.
Saturday reasonable level of amateur club cricket is a better standard than women's international cricket, let alone the semi-pro "premier" leagues. I played in one of these semi-pro leagues and wasn't really quick enough to be a big threat as a bowler, even though I bowled mid 70s mph (which is faster than any woman international bowler). Even at that level, I faced 80+ every week, the spinners were as fast as the women's seam bowlers.
The problem for talented women there isn't any real money in women's cricket, if you are strong, powerful, athletic, coordinated, there is good money to be made in tennis, golf, athletics. Football is still not great, but cricket is not really a sensible career option at all.
Feels like a few women at least should be able to get up to the standard of a good medium pacer or spinner, but sounds like that is not yet the case.
When I was coming up I faced an England ladies seam bowler and it was relevantly very slow and very easy. In comparison, I faced the likes of Mushtaq Ahmed and Imran Tahir who despite being spin bowlers, sent it down quicker and it these things were like hand grenades coming down....then I also faced a number of international quicks, likes of Alex Tudor, and it was shit you pants stuff (and he wasn't even 95 mph Archer / Wood / Brett Lee pace).
The batters in women cricket also don't have the sort of hitting ability we are now seeing where the men commonly launch it just incredible distances.
My guess would be if you are a lady who clearly very powerful upper body, the likes of discus, shot, javelin are all calling. As is tennis, as being able to whip down a 100+ mph serve is very well paid.
Men today are hitting incredible distances, but it was not traditionally done that way, so I'd assume that the physicality of batting might be easier to achieve than bowling? Though it would rely on being a more traditional, timing and keeping it on the deck kind of batter.
My understanding listening to Livingstone and Bairstow is yes strength, but also they changed their technique. All the traditional lessons of how to hit it are basically "wrong". There was a great video of Flintoff (who was thought of a meaty hitter) and Buttler doing range hitting and Flintoff looked like some weak OAP in comparison. Buttler basically explained to him his technique is all wrong. The straight bat, the solid hands, its much more like baseball, getting hips and wrists through the ball.
Don’t ignore the bats though. Today’s bats are heavier and better than those that say Botham used. Yes there is also technique, but physics is physics. Timing, bat speed and weight are all key. And I’ve seen players 30 and 40 years ago hit shots as big as the current ones. Frankly, it’s more the licence to play the shots that’s changed.
It is true the bats are different, in fact they use different bats for Test, ODI / T20. I believe in the final of the world cup win, Stokes broke his bat and they brought out a test bat by accident. For T20 in particular the "pitch hitters" have crafted ones for exactly that.
But technique really have evolved. Its a very different way of thinking, and behind it, is the idea not only that the pure strike goes the distance, but that the slight mishit also goes. Liam Livingstone did a good bit with Kevin Pietersen and KP admitted that the game just have moved on leaps and bounds from even when he revolutionised T20. Livingstone was very clear he is constantly working on the ability to hit the ball so far beyond the boundary that mishits don't matter, they still go for 6 and that Jos Butler had been instrumental in showing him how wrists come into play (very like hitting a golf ball) and that had added a large amount of distance to his strikes.
Yes I agree about technique. And sadly the t20 environment is a batters game. Flat pitches, balls that don’t swing. Paradise.
Re a referendum. It will get harder to say no and harder to 'win' the longer it goes on and given the electoral situation in Scotland the more GEs and Holyroods that pass by with thumping SNP majorities the more convincing and irrefutable the argument. Authorise it, make the case for Union and let the Scots decide. If they vote to leave, they vote to leave. If they vote to stay it reaffirms the bond that exists. As long as the SNP are completely dominant, this issue needs to be addressed, not hidden from. There are worse things in the world than a short term row, an amicable divorce (or a renewal of vows) and an ongoing lifelong friendship. If unionism doesnt want to make the case, what does unionism think will happen eventually?
The government certainly needs to get proactive for the Union. It does not need to yield every time the SNP demands a referendum
No, but i think the continuing dominance of the SNP means this needs addressing now. A 'save the UK' result would probably break apart the SNP dominance short term and a 'leave' result will mean that its that time. If it IS that time, not having the vote willl just see that sentiment grow and grow until it explodes. If it isnt that time, winning the ref will strengthen the Union.
Re a referendum. It will get harder to say no and harder to 'win' the longer it goes on and given the electoral situation in Scotland the more GEs and Holyroods that pass by with thumping SNP majorities the more convincing and irrefutable the argument. Authorise it, make the case for Union and let the Scots decide. If they vote to leave, they vote to leave. If they vote to stay it reaffirms the bond that exists. As long as the SNP are completely dominant, this issue needs to be addressed, not hidden from. There are worse things in the world than a short term row, an amicable divorce (or a renewal of vows) and an ongoing lifelong friendship. If unionism doesnt want to make the case, what does unionism think will happen eventually?
Spain has managed for over 5 years to refuse an independence referendum despite a Nationalist majority in Catalonia's parliament for one
I'm not Spanish and have no desire to emulate them, nor do i wish to treat my friends north of the border like insurgents.
Never can tell, might be fun!
PERHAPS it could be stipulated by all sides, that issue of Scottish independence can be definitively settled for the rest of the 21st century via a mass Anglo-Caledonian paint-ball battle-royal held in the former Debatable Lands?
Has there ever been a previous case where one side of a potential referendum (and the side with the power to authorise it) block it at every turn while weedily insisting they’d win it and the other side are entirely up for it despite not having any certainty of the result?
If "potential referendum" just means one that never happened, then: yes, an almost infinite number of previous cases.
Re a referendum. It will get harder to say no and harder to 'win' the longer it goes on and given the electoral situation in Scotland the more GEs and Holyroods that pass by with thumping SNP majorities the more convincing and irrefutable the argument. Authorise it, make the case for Union and let the Scots decide. If they vote to leave, they vote to leave. If they vote to stay it reaffirms the bond that exists. As long as the SNP are completely dominant, this issue needs to be addressed, not hidden from. There are worse things in the world than a short term row, an amicable divorce (or a renewal of vows) and an ongoing lifelong friendship. If unionism doesnt want to make the case, what does unionism think will happen eventually?
The government certainly needs to get proactive for the Union. It does not need to yield every time the SNP demands a referendum
No, but i think the continuing dominance of the SNP means this needs addressing now. A 'save the UK' result would probably break apart the SNP dominance short term and a 'leave' result will mean that its that time. If it IS that time, not having the vote willl just see that sentiment grow and grow until it explodes. If it isnt that time, winning the ref will strengthen the Union.
Not while Johnson is PM. Too risky.
More to the point, the available evidence suggests that most of the Scottish electorate doesn't want to rush into a second referendum. The widely reviled Conservative Government can nonetheless get away with its stonewalling, because it may not be popular but its stonewalling is.
Re a referendum. It will get harder to say no and harder to 'win' the longer it goes on and given the electoral situation in Scotland the more GEs and Holyroods that pass by with thumping SNP majorities the more convincing and irrefutable the argument. Authorise it, make the case for Union and let the Scots decide. If they vote to leave, they vote to leave. If they vote to stay it reaffirms the bond that exists. As long as the SNP are completely dominant, this issue needs to be addressed, not hidden from. There are worse things in the world than a short term row, an amicable divorce (or a renewal of vows) and an ongoing lifelong friendship. If unionism doesnt want to make the case, what does unionism think will happen eventually?
The government certainly needs to get proactive for the Union. It does not need to yield every time the SNP demands a referendum
No, but i think the continuing dominance of the SNP means this needs addressing now. A 'save the UK' result would probably break apart the SNP dominance short term and a 'leave' result will mean that its that time. If it IS that time, not having the vote willl just see that sentiment grow and grow until it explodes. If it isnt that time, winning the ref will strengthen the Union.
I would agree with this, if we hadn’t already had a vote in 2014. But we did, so.I don’t
One for @Morris_Dancer is there any way racist Nelson Piquet can be stripped of all his points from the 1986 F1 world championship with his points through the season reallocated in such a way that Nigel Mansell can rightfully be awarded the 1986 world drivers championship?
BTW why is Drakeford proposing to stop those under 16 buying tea and coffee?
Is this some sort of joke?
Because hes a branch manager who has just got back from a blue sky thinking course and has decided to adopt the joke example from the first seminar. Or he has a bet on for craziest shit with the other uk leaders.
Because childhood obesity apparently.
Lot of fat arsed kids round here scoring tea after dark. Quite frightening. Some of them do a whole flask of typhoo as pre drinks before they hit the cafes.
Sadly many are also added digestive biscuits to the toxic mix. 'Dunking' is the unfortunate term for the practise. By the time adulthood hits, they're on 3 cups of day with anything from jaffa cakes to a kitkat. Then they're the state's problem.
There could be a whole new meaning to term tea bagging in Wales.....
Re cafeeine plus sugar, what else do they put in energy drinks to have the effect you mentioned earlier? I've never had one.
Re a referendum. It will get harder to say no and harder to 'win' the longer it goes on and given the electoral situation in Scotland the more GEs and Holyroods that pass by with thumping SNP majorities the more convincing and irrefutable the argument. Authorise it, make the case for Union and let the Scots decide. If they vote to leave, they vote to leave. If they vote to stay it reaffirms the bond that exists. As long as the SNP are completely dominant, this issue needs to be addressed, not hidden from. There are worse things in the world than a short term row, an amicable divorce (or a renewal of vows) and an ongoing lifelong friendship. If unionism doesnt want to make the case, what does unionism think will happen eventually?
The government certainly needs to get proactive for the Union. It does not need to yield every time the SNP demands a referendum
Re a referendum. It will get harder to say no and harder to 'win' the longer it goes on and given the electoral situation in Scotland the more GEs and Holyroods that pass by with thumping SNP majorities the more convincing and irrefutable the argument. Authorise it, make the case for Union and let the Scots decide. If they vote to leave, they vote to leave. If they vote to stay it reaffirms the bond that exists. As long as the SNP are completely dominant, this issue needs to be addressed, not hidden from. There are worse things in the world than a short term row, an amicable divorce (or a renewal of vows) and an ongoing lifelong friendship. If unionism doesnt want to make the case, what does unionism think will happen eventually?
Before the Act of Union England had fought more wars v Scotland than any other nation except France.
The idea Scottish independence would lead to a future love in with England is ludicrous, it would be as bitter a divorce as Brexit was from the EU, if not worse given the even closer ties
Surely with itself scores highest. Not to mention when you define itself as including Wales. And Ireland.
Re a referendum. It will get harder to say no and harder to 'win' the longer it goes on and given the electoral situation in Scotland the more GEs and Holyroods that pass by with thumping SNP majorities the more convincing and irrefutable the argument. Authorise it, make the case for Union and let the Scots decide. If they vote to leave, they vote to leave. If they vote to stay it reaffirms the bond that exists. As long as the SNP are completely dominant, this issue needs to be addressed, not hidden from. There are worse things in the world than a short term row, an amicable divorce (or a renewal of vows) and an ongoing lifelong friendship. If unionism doesnt want to make the case, what does unionism think will happen eventually?
The government certainly needs to get proactive for the Union. It does not need to yield every time the SNP demands a referendum
No, but i think the continuing dominance of the SNP means this needs addressing now. A 'save the UK' result would probably break apart the SNP dominance short term and a 'leave' result will mean that its that time. If it IS that time, not having the vote willl just see that sentiment grow and grow until it explodes. If it isnt that time, winning the ref will strengthen the Union.
Not while Johnson is PM. Too risky.
More to the point, the available evidence suggests that most of the Scottish electorate doesn't want to rush into a second referendum. The widely reviled Conservative Government can nonetheless get away with its stonewalling, because it may not be popular but its stonewalling is.
For the purposes of banterology, the most amusing development now wouid be a large swing to NO in the polls. Say 58:42. Regularly.
Suddenly Nicola will be praying Boris keeps refusing, and Boris will be tempted to take the risk
If it went over 60:40 NO he probably would risk it
Wondering if declines in K&C, Westminster & Scilly stem from absentee property speculation? In contrast to drops in more remote rural areas with declining jobs base & aging population?
BTW why is Drakeford proposing to stop those under 16 buying tea and coffee?
Is this some sort of joke?
Because hes a branch manager who has just got back from a blue sky thinking course and has decided to adopt the joke example from the first seminar. Or he has a bet on for craziest shit with the other uk leaders.
Because childhood obesity apparently.
Lot of fat arsed kids round here scoring tea after dark. Quite frightening. Some of them do a whole flask of typhoo as pre drinks before they hit the cafes.
Sadly many are also added digestive biscuits to the toxic mix. 'Dunking' is the unfortunate term for the practise. By the time adulthood hits, they're on 3 cups of day with anything from jaffa cakes to a kitkat. Then they're the state's problem.
There could be a whole new meaning to term tea bagging in Wales.....
Re cafeeine plus sugar, what else do they put in energy drinks to have the effect you mentioned earlier? I've never had one.
They are rammed full of all sorts of crap, but normally stuff like taurine, glucuronolactone, l-carnitine, ginseng. So its caffeine, plus sugar, plus often a laundry list of other stimulants, hence why the hype / crash cycle with most is far worse than chugging a few cups of coffee.
I see from the census that Tower Hamlets saw the largest population growth in England in the last 10 years. That'll make their elections go even smoother.
Has there ever been a previous case where one side of a potential referendum (and the side with the power to authorise it) block it at every turn while weedily insisting they’d win it and the other side are entirely up for it despite not having any certainty of the result?
If "potential referendum" just means one that never happened, then: yes, an almost infinite number of previous cases.
Any examples, particularly with the leader of the country it concerns seeking to hold said referendum while the leader of another country with oversight of it hiding in a fridge at any mention of it?
I agree with the general sentiment that Boris ALSO needs to go because he is personally jeopardising the Union. Surely even @HYUFD can see that
Johnson’s position became unsustainable the moment Ross said he should resign. Why Ross flip flopped on that, I’ll never know
Because hes a bit of a tit and he panicked when his intervention didnt bring the sky down and ended up looking ridiculous. Thrice. He needs to make way as much as Canis Major.
One for @Morris_Dancer is there any way racist Nelson Piquet can be stripped of all his points from the 1986 F1 world championship with his points through the season reallocated in such a way that Nigel Mansell can rightfully be awarded the 1986 world drivers champion?
Lol, no. He’s not Lance Armstrong, who admitted to cheating to win titles.
He’ll be stripped of his 2022 paddock pass though, once F1 has seen a formal translation of his comments.
There’s potentially an annoying double-meaning of the word “Neguinho” in Portuguese. It could mean a young friend, but Hamilton and Piquet don’t know each other as friends. The alternate meaning is as offensive as the N-word.
The context is, that ‘Max had the corner and the “Neguinho” “kept it in” so they crashed’.
Remember that the guy is Max Verstappen’s father-in-law.
"It seems that every large city in America has marked off a neighbourhood where drug addicts are free to die in the streets. San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, downtown Portland, Skid Row in Los Angeles, Hunts Point in New York, Kensington in Philadelphia: These are places where, by unspoken agreement between society and its outcasts, the normal rules cease to apply and the bodies are collected.
Where it’s warm enough, people sleep in tents or on the streets. Drugs and sex are openly sold and laws are enforced erratically. The result, which I observed during a 2019 trip to Skid Row, was a “hellish concentration of deprivation and disorder”, interspersed with a concentrated complex of non-profit and social service organisations."
"It seems that every large city in America has marked off a neighbourhood where drug addicts are free to die in the streets. San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, downtown Portland, Skid Row in Los Angeles, Hunts Point in New York, Kensington in Philadelphia: These are places where, by unspoken agreement between society and its outcasts, the normal rules cease to apply and the bodies are collected.
Where it’s warm enough, people sleep in tents or on the streets. Drugs and sex are openly sold and laws are enforced erratically. The result, which I observed during a 2019 trip to Skid Row, was a “hellish concentration of deprivation and disorder”, interspersed with a concentrated complex of non-profit and social service organisations."
It made me question whether America was any longer a first world country.
It was as made (if not worse) than I'd seen in Africa.
The combination with very liberal policies towards petty crime* combined with the spread of Fentanyl has made this problem far worse.
* plus other cities putting all their problem cases on one way buses to the likes of Portland who at one point promised to home all the homeless.
Skid Row has been about for donkeys years, and Tenderloin has been iffy for a long time, but its much bigger now and downtown Portland 10 years ago was a cool funky Shoreditch type place, all hipster, indy stores. Now if the ANTIFA nutters aren't smashing the place up, its full of whacked out druggies.
Scholz is asked if he could clarify what security guarantees are being discussed for Ukraine after the war. He answer: "Yes... I could... [silence] That's it."
I'm sure this point will have been answered somewhere as I work through the thread, but on this Sindy business what does the next GE being a 'de facto referendum' mean?
I'm technically if unhappily on the side of those saying a referendum should be held given the electoral results, but I genuinely don't get what the above means give nit is in the event the SC rules Holyrood does not have the power to hold a referendum.
AIUI, to treat it as an explicitly and formally designated mandate to negotiate indepndence in the event of a victory, on the ground that all other legal routes to the present mandate to have a referendum as such have been blocked.
After all, even Mrs T regarded the result of a majority of MPs within Scotland as being sufficient to trigger independence.
Yep. If they stand at the GE with just one policy (independence) and win most seats in Scotland they have a mandate to implement that policy. I think Sturgeon’s plan is pretty good, inc the step1 of referral to the courts.
They really don’t have a mandate to “implement independence” if they win a majority of seats under FPTP
The Nats got nearly alll the seats in 2019 yet they got 45% of the popular vote. Less than half
That is not a “mandate” for anything, certainly not tearing Scotland out of the UK
For that they need a referendum, and they need to win it
We have the electoral system that we have. If they win most seats with ONE policy it's a mandate for that policy. A strong one. It won't lead to UDI but it'll crank up the pressure. A Referendum will then be framed as a compromise solution. That's the plan, I reckon, and it's pretty solid imo.
Well that’s not what you said originally. Because what you said originally was dumb
This is somewhat more sensible. Yes her idea is to crank up moral pressure. Might work - but might not. She might galvanise tactical voting against her and actually lose seats in 2024. Then what?
Suddenly she has no mandate at all
If her gamble does pay off it will probably be PM Starmer who will be dealing with Sturgeon’s demands. I wonder what Sir Beer will do
He won’t want to lose a referendum either. Because it really will fuck the UK economy for a decade, for a start
The next election is in 2026. Regardless of what happens in a UK general election the mandate in Scotland runs to 2026.
An interesting term for a white person to use about a black person.
The liberal-socialist world view simply cannot handle black or working class conservatives. They are always torn between patronising, ignoring and abusing them.
One for @Morris_Dancer is there any way racist Nelson Piquet can be stripped of all his points from the 1986 F1 world championship with his points through the season reallocated in such a way that Nigel Mansell can rightfully be awarded the 1986 world drivers champion?
Lol, no. He’s not Lance Armstrong, who admitted to cheating to win titles.
He’ll be stripped of his 2022 paddock pass though, once F1 has seen a formal translation of his comments.
There’s potentially an annoying double-meaning of the word “Neguinho” in Portuguese. It could mean a young friend, but Hamilton and Piquet don’t know each other as friends. The alternate meaning is as offensive as the N-word.
The context is, that ‘Max had the corner and the “Neguinho” “kept it in” so they crashed’.
Remember that the guy is Max Verstappen’s father-in-law.
Yeah, I think we all know how he meant it! Disgraceful that he thinks he can get away with talking about Lewis in that way! He always was a nasty piece of work from what I remember in the 80s.
And I guess I'll just have to go on cursing the tyre blow out on lap 64 of the 1986 Australian Grand Prix then lol!
One for @Morris_Dancer is there any way racist Nelson Piquet can be stripped of all his points from the 1986 F1 world championship with his points through the season reallocated in such a way that Nigel Mansell can rightfully be awarded the 1986 world drivers champion?
Lol, no. He’s not Lance Armstrong, who admitted to cheating to win titles.
He’ll be stripped of his 2022 paddock pass though, once F1 has seen a formal translation of his comments.
There’s potentially an annoying double-meaning of the word “Neguinho” in Portuguese. It could mean a young friend, but Hamilton and Piquet don’t know each other as friends. The alternate meaning is as offensive as the N-word.
The context is, that ‘Max had the corner and the “Neguinho” “kept it in” so they crashed’.
Remember that the guy is Max Verstappen’s father-in-law.
I used to know three people working in F1, one high-up, and I got lots of juicy gossip. They've all now 'left' the sport (*) and I feel bereft. Some of the famous names in the sport (not just drivers) were not as 'nice' as are made out. Some interesting stories might emerge when Bernie dies.
One guy I feel sorry for is the one who left a major team to join the US F1 team in 2009. He uprooted his family to move over there, and a week or so after he arrived, and before he was due to start work, the project folded...
(*) One died, one get bored after over ten years designing wheels; the other got laid off as part of the cost-cutting. As for the latter: it should be remembered that 'cost-cutting' often means job cuts.
I'm sure this point will have been answered somewhere as I work through the thread, but on this Sindy business what does the next GE being a 'de facto referendum' mean?
I'm technically if unhappily on the side of those saying a referendum should be held given the electoral results, but I genuinely don't get what the above means give nit is in the event the SC rules Holyrood does not have the power to hold a referendum.
AIUI, to treat it as an explicitly and formally designated mandate to negotiate indepndence in the event of a victory, on the ground that all other legal routes to the present mandate to have a referendum as such have been blocked.
After all, even Mrs T regarded the result of a majority of MPs within Scotland as being sufficient to trigger independence.
Yep. If they stand at the GE with just one policy (independence) and win most seats in Scotland they have a mandate to implement that policy. I think Sturgeon’s plan is pretty good, inc the step1 of referral to the courts.
They really don’t have a mandate to “implement independence” if they win a majority of seats under FPTP
The Nats got nearly alll the seats in 2019 yet they got 45% of the popular vote. Less than half
That is not a “mandate” for anything, certainly not tearing Scotland out of the UK
For that they need a referendum, and they need to win it
We have the electoral system that we have. If they win most seats with ONE policy it's a mandate for that policy. A strong one. It won't lead to UDI but it'll crank up the pressure. A Referendum will then be framed as a compromise solution. That's the plan, I reckon, and it's pretty solid imo.
Well that’s not what you said originally. Because what you said originally was dumb
This is somewhat more sensible. Yes her idea is to crank up moral pressure. Might work - but might not. She might galvanise tactical voting against her and actually lose seats in 2024. Then what?
Suddenly she has no mandate at all
If her gamble does pay off it will probably be PM Starmer who will be dealing with Sturgeon’s demands. I wonder what Sir Beer will do
He won’t want to lose a referendum either. Because it really will fuck the UK economy for a decade, for a start
No, not dumb. You mistook what I meant by mandate. I meant legitimate democratic weapon. GEs don't give legal mandates for anything.
It seeks to set up the following dynamic -
"Look we've won a landslide for this. Let's sit down and talk turkey, thrash out the separation deal."
"No way. You have no authority here Nicola Sturgeon."
"Landslide majority. One policy, Sindy. So let's talk Sindy."
"No. And don't call me Cindy. The GE gives no mandate for independence. You need a Referendum first."
"We don't."
"You do."
Dong follows ding follows dong follows ding.
"Look, you cannot declare independence without first winning a Referendum, end of."
Sturgeon caves ...
"OK. Referendum it is. When should we have it? Year from now or a bit sooner?"
"It seems that every large city in America has marked off a neighbourhood where drug addicts are free to die in the streets. San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, downtown Portland, Skid Row in Los Angeles, Hunts Point in New York, Kensington in Philadelphia: These are places where, by unspoken agreement between society and its outcasts, the normal rules cease to apply and the bodies are collected.
Where it’s warm enough, people sleep in tents or on the streets. Drugs and sex are openly sold and laws are enforced erratically. The result, which I observed during a 2019 trip to Skid Row, was a “hellish concentration of deprivation and disorder”, interspersed with a concentrated complex of non-profit and social service organisations."
Re a referendum. It will get harder to say no and harder to 'win' the longer it goes on and given the electoral situation in Scotland the more GEs and Holyroods that pass by with thumping SNP majorities the more convincing and irrefutable the argument. Authorise it, make the case for Union and let the Scots decide. If they vote to leave, they vote to leave. If they vote to stay it reaffirms the bond that exists. As long as the SNP are completely dominant, this issue needs to be addressed, not hidden from. There are worse things in the world than a short term row, an amicable divorce (or a renewal of vows) and an ongoing lifelong friendship. If unionism doesnt want to make the case, what does unionism think will happen eventually?
The government certainly needs to get proactive for the Union. It does not need to yield every time the SNP demands a referendum
No, but i think the continuing dominance of the SNP means this needs addressing now. A 'save the UK' result would probably break apart the SNP dominance short term and a 'leave' result will mean that its that time. If it IS that time, not having the vote willl just see that sentiment grow and grow until it explodes. If it isnt that time, winning the ref will strengthen the Union.
Not while Johnson is PM. Too risky.
More to the point, the available evidence suggests that most of the Scottish electorate doesn't want to rush into a second referendum. The widely reviled Conservative Government can nonetheless get away with its stonewalling, because it may not be popular but its stonewalling is.
For the purposes of banterology, the most amusing development now wouid be a large swing to NO in the polls. Say 58:42. Regularly.
Suddenly Nicola will be praying Boris keeps refusing, and Boris will be tempted to take the risk
If it went over 60:40 NO he probably would risk it
Nah, the Tories won't budge.
If we get Labour after 2024 then they probably won't budge either, even if the SNP hold the balance of power in the Commons, unless it become obvious that public opinion concerning a rematch has shifted (though they'll nonetheless try to defuse the situation with the offer of yet more powers, as if that ever makes anything better.)
"It seems that every large city in America has marked off a neighbourhood where drug addicts are free to die in the streets. San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, downtown Portland, Skid Row in Los Angeles, Hunts Point in New York, Kensington in Philadelphia: These are places where, by unspoken agreement between society and its outcasts, the normal rules cease to apply and the bodies are collected.
Where it’s warm enough, people sleep in tents or on the streets. Drugs and sex are openly sold and laws are enforced erratically. The result, which I observed during a 2019 trip to Skid Row, was a “hellish concentration of deprivation and disorder”, interspersed with a concentrated complex of non-profit and social service organisations."
It made me question whether America was any longer a first world country.
It was as made (if not worse) than I'd seen in Africa.
Like Waterloo in the 1990s
There was a brilliant TV show on BBC in the 1990s, at around the time I lived down there, called 'Looking for Tat'. It was about a women who had been homeless searching for the girl who had helped her when she first became homeless. A heart breaking look at the underbelly of London in those times.
One for @Morris_Dancer is there any way racist Nelson Piquet can be stripped of all his points from the 1986 F1 world championship with his points through the season reallocated in such a way that Nigel Mansell can rightfully be awarded the 1986 world drivers champion?
Lol, no. He’s not Lance Armstrong, who admitted to cheating to win titles.
He’ll be stripped of his 2022 paddock pass though, once F1 has seen a formal translation of his comments.
There’s potentially an annoying double-meaning of the word “Neguinho” in Portuguese. It could mean a young friend, but Hamilton and Piquet don’t know each other as friends. The alternate meaning is as offensive as the N-word.
The context is, that ‘Max had the corner and the “Neguinho” “kept it in” so they crashed’.
Remember that the guy is Max Verstappen’s father-in-law.
I used to know three people working in F1, one high-up, and I got lots of juicy gossip. They've all now 'left' the sport (*) and I feel bereft. Some of the famous names in the sport (not just drivers) were not as 'nice' as are made out. Some interesting stories might emerge when Bernie dies.
Sturgeon is posturing. "We will run on a manifesto that only has independence as a policy" is them saying that Westminster has no value. So in itself the governing party doing so is upping the ante in a substantial way.
What would make that fascinating is how it drives voters. If Bonzo remains PM there is *no way* that pro-union anti-Tories would vote Tory to remove the SNP. Both are completely unpalatable. So if we're going to see some wild tactical vote swings in that election to GTTO it could be even crazier up here.
One for @Morris_Dancer is there any way racist Nelson Piquet can be stripped of all his points from the 1986 F1 world championship with his points through the season reallocated in such a way that Nigel Mansell can rightfully be awarded the 1986 world drivers champion?
Lol, no. He’s not Lance Armstrong, who admitted to cheating to win titles.
He’ll be stripped of his 2022 paddock pass though, once F1 has seen a formal translation of his comments.
There’s potentially an annoying double-meaning of the word “Neguinho” in Portuguese. It could mean a young friend, but Hamilton and Piquet don’t know each other as friends. The alternate meaning is as offensive as the N-word.
The context is, that ‘Max had the corner and the “Neguinho” “kept it in” so they crashed’.
Remember that the guy is Max Verstappen’s father-in-law.
I used to know three people working in F1, one high-up, and I got lots of juicy gossip. They've all now 'left' the sport (*) and I feel bereft. Some of the famous names in the sport (not just drivers) were not as 'nice' as are made out. Some interesting stories might emerge when Bernie dies.
.
Oooo go one. Spill some gossip!
Well, one F1 journalist got kneecapped in the 1970s. This is not an uncommon story.
And there's the question of how a woman got to accept a trophy from a sheikh at an Arab GP, and why if some woman had not, the race would not have gone ahead.
Almost everybody would consider terminating a baby the day before birth to be murder.
And the vast majority would not regard the moment of fertilization (or even at a point where no-one can know if fertilization has taken place) as murder.
I would regard anything in the first trimester as absolutely fine, and anything in the third to be highly suspect - simply because at that point, they have ceased being foetuses and are now pain-feeling, potentially viable babies.
The question then becomes where to draw the line. I personally would probably draw it slightly earlier than the UK does, but accept that there are many different views, and that my calculations are not necessarily going to be the same as someone else's.
I believe that is the viewpoint of the vast majority in the UK and almost certainly a healthy majority in the US.
And was the case in practice until the SC barrelled in.
I note @HYUFD saying that the Catholic SC justices are implementing Vatican doctrine. That is the problem right there. They are not there to do this. But to interpret and rule on US law. Their religious faith should not come into it. And if they feel they can't ignore it, then they should recuse themselves or resign.
You'd hope that. I cannot believe it will matter. It was bloody obvious from the start what was going on yet 99% of Republican representatives and a massive number of Republican voters do not care. If it comes out of that inquiry, they will ignore it.
Yebbut if you side with the libruls you want to MURDER BABIES. So we have to support the Donald no matter what. Backing a narcissist liar encouraging lunatics to commit violent overthrow of the guberment is what the baby Jesus would have done.
An interesting term for a white person to use about a black person.
The liberal-socialist world view simply cannot handle black or working class conservatives. They are always torn between patronising, ignoring and abusing them.
Calling Larry Elder “The Black Face of White Supremacy” was a new low. God knows who are the people who do social media for the likes of Candace Owens, she’s presented as being the devil incarnate for being a young black female conservative.
