I'm getting to the point where I wish the bloody aliens just turn up and introduce themselves as transgender aliens who started COVID, just to shut Leon up.
You are free to scroll past my comments. Or you could interject with your own interesting thoughts about other things, but I see your problem there
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
SNP have done sod all, if they had done anything you'd be able to point out achievements
Says the PB Scotch expert. You Labourites are just as bad as your Tory buddies.
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
SNP have done sod all, if they had done anything you'd be able to point out achievements
Says the PB Scotch expert. You Labourites are just as bad as your Tory buddies.
Queensferry Crossing
Child Payment Baby Box
Free bus travel for under 22s
Free period products
Dentistry charges scrapped
Music tuition fees scrapped
Best Performing NHS in the UK
Extended free personal care
Record high health funding
A dozen new Social Security benefits
Free school meals for P1-3s
Best performing A&E in the UK
Record high investment in education
Declared a climate emergency - 1st in world
Planting 22 million trees a year
Scottish National Investment Bank
Building more affordable homes
Small Business Bonus
Expanded MA scheme
Expanded EMAS
School Clothing Grant
Young Person's Guarantee
Investing more in life sciences
Free eye tests
Record support for college students
New progressive tax system
Carer's Allowance Supplement
Record low crime - lowest in over 40 years
Young Carer Grant
Violence Reduction Unit
Record investment in active travel
Best Start Grant
Aberdeen Bypass
Driving forward land reform
Lowering emissions
More investment in Climate Justice Fund
National Islands Plan
Community Empowerment Act
National Marine Plan
Helping deliver COP26
Outperforming UK on foreign investment
Continuing to outperform UK on productivity
Delivering Equally Safe Fund
First gender neutral cabinet in the UK
Keeping Scottish Water in public hands
Ferguson's shipyard jobs saved
BiFab saved
Prestwick Airport saved
Violent crime down
Weapon/knife crime significantly down
Handling the Covid crisis
What have the Romans done for us?
At least they weren't woke.
You sure? Even bloody tables were declared female. Edit: more precisely, 'feminine'. Though they had a neuter gender as well. Would be useful today.
I'm getting to the point where I wish the bloody aliens just turn up and introduce themselves as transgender aliens who started COVID, just to shut Leon up.
You are free to scroll past my comments. Or you could interject with your own interesting thoughts about other things, but I see your problem there
Yes, the oddity is filtered out before you can notice it. That's my point (albeit slightly inexact, I admit)
And completely the wrong point.
The point of the experiment is not that you see the gorilla, and think it is a player, it's that you don't see the gorilla at all.
If the question was "count the players" you would spot the gorilla instantly. But it's not.
Count the passes. No gorilla catches a pass. No gorilla appears on the court (as far as you can tell)
No, my point is subtler than that. Sometimes when I look at the Calvine photo I get a version of the Gorilla Effect. I simply don't see the UFO at all. I see a rock in a loch
Yet other times I look at it and I think: WTF is that thing in the sky, and why was I filtering it out before?
Another analogy is with the infamous blue/gold coloured dress
The problem isn't the Tory party, its the voters. People want contradictory things but refuse to accept there is a contradiction. A series of events have empowered them to believe their genuine ignorance on a subject holds the same weight as actual knowledge and experience. They aren't wrong, the experts are wrong.
There is a way through though - find us a new Blair or Thatcher, someone who does know what they are talking about and has political umph. People said "that is Boris" but as all but the remaining holdouts now accept Boris stood for nothing, with no great policies delivered and settled in his time.
Ummm, BoZo was the politician more than any other in my lifetime that told voters they could have contradictory things. Denied the contradictions. That experts were to be derided.
He was the problem
The fact his opponents failed to make their case shows how poor they were
Not entirely.
If you are in a debate with someone shameless and dishonest enough, it can be really hard to persuade an audience.
It tends to go this;
BORIS-ALIKE Something involving cake and eat it
RORY-ALIKE (because he at least tried) That's not possible- once you have eaten your cake, it's gone...
BORIS-ALIKE There you go, with your doomy gloomy negativity. Remember we are Great Britain! We are being held back by your fears... (Continues ad nauseum.)
Boris style cakeism is a really attractive prospectus. It's awfully hard to argue against, because deep down we want it to be true, and want to believe that there's some meanie stopping it being true for us. That's been the case since the apple/snake/Eve fiasco in Genesis.
It would have been better for the UK had someone successfully argued us out of Borisism, but I'm not convinced that was possible.
It would have been better for the Conservatives and the UK to have not fallen for Borisism, but that required human nature to be something it isn't.
The culpability for (gestures round) all of this belongs with the clique who proposed it, who lied to the public about it, who smeared and deposed those who questioned it.
Not particularly with those who fell for it, and certainly not with those who did their best to argue against it.
Unless you had a better plan to argue against Boris, in which case I'm all ears.
And unless he didn't vote for the Conservatives when Mr Johnson was their leader.
I want to make this clear
I supported Johnson on brexit, covid and Ukraine but he lost me from Paterson onwards
Starmer would have had our economy in lockdown forever if he could, and it is to Johnson's credit he opened the economy when he did
That's a very silly thing to write. Starmer wanted us "in lockdown forever"?
Profoundly stupid read of the situation that isn't worthy of yours usual sage analysis.
Forever is a stretch, but Starmer was ALWAYS on the side of more and longer restrictions.
I accept forever was one of my rather exaggerated comments but there is no doubt Starmer favoured a much stricter and longer lockdown and it was Johnson who made the correct decision and it has been proven as the right thing to do
It is rather hot and I apologise for my exaggeration
Boris caused longer lockdowns by always being slow to initiate a lockdown. Had we acted promptly, we would have better controlled infection rates and could’ve come out of lockdown sooner. It’s yet more short term thinking.
Oh what nonsense. Claimed by people who want to justify lockdowns. Taking away civil liberties as a precautionary measure is unacceptable and the virus would still be prevalent on our continent after any lockdown it wasn't a magic pill that would get rid of it.
What country in Europe successfