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A 33% return in just under two and a half years? – politicalbetting.com
A 33% return in just under two and a half years? – politicalbetting.com
I’ve generally avoided betting on all things related to a future Scottish independence referendum because back in 2014 I genuinely expected the issue had been settled for a generation and didn’t fancy tying my money up for decades.
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1.28 Liz Truss 78%
4.7 Rishi Sunak 21%
Next Conservative leader
1.26 Liz Truss 79%
4.8 Rishi Sunak 21%
Liz Truss seemed to look over to Rishi before coming forward. It may be that whoever moved first prompted the other. Is it a good way to choose a prime minister? Probably not.
If either Truss or Sunak fall before the GE I suspect it will be a coronation of Wallace.
It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.
The China apologists need to explain one thing. First some context.
By reputable accounts, the CCP had known about this viral outbreak since Oct 2019 (Leon correct my dates?), when data was seized by the lab and participants in the International Military Games in Wuhan described a state of lockdown (some of those participants returned to Europe with what turned out to be covid-19). Let’s be generous to the Chinese government and say instead they didn’t get a proper grasp until Nov 2019, which is when US intelligence reports first started reporting internally that a mass viral outbreak has changed life and business flows in Wuhan.
In 2020, Chinese New Year fell early, in the final week of Jan. At a time when China was making secret preparations for an unprecedented military lockdown of their entire country and constructing battlefield hospitals to prepare for mass infections of a disease they knew was aerosolised, extreme diplomatic was being applied to maintain air routes to the world not just out of China but out of Wuhan itself.
I remember that week being stunned to learn that there were still 10 daily flights to my city from Wuhan China and was told by embarrassed locals that nothing could be done because China was too powerful. It was not until a full month later on 25th Feb that the first person to person transmission was formally reported in Italy (though of course it had occurred much earlier). So the question:
WHY DID THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY INSIST ON MAINTAINING OPEN AIR ROUTES FROM WUHAN TO THE WORLD WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY PREPARING MARTIAL
LAW AT HOME??
This question needs to be answered whether the virus came from a cave, a lab, a wet market or some combination. Because the answer is plain to me. China knew it was fekked, it had tried to keep a lid on the virus for months and had failed. And because the economic damage was going to be so great, it had to be certain that the rest of the world would suffer to the same level. I consider this to be the greatest act of warfare in history.
It's possible to believe that the lab was the source of the virus, without believing that China committed an act of biologically warfare. And vice versa.
Confusing the two issues is what Trump was doing to deflect from his own failures, but it makes discussion of the two separate questions more difficult and complicated.
If Independence wins with 1.5 million votes to 500k against, a turnout of roughly 47%, where would that lead us?
On Covid and China, I think we might be assuming too much competence in the Government of China! Either that or they completely failed to recognise the significance of the outbreak worldwide!
What bothers me about the Supreme Court is they seem to be more concerned about what people think than about what the law is. Their prorogation ruling was bizarre. Even if you accept their, to put it mildly, novel interpretation of case law, the way they expressed themselves was outrageous. It was simply not true to say 'it was as though the officers were holding a blank piece of paper.' Although they established a new point of law with their ruling, nobody had ever previously disputed that the monarch has the power to prorogue parliament for any length of time, although by convention the periods were short. But because they personally disapproved and so did many influential backers they redid the whole thing, nastily.
As for Shamima Begum, armed with the Bangladeshi statement that she was not entitled to Bangladeshi citizenship they should clearly have struck down the Home Office action but, allegedly because they were unnerved by the backlash to prorogation, they did not.
And I'm not a big fan of terrorists, or of Dominic Cummings' stupid games which he played for reasons of outsize ego rather than in the national interest. But I'm even more uneasy about courts that think laws are less important than their personal prejudices.
About the only good thing to say on the Supreme Court is that they're not as bad as SCOTUS.
Mine is the most serious charge. They are not unrelated because one might help to explain the other. If it was a virus that came from the gain of function research in the lab, it would explain why they were so coy for months and didn’t let on what they knew until it was too late. When really this should have been an international emergency in Oct 2019.
It’s also a failing of US intelligence / policy making orders of magnitude worse than 9/11. But given how most people brushed aside Trump’s evidence even after the event, just imagine how it would have been treated in Q4 2019? I mean hell, most people in Europe and even on here didn’t believe Joe Biden when he said Russia was going to launch a full invasion of Ukraine.