One for @Morris_Dancer is there any way racist Nelson Piquet can be stripped of all his points from the 1986 F1 world championship with his points through the season reallocated in such a way that Nigel Mansell can rightfully be awarded the 1986 world drivers champion?
Lol, no. He’s not Lance Armstrong, who admitted to cheating to win titles.
He’ll be stripped of his 2022 paddock pass though, once F1 has seen a formal translation of his comments.
There’s potentially an annoying double-meaning of the word “Neguinho” in Portuguese. It could mean a young friend, but Hamilton and Piquet don’t know each other as friends. The alternate meaning is as offensive as the N-word.
The context is, that ‘Max had the corner and the “Neguinho” “kept it in” so they crashed’.
Remember that the guy is Max Verstappen’s father-in-law.
I used to know three people working in F1, one high-up, and I got lots of juicy gossip. They've all now 'left' the sport (*) and I feel bereft. Some of the famous names in the sport (not just drivers) were not as 'nice' as are made out. Some interesting stories might emerge when Bernie dies.
One guy I feel sorry for is the one who left a major team to join the US F1 team in 2009. He uprooted his family to move over there, and a week or so after he arrived, and before he was due to start work, the project folded...
(*) One died, one get bored after over ten years designing wheels; the other got laid off as part of the cost-cutting. As for the latter: it should be remembered that 'cost-cutting' often means job cuts.
There will be a *lot* of stories to come out once Bernie passes.
There a rumour of one F1 team having to pay hundreds of people to do nothing for the next six months, because they overspent their budget cap this year. If anyone needs a team of aeronautical engineers with brilliant computers and wind tunnels, apply to a Mr Horner of Milton Keynes.
One for @Morris_Dancer is there any way racist Nelson Piquet can be stripped of all his points from the 1986 F1 world championship with his points through the season reallocated in such a way that Nigel Mansell can rightfully be awarded the 1986 world drivers champion?
Lol, no. He’s not Lance Armstrong, who admitted to cheating to win titles.
He’ll be stripped of his 2022 paddock pass though, once F1 has seen a formal translation of his comments.
There’s potentially an annoying double-meaning of the word “Neguinho” in Portuguese. It could mean a young friend, but Hamilton and Piquet don’t know each other as friends. The alternate meaning is as offensive as the N-word.
The context is, that ‘Max had the corner and the “Neguinho” “kept it in” so they crashed’.
Remember that the guy is Max Verstappen’s father-in-law.
I used to know three people working in F1, one high-up, and I got lots of juicy gossip. They've all now 'left' the sport (*) and I feel bereft. Some of the famous names in the sport (not just drivers) were not as 'nice' as are made out. Some interesting stories might emerge when Bernie dies.
One guy I feel sorry for is the one who left a major team to join the US F1 team in 2009. He uprooted his family to move over there, and a week or so after he arrived, and before he was due to start work, the project folded...
(*) One died, one get bored after over ten years designing wheels; the other got laid off as part of the cost-cutting. As for the latter: it should be remembered that 'cost-cutting' often means job cuts.
I had two such; maybe we’ve contacts in common! A granddaughter is about to start work experience there, too!
Poltico.com - 7 things to watch in New York's primaries Tuesday There are a host of contested races further down the ballot, including a vote that will determine the Democratic gubernatorial nominee’s running mate.
Here’s a look at what’s worth watching as the results start rolling in a little after 9 p.m. Tuesday. As you can see, most questions raised pertain to governor's race, where incumbent Karen Hochul, elevated from Lieutenant Governor by disgraced Gov. Andrew Cuomo's resignation is seeking to win nomination for a full term of her own. Note that in NY State, Gov & Lt Gov nominees are chosen separately in primaries, but run as a ticket in general elections.
1. Will Suozzi or Williams pull off a stunner [for Dem nomination for governor vs Gov. Hochul]? "The first results that come in on election night are usually those from New York City. So it would be difficult to imagine a path for Suozzi in which he doesn’t win moderate Staten Island and all but impossible to imagine one for Williams without a big win in Brooklyn, his home borough."
2. If Hochul wins, how big is the margin? ". . . Cuomo . . . received 65.5 percent of the vote against actor Cynthia Nixon in 2018 and 62.9 percent in a three-way primary in 2014."
3. Does Zeldin hold on [for Rep nomination for gov vs Giuliani the Younger]? ". . . Giuliani is well-positioned thanks in part to his universally-recognizable last name. Zeldin has already spent more than nearly any other Republican candidate for any office in New York in the past two decades, but not quite as much in the homestretch as Wilson, who has self funded most of his campaign."
4. Does Hochul keep her lieutenant governor [Delgado] on the ballot [vs two Dem challengers for Lt Gov]? "The most open statewide race on the ballot on Tuesday may just be the contest to be the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor."
5. Which party is more enthused? "There’s one prediction that can be made for Tuesday’s races in New York: Turnout will be lackluster. . . .
Even if turnout’s low, it will provide the best barometer to date for how enthused the bases of each party are heading into the November elections. And it will also provide one of the first data points nationally in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade."
6. Do socialists gain in the Assembly? ". . .the left is making a concerted effort to grow . . . bloc this year."
7. When will the races be called? "A close race for either party could be determined by the results from the two swing counties on Long Island. . . And the boards of elections in Nassau and Suffolk counties are notorious for often slowly posting results. . . . There’s a potential for even longer delays in a race that’s closer than that."
One for @Morris_Dancer is there any way racist Nelson Piquet can be stripped of all his points from the 1986 F1 world championship with his points through the season reallocated in such a way that Nigel Mansell can rightfully be awarded the 1986 world drivers champion?
Lol, no. He’s not Lance Armstrong, who admitted to cheating to win titles.
He’ll be stripped of his 2022 paddock pass though, once F1 has seen a formal translation of his comments.
There’s potentially an annoying double-meaning of the word “Neguinho” in Portuguese. It could mean a young friend, but Hamilton and Piquet don’t know each other as friends. The alternate meaning is as offensive as the N-word.
The context is, that ‘Max had the corner and the “Neguinho” “kept it in” so they crashed’.
Remember that the guy is Max Verstappen’s father-in-law.
I used to know three people working in F1, one high-up, and I got lots of juicy gossip. They've all now 'left' the sport (*) and I feel bereft. Some of the famous names in the sport (not just drivers) were not as 'nice' as are made out. Some interesting stories might emerge when Bernie dies.
One guy I feel sorry for is the one who left a major team to join the US F1 team in 2009. He uprooted his family to move over there, and a week or so after he arrived, and before he was due to start work, the project folded...
(*) One died, one get bored after over ten years designing wheels; the other got laid off as part of the cost-cutting. As for the latter: it should be remembered that 'cost-cutting' often means job cuts.
There will be a *lot* of stories to come out once Bernie passes.
There a rumour of one F1 team having to pay hundreds of people to do nothing for the next six months, because they overspent their budget cap this year. If anyone needs a team of aeronautical engineers with brilliant computers and wind tunnels, apply to a Mr Horner of Milton Keynes.
Yep. I hope F1 stays the ground with this. The rules were made, and the teams should stick to them.
I would be open for a *small* inflation adjustment. Or saying that any overspend this year has to be 'paid off' over the next two years - to keep the show on the road and avoid an Indy 2005-style situation.
Openness is key. The smaller teams have had to deal with real budgets for years. I can't really feel sorry for the larger teams when they suddenly discover that money matters.
"It seems that every large city in America has marked off a neighbourhood where drug addicts are free to die in the streets. San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, downtown Portland, Skid Row in Los Angeles, Hunts Point in New York, Kensington in Philadelphia: These are places where, by unspoken agreement between society and its outcasts, the normal rules cease to apply and the bodies are collected.
Where it’s warm enough, people sleep in tents or on the streets. Drugs and sex are openly sold and laws are enforced erratically. The result, which I observed during a 2019 trip to Skid Row, was a “hellish concentration of deprivation and disorder”, interspersed with a concentrated complex of non-profit and social service organisations."
It made me question whether America was any longer a first world country.
It was as made (if not worse) than I'd seen in Africa.
Like Waterloo in the 1990s
Much much worse. America seems to have virtually no safety net.
Trust me: go and look for yourself. You'll see what I mean. It's off the scale.
It was the only time in my life I felt genuinely left-wing, which as I'm sure you can appreciate meant it was a disturbing experience in more ways than one.
I think the reply will be....taps mic.....sniff sniff......FAKE NEWS....
"I like the successful coups, not the failures... These people were losers. Believe me, if I'd been planning a coup it would have been the most beautiful coup there's ever been. They'd have called it the March on the Capitol Dome."
One for @Morris_Dancer is there any way racist Nelson Piquet can be stripped of all his points from the 1986 F1 world championship with his points through the season reallocated in such a way that Nigel Mansell can rightfully be awarded the 1986 world drivers champion?
Lol, no. He’s not Lance Armstrong, who admitted to cheating to win titles.
He’ll be stripped of his 2022 paddock pass though, once F1 has seen a formal translation of his comments.
There’s potentially an annoying double-meaning of the word “Neguinho” in Portuguese. It could mean a young friend, but Hamilton and Piquet don’t know each other as friends. The alternate meaning is as offensive as the N-word.
The context is, that ‘Max had the corner and the “Neguinho” “kept it in” so they crashed’.
Remember that the guy is Max Verstappen’s father-in-law.
I used to know three people working in F1, one high-up, and I got lots of juicy gossip. They've all now 'left' the sport (*) and I feel bereft. Some of the famous names in the sport (not just drivers) were not as 'nice' as are made out. Some interesting stories might emerge when Bernie dies.
One guy I feel sorry for is the one who left a major team to join the US F1 team in 2009. He uprooted his family to move over there, and a week or so after he arrived, and before he was due to start work, the project folded...
(*) One died, one get bored after over ten years designing wheels; the other got laid off as part of the cost-cutting. As for the latter: it should be remembered that 'cost-cutting' often means job cuts.
There will be a *lot* of stories to come out once Bernie passes.
There a rumour of one F1 team having to pay hundreds of people to do nothing for the next six months, because they overspent their budget cap this year. If anyone needs a team of aeronautical engineers with brilliant computers and wind tunnels, apply to a Mr Horner of Milton Keynes.
Yep. I hope F1 stays the ground with this. The rules were made, and the teams should stick to them.
I would be open for a *small* inflation adjustment. Or saying that any overspend this year has to be 'paid off' over the next two years - to keep the show on the road and avoid an Indy 2005-style situation.
Openness is key. The smaller teams have had to deal with real budgets for years. I can't really feel sorry for the larger teams when they suddenly discover that money matters.
Especially when the budget cap is in US$, which has appreciated 12% against the pound, Euro and Swiss Franc this year, the currencies in which the teams occur most of their costs.
Almost everybody would consider terminating a baby the day before birth to be murder.
And the vast majority would not regard the moment of fertilization (or even at a point where no-one can know if fertilization has taken place) as murder.
I would regard anything in the first trimester as absolutely fine, and anything in the third to be highly suspect - simply because at that point, they have ceased being foetuses and are now pain-feeling, potentially viable babies.
The question then becomes where to draw the line. I personally would probably draw it slightly earlier than the UK does, but accept that there are many different views, and that my calculations are not necessarily going to be the same as someone else's.
I believe that is the viewpoint of the vast majority in the UK and almost certainly a healthy majority in the US.
And was the case in practice until the SC barrelled in.
I note @HYUFD saying that the Catholic SC justices are implementing Vatican doctrine. That is the problem right there. They are not there to do this. But to interpret and rule on US law. Their religious faith should not come into it. And if they feel they can't ignore it, then they should recuse themselves or resign.
It's interesting how such moves, no matter how outrageous or shocking, do serve to shift the overton window nonetheless.
Lots of pb regulars have argued on here for reductions (some very serious reductions) in the legal abortion limit in the UK in a way over the last few days they weren't doing last week or before.
It makes me wonder how much of our famed values really are engrained in us or simply a function of social proof.
@haynesdeborah BREAKING: The leaders of Turkey, Sweden & Finland have just signed a memorandum for the two Nordic states to join NATO, removing a Turkish block to the accession process, a source said. “It’s a three-way agreement on accession,” the source said. @jensstoltenberg to make statement
Given the state of their politics, that's hardly surprising.
There are two Senedd members right now I'd give the time of day to - Elin Jones and Rhun ab Iorwerth.
The rest - rubbish.
Oh and @Cyclefree you asked why Drakeford wants to ban tea and coffee for children. It's because he's a stupid, smug bellend who would be out of his depth running Garth Parish Council.
@haynesdeborah BREAKING: The leaders of Turkey, Sweden & Finland have just signed a memorandum for the two Nordic states to join NATO, removing a Turkish block to the accession process, a source said. “It’s a three-way agreement on accession,” the source said. @jensstoltenberg to make statement
Almost everybody would consider terminating a baby the day before birth to be murder.
And the vast majority would not regard the moment of fertilization (or even at a point where no-one can know if fertilization has taken place) as murder.
I would regard anything in the first trimester as absolutely fine, and anything in the third to be highly suspect - simply because at that point, they have ceased being foetuses and are now pain-feeling, potentially viable babies.
The question then becomes where to draw the line. I personally would probably draw it slightly earlier than the UK does, but accept that there are many different views, and that my calculations are not necessarily going to be the same as someone else's.
I believe that is the viewpoint of the vast majority in the UK and almost certainly a healthy majority in the US.
And was the case in practice until the SC barrelled in.
I note @HYUFD saying that the Catholic SC justices are implementing Vatican doctrine. That is the problem right there. They are not there to do this. But to interpret and rule on US law. Their religious faith should not come into it. And if they feel they can't ignore it, then they should recuse themselves or resign.
It's an absolute disgrace. It's not my country, I know, but this is the land of the free deciding only half of its citizens are. Going back 50 years on women's rights. Was leaked but I can still hardly believe it. I talked to my cousin who lives over there and she's in bits. This is politics at its most visceral. Different league to Brexit and tax policy and health spending and all of that.
You'd hope that. I cannot believe it will matter. It was bloody obvious from the start what was going on yet 99% of Republican representatives and a massive number of Republican voters do not care. If it comes out of that inquiry, they will ignore it.
I'm afraid you are right.
Jonathon Haidt warns in this week's New Statesman that America is now the ghost of the future of western democracy unless we learn the lessons of Trump and his use of social media.
Just popping in to say that Sturgeon played a bad hand really well today.
Bypassing the Scottish courts and the Lord Advocate is smart, and it will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court responds, perhaps by sitting in Edinburgh? If, as most people think, they don't allow it to go forward, she retains her reputation for competence and professionalism by not forcing a wildcat referendum while proving to her own supporters that she has gone as far as she can (plus a dollop of grievance).
I think the opposition parties missed a trick by even acknowledging the statement. I would have just asked her about drugs deaths, ferries, whatever and, if challenged, just say its a waste of time to discuss something that is probably unlawful. Otherwise, really push for the Lord Advocate to come to parliament and explain her thinking, or even demand that she gives her own opinion on its legality (or why she hasn't been consulted on the substance of the issue).
The only thing I haven't seen others comment on is the naming of a date. That is the only thing that could tip some momentum into indyref2, particularly if the court decision takes a while. I can't really put into words why - it just makes it feel more real, and had people in my office talking (why not September like last time? etc).