Imagine a news station that brought Farage and Morgan together? We'd know if they did as the world disappeared into a black hole created by their concentrated ANGER.
As a retired person, who has no need to go out and earn a living, I am constantly surprised at the amount of time some of my still working colleagues on here can apparently spend watching TV. Even news programmes!
My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
Advisory.
Read more here - free to read 🔓
https://www.newstatesman.com/quickfire/2022/07/return-boris-johnson-prime-minister
So, there could well be a "legally authorised" referendum, if the Supreme Court take the opinion poll view.
I'm unclear as to the role of the Electoral Commission, and whether that is a reserved non-ministerial body? Tory LAs could also refuse to cooperate, or voter boycott, but the ref would still be "legally authorised".
Mr. L, ironic, given Scotland actually has devolution. The democratic deficit is yawning chasm where an English Parliament should be.
Still, I see Labour's plan to kill nationalism stone dead is going just swimmingly.
If not, wouldn't giving a view on the substantive matter on a premature reference just encourage more references to the court?
(Morning all)
If that threshold was met, then there could be no dispute that there had been a change of sentiment in Scotland and independence should be granted.
Sturgeon might accept it too as she could campaign for 'Yes' with a clear conscience knowing it would be most unlikely to happen.
Since SC precedent in Miller already ruled that referenda are advisory and can not change the constitution or law, only Parliament can do that, a referendum would not by itself be changing anything which is reserved.
As to the second point, I'm not so sure. The ability to hold an advisory referendum might fall within Scot Gov's competency.
Are the SC to rule that that was wrong and the order wasn't needed?
They're quite capable of it, but it would be a somewhat novel approach.
What the Court can do now is say that they will not accept such references in future for this reason but also decide the substantive matter. In my limited experience the SC is slightly less worried about procedural nicities than other Courts and wants to avoid the delays in simply ruling questions premature rather than actually dealing with the substance.
The UK Government argued that is impossible. The court have apparently agreed to ponder the question.
In related news, there is a column in The Times today speculating that this kamikaze scheme is Nippy's retirement plan.
Eck resigned after losing the Indyref, she can resign after losing this one.
If there is a bill passed through Parliament (or the Scottish Parliament) to hold a referendum then that would have "legal force", it would be the law of the land.
However a referendum has no more legal force than the mere holding of the referendum. It doesn't change the law, or the constitution, or any reserved matters, it simply asks the question and gets the answer - what politicians in Parliament do about it afterwards remains reserved for them.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/07/26/tory-party-seems-have-death-wish/
Pearson thinks - like a few of us on here - that there is likely to be another leadership election soon. The membership didn't want either of them.
I'm not aware of any UK referendum that has not been treated as binding. But there have been so many, that I may have missed one.
Just because there wasn't a dispute from any council about holding the Brexit referendum is irrelevant and the authorising body is a different argument to legal effect.
My sense is you're simply not keen on the Scottish Parliament getting ideas above it's station.
Patel as Home Secretary would swing the dial to Starmer of course as would Cabinet appearances by Rees Mogg Gonads or Braverman.
But we're searching for scraps. Nationalisation doesn't score points and when it comes to flying the biggest and most flags I'd call it a dead heat.
We should learn from Brexit though and know the terms of separation in advance of the vote, rather than interminable discussions afterwards. People need to know what they are voting on, rather than unicorns frolicking on sunlit uplands.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukrainians-sign-petition-give-citizenship-pm-role-uks-johnson-2022-07-26/
Not sure how she can go from that to saying “oh this isn’t a very good referendum but it will do for breaking up the UK after 300 years”
LOL
But the argument is, does the Scottish Parliament have the power to hold a non-binding referendum on a subject outside its competence and force councils to take part spending money they don't really have on something they don't want to do?
Whereas nobody disputed Brexit was in the competence of the UK Parliament.
I don't see a contradiction there.
That's the problem of having 2 different groups of people voting separately.
This is more like a situation where trustees or, say, an arbitrator can refer a question of law to the Court and ask for guidance. It is then up to the court to decide whether they are minded to grant that guidance or not.