@haynesdeborah BREAKING: The leaders of Turkey, Sweden & Finland have just signed a memorandum for the two Nordic states to join NATO, removing a Turkish block to the accession process, a source said. “It’s a three-way agreement on accession,” the source said. @jensstoltenberg to make statement
"Trump, basically a one-man response team for himself, is going after Hutchinson on his social media site, Truth Social. He's using a familiar tack, that he hardly knows "who this person, Cassidy Hutchinson, is." "
Well, well - look at what is in the Public Appointments Newsletter.
The interesting thing is that the last full-time one Tom Winsor retired in April. Andy Cooke is now the head, a former chief of Liverpool police. It is not entirely clear from the role profile whether he is leaving or not. And why would he leave so soon after being appointed?
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary – Her Majesty’s Inspector Constabulary / Inspector of Fire & Rescue Authorities in England
HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services is an independent body that inspects and reports to the public on the efficiency and effectiveness of police forces in England and Wales, fire and rescue authorities in England and national law enforcement agencies.
➢ Location: Various ➢ Time commitment :37 hours per week ➢ ClosingDate:17/07/2022
Comments
As long as the SNP are completely dominant, this issue needs to be addressed, not hidden from.
There are worse things in the world than a short term row, an amicable divorce (or a renewal of vows) and an ongoing lifelong friendship.
If unionism doesnt want to make the case, what does unionism think will happen eventually?
The government certainly needs to get proactive for the Union. It does not need to yield every time the SNP demands a referendum
And I’ve seen players 30 and 40 years ago hit shots as big as the current ones. Frankly, it’s more the licence to play the shots that’s changed.
“He’s been a person of grievance for as long as I’ve known him. Resentment, grievance, anger."
I cannot speak as to Thomas, and no doubt she will be pilloried for saying it, but I think we all know people like that. They do exist.
He literally couldn't do the Brexit referendum in the same way as the AV one as the terms of departure needed to be negotiated with the EU, and the EU simply wasn't going to do that simply in order to facilitate a referendum that Cameron wanted to hold purely in order to appease a wing of his party. With AV, it was pretty easy - it's not even that complex a bit of legislation, and we have AV in several types of election, so they cut and paste that and added a simple go/don't go provision.
But the Brexit referendum could never just "trigger" a predefined thing. At most, it could have required Article 50 to be triggered, either immediately or within a defined period. But that doesn't answer the question of what Brexit would look like - and, indeed, when Article 50 was triggered there was no clarity over the eventual outcome.
One thing that could have been there was a double referendum (if you vote to Leave, we'll negotiate it and have a confirmatory referendum when a deal is in place). Of course that's what some Remainers later argued for. But Cameron had excluded it for a reason - he'd both have been criticised for it by the right, and it would have made a Brexit vote more likely. Ultimately, he lost his referendum and his job anyway, and the fact a confirmatory referendum had not been part of it from the start meant that arguing for one later understandably felt to a lot of people like purely a way to reverse what a majority had voted for.
But the question is not so much for me if they will not yield - they are definitely not going to, for reasons of practicality (it's risky) and perhaps principle (they had their chance) - but whether they have other plans besides a waiting game.
Whether it happens or not I will be very sad but fully understand if Scotland decides to vote "Yes".
The vile Tories, especially the disingenuous fat fornicator will be ones held responsible for the breakup of the UK.
This is somewhat more sensible. Yes her idea is to crank up moral pressure. Might work - but might not. She might galvanise tactical voting against her and actually lose seats in 2024. Then what?
Suddenly she has no mandate at all
If her gamble does pay off it will probably be PM Starmer who will be dealing with Sturgeon’s demands. I wonder what Sir Beer will do
He won’t want to lose a referendum either. Because it really will fuck the UK economy for a decade, for a start
‘Watch the mono block!’
But technique really have evolved. Its a very different way of thinking, and behind it, is the idea not only that the pure strike goes the distance, but that the slight mishit also goes. Liam Livingstone did a good bit with Kevin Pietersen and KP admitted that the game just have moved on leaps and bounds from even when he revolutionised T20. Livingstone was very clear he is constantly working on the ability to hit the ball so far beyond the boundary that mishits don't matter, they still go for 6 and that Jos Butler had been instrumental in showing him how wrists come into play (very like hitting a golf ball) and that had added a large amount of distance to his strikes.
The idea Scottish independence would lead to a future love in with England is ludicrous, it would be as bitter a divorce as Brexit was from the EU, if not worse given the even closer ties
The AV referendum was confirmation of a piece of legislation agreed by both Houses of Parliament, sent to the People and with no further permissions required. If the People had voted to enact the Act of Parliament, it would have been enacted.
The UK leaving the EU, and Scotland leaving the UK, are not simply Bills to be enacted, but require processes to be fulfilled and negotiations to be had, with thirds parties, after the vote.
"It seems that every large city in America has marked off a neighbourhood where drug addicts are free to die in the streets. San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, downtown Portland, Skid Row in Los Angeles, Hunts Point in New York, Kensington in Philadelphia: These are places where, by unspoken agreement between society and its outcasts, the normal rules cease to apply and the bodies are collected.
Where it’s warm enough, people sleep in tents or on the streets. Drugs and sex are openly sold and laws are enforced erratically. The result, which I observed during a 2019 trip to Skid Row, was a “hellish concentration of deprivation and disorder”, interspersed with a concentrated complex of non-profit and social service organisations."
https://unherd.com/2022/06/harm-reduction-has-captured-america/
Yes, it would be a truly bitter divorce. It would make Brexit look like a modest prank, soon forgotten
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2022/06/28/bbc-pays-damages-whistleblower-smeared-martin-bashirs-princess/
Slightly fluky.
PERHAPS it could be stipulated by all sides, that issue of Scottish independence can be definitively settled for the rest of the 21st century via a mass Anglo-Caledonian paint-ball battle-royal held in the former Debatable Lands?
25 local authorities in England and Wales have seen significant drops in their communities.
Kensington and Chelsea, the smallest borough in London, had the biggest population fall – down 9.6% – and it was followed by Westminster, down 6.9%
Ceredigion, a county in the west of Wales, took the next-biggest hit with 5.8%, before Copeland in Cumbria, 5%, and the Isles of Scilly, 4.7%.
Camden is the only other London borough which saw a population decrease, of 4.6%, whilst Wales’ second-largest city Swansea went down by 0.2%.
In fact, almost a third of local authorities in Wales – seven out of 22 – saw a drop in population.
https://metro.co.uk/2022/06/28/map-shows-areas-with-biggest-population-decrease-in-england-and-wales-16905856
Suddenly Nicola will be praying Boris keeps refusing, and Boris will be tempted to take the risk
If it went over 60:40 NO he probably would risk it
He needs to make way as much as Canis Major.
He’ll be stripped of his 2022 paddock pass though, once F1 has seen a formal translation of his comments.
There’s potentially an annoying double-meaning of the word “Neguinho” in Portuguese. It could mean a young friend, but Hamilton and Piquet don’t know each other as friends. The alternate meaning is as offensive as the N-word.
The context is, that ‘Max had the corner and the “Neguinho” “kept it in” so they crashed’.
Remember that the guy is Max Verstappen’s father-in-law.
It made me question whether America was any longer a first world country.
It was as made (if not worse) than I'd seen in Africa.
* plus other cities putting all their problem cases on one way buses to the likes of Portland who at one point promised to home all the homeless.
Skid Row has been about for donkeys years, and Tenderloin has been iffy for a long time, but its much bigger now and downtown Portland 10 years ago was a cool funky Shoreditch type place, all hipster, indy stores. Now if the ANTIFA nutters aren't smashing the place up, its full of whacked out druggies.
Maybe it's time for a Mrs May comeback to save the Union!
https://twitter.com/mathieuvonrohr/status/1541839391164882944
And I guess I'll just have to go on cursing the tyre blow out on lap 64 of the 1986 Australian Grand Prix then lol!
One guy I feel sorry for is the one who left a major team to join the US F1 team in 2009. He uprooted his family to move over there, and a week or so after he arrived, and before he was due to start work, the project folded...
(*) One died, one get bored after over ten years designing wheels; the other got laid off as part of the cost-cutting. As for the latter: it should be remembered that 'cost-cutting' often means job cuts.
It seeks to set up the following dynamic -
"Look we've won a landslide for this. Let's sit down and talk turkey, thrash out the separation deal."
"No way. You have no authority here Nicola Sturgeon."
"Landslide majority. One policy, Sindy. So let's talk Sindy."
"No. And don't call me Cindy. The GE gives no mandate for independence. You need a Referendum first."
"We don't."
"You do."
Dong follows ding follows dong follows ding.
"Look, you cannot declare independence without first winning a Referendum, end of."
Sturgeon caves ...
"OK. Referendum it is. When should we have it? Year from now or a bit sooner?"
If we get Labour after 2024 then they probably won't budge either, even if the SNP hold the balance of power in the Commons, unless it become obvious that public opinion concerning a rematch has shifted (though they'll nonetheless try to defuse the situation with the offer of yet more powers, as if that ever makes anything better.)
But anyway, que sera, sera.
- Cleveland Police in 2019
- Greater Manchester Police at the end of 2020
- 2022: The Met - not before time.
Perhaps there is something rotten in police culture more widely.
So am reposting this - from Jan 2020: they should have listened to me then.
https://www7.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2020/01/17/a-toxic-culture/
Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUsKes3eQjE
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61971428
What would make that fascinating is how it drives voters. If Bonzo remains PM there is *no way* that pro-union anti-Tories would vote Tory to remove the SNP. Both are completely unpalatable. So if we're going to see some wild tactical vote swings in that election to GTTO it could be even crazier up here.
And there's the question of how a woman got to accept a trophy from a sheikh at an Arab GP, and why if some woman had not, the race would not have gone ahead.
And you might ask what happened here:
https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/4695748.williams-f1-boss-races-thank-fire-crew/
(But all these are, of course, all my own invention. I don't want to get OGH in trouble.)
There a rumour of one F1 team having to pay hundreds of people to do nothing for the next six months, because they overspent their budget cap this year. If anyone needs a team of aeronautical engineers with brilliant computers and wind tunnels, apply to a Mr Horner of Milton Keynes.
There are a host of contested races further down the ballot, including a vote that will determine the Democratic gubernatorial nominee’s running mate.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/28/new-york-primaries-00042609
Here’s a look at what’s worth watching as the results start rolling in a little after 9 p.m. Tuesday. As you can see, most questions raised pertain to governor's race, where incumbent Karen Hochul, elevated from Lieutenant Governor by disgraced Gov. Andrew Cuomo's resignation is seeking to win nomination for a full term of her own. Note that in NY State, Gov & Lt Gov nominees are chosen separately in primaries, but run as a ticket in general elections.
1. Will Suozzi or Williams pull off a stunner [for Dem nomination for governor vs Gov. Hochul]?
"The first results that come in on election night are usually those from New York City. So it would be difficult to imagine a path for Suozzi in which he doesn’t win moderate Staten Island and all but impossible to imagine one for Williams without a big win in Brooklyn, his home borough."
2. If Hochul wins, how big is the margin?
". . . Cuomo . . . received 65.5 percent of the vote against actor Cynthia Nixon in 2018 and 62.9 percent in a three-way primary in 2014."
3. Does Zeldin hold on [for Rep nomination for gov vs Giuliani the Younger]?
". . . Giuliani is well-positioned thanks in part to his universally-recognizable last name. Zeldin has already spent more than nearly any other Republican candidate for any office in New York in the past two decades, but not quite as much in the homestretch as Wilson, who has self funded most of his campaign."
4. Does Hochul keep her lieutenant governor [Delgado] on the ballot [vs two Dem challengers for Lt Gov]?
"The most open statewide race on the ballot on Tuesday may just be the contest to be the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor."
5. Which party is more enthused?
"There’s one prediction that can be made for Tuesday’s races in New York: Turnout will be lackluster. . . .
Even if turnout’s low, it will provide the best barometer to date for how enthused the bases of each party are heading into the November elections. And it will also provide one of the first data points nationally in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade."
6. Do socialists gain in the Assembly?
". . .the left is making a concerted effort to grow . . . bloc this year."
7. When will the races be called?
"A close race for either party could be determined by the results from the two swing counties on Long Island. . . And the boards of elections in Nassau and Suffolk counties are notorious for often slowly posting results. . . . There’s a potential for even longer delays in a race that’s closer than that."
I would be open for a *small* inflation adjustment. Or saying that any overspend this year has to be 'paid off' over the next two years - to keep the show on the road and avoid an Indy 2005-style situation.
Openness is key. The smaller teams have had to deal with real budgets for years. I can't really feel sorry for the larger teams when they suddenly discover that money matters.
Trust me: go and look for yourself. You'll see what I mean. It's off the scale.
It was the only time in my life I felt genuinely left-wing, which as I'm sure you can appreciate meant it was a disturbing experience in more ways than one.
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1541830738210967552
Will the Republic defend itself from its own end by finally getting Trump locked up?
Democracy in US on the very brink.
Lots of pb regulars have argued on here for reductions (some very serious reductions) in the legal abortion limit in the UK in a way over the last few days they weren't doing last week or before.
It makes me wonder how much of our famed values really are engrained in us or simply a function of social proof.
BREAKING: The leaders of Turkey, Sweden & Finland have just signed a memorandum for the two Nordic states to join NATO, removing a Turkish block to the accession process, a source said.
“It’s a three-way agreement on accession,” the source said. @jensstoltenberg to make statement
https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1541850166390669313
There are two Senedd members right now I'd give the time of day to - Elin Jones and Rhun ab Iorwerth.
The rest - rubbish.
Oh and @Cyclefree you asked why Drakeford wants to ban tea and coffee for children. It's because he's a stupid, smug bellend who would be out of his depth running Garth Parish Council.
Jonathon Haidt warns in this week's New Statesman that America is now the ghost of the future of western democracy unless we learn the lessons of Trump and his use of social media.
We have been warned.
Bypassing the Scottish courts and the Lord Advocate is smart, and it will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court responds, perhaps by sitting in Edinburgh? If, as most people think, they don't allow it to go forward, she retains her reputation for competence and professionalism by not forcing a wildcat referendum while proving to her own supporters that she has gone as far as she can (plus a dollop of grievance).
I think the opposition parties missed a trick by even acknowledging the statement. I would have just asked her about drugs deaths, ferries, whatever and, if challenged, just say its a waste of time to discuss something that is probably unlawful. Otherwise, really push for the Lord Advocate to come to parliament and explain her thinking, or even demand that she gives her own opinion on its legality (or why she hasn't been consulted on the substance of the issue).
The only thing I haven't seen others comment on is the naming of a date. That is the only thing that could tip some momentum into indyref2, particularly if the court decision takes a while. I can't really put into words why - it just makes it feel more real, and had people in my office talking (why not September like last time? etc).
I'd like to know what
bung Erdogan gotwhat arrangement was reached, but I did say I always thought he would fold on this."Trump, basically a one-man response team for himself, is going after Hutchinson on his social media site, Truth Social. He's using a familiar tack, that he hardly knows "who this person, Cassidy Hutchinson, is." "
NY Time blog
The interesting thing is that the last full-time one Tom Winsor retired in April. Andy Cooke is now the head, a former chief of Liverpool police. It is not entirely clear from the role profile whether he is leaving or not. And why would he leave so soon after being appointed?
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary – Her Majesty’s Inspector Constabulary / Inspector of Fire & Rescue Authorities in England
HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services is an independent body that inspects and reports to the public on the efficiency and effectiveness of police forces in England and Wales, fire and rescue authorities in England and national law enforcement agencies.
➢ Location: Various
➢ Time commitment :37 hours per week
➢ ClosingDate:17/07/2022