In a fairly recent case the SC held that it was not competent for the Scottish Parliament to adopt a UN Convention relating to children into the law without the consent of the UK government because that Convention imposed obligations on the UK government that they had not agreed to. The Court made it clear that it was not good enough that those obligations might in practice be construed in a narrow way consistent with the existing law. Even the possibility that the Convention might impinge on a reserved matter was sufficient to make it incompetent. That logic seems to me to lead to the conclusion that a consultative vote on a constitutional matter might impinge on a reserved matter but other views are available.
I don't know why you're so determined to convince yourself that Starmer is no different to Truss?
There’s more chance of Larry the cat getting becoming NATO Chief .
However, since Islamic terrorism would continue even if it were resolved, and since there is no way Britain can either influence any solution or impose one, you are right in practice that we should keep it out of national political debate.
So if a referendum is only advisory (which Miller says it is) then would an advisory referendum directly change or affect any reserved matters? Not really, no.
If it does not affect any reserved matters should it be allowed? Yes.
Just because the Scottish Parliament doesn't have competence for handling the aftermath of the referendum doesn't mean a referendum itself is verboten.
The MPs don't.
That is likely to be a problem.
Meanwhile...
🧵After the debate entourages had left Stoke yesterday we carried out a focus group to find out what local residents thought about it all. I’ve written for @timesredbox today on why I think some commentators in SW1 have been misreading the race. (1/n) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/from-stoke-voters-see-a-very-different-leadership-race-53kgqlncn
The point of the paper is not to demonstrate how the virus arose, but rather a detailed genetic and geographical analysis of the earliest documented cases, which places constraints on hypotheses about how it originated.
It makes the 'it was evolved in a lab' theory that you were declaring proven look much less likely.
In the first case the public would notice little day to day difference. In the second case the England Scotland border would have the same exciting status as that between Bulgaria and Turkey or Lithuania and Kaliningrad.
While Scotland is part of the UK there is no possibility at all of knowing what the EU will require of Scotland for membership. But the island of Ireland situation tells us in advance that situational flexibility is not always the strongest point of the various parties.
For those, like me, who cross the England/Scotland border all the time and live near it, this matters.
There will be another white paper from SG promising the Unicorns, like last time (they are already doing so, paper by paper), and UK Gov will produce another Brexit-style "end-of-the-world" pamphlet at taxpayer expense.
In America, it's the other way around. But rather fortunately for Scotland at this moment, it isn't in America.
The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed
Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”
It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago
The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
I spectacularly underestimated just how big a wanker Trump was.
If the pro-EU said had refused to engage that would have made things very weird and difficult if/when Leave won.
What if it had been 80% Leave on a 35% turnout?
But, both sides participated and said it mattered and then voted for it in Parliament.
Charles Walker, a former longstanding vice-chair of the 1922 Committee, which oversees the rules for internal party no-confidence votes and leadership elections, said the contest “should have got nowhere near” the 180,000 Tory grassroots activists who will decide Boris Johnson’s replacement in just over a month.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/26/strip-tory-members-of-power-to-pick-prime-minister-demands-senior-mp?CMP=share_btn_tw
https://www.supremecourt.uk/news/reference-by-the-lord-advocate-to-the-supreme-court-28-june.html
FWIW the prospect of success by the Scottish government is zero. This is using courts for a purely political end.
The whole issue of Scotland and England repeating the EU dilemma of the island of Ireland, now knowing how intractable the EU is is over these things, is too awful to contemplate.
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble
If I stay there will be double
If you can find any other proof they have, do show me
I have never said lab leak is proven I’ve always said “we will likely never know for sure”. It’s too late. I have said that - to my mind - lab leak is 95% certain thanks to overwhelming circumstantial evidence, but who knows
The preprint of this over-hyped paper - which you eagerly touted on here - was shredded within 48 hours (hence the huge changes in this new text). Let’s see what happens in the coming days
If it emerges unscathed then I might reweigh my probabilities. But I am not optimistic for them. The people who co-wrote this paper - Rasmussen, Andersen, etc - are exactly the same people who tried to shoot down lab leak from the beginning as a “racist conspiracy” or “vanishingly unlikely” - from day one
Andersen is particularly egregious. He wrote the much scorned Nature paper “proximal origins”. A laughable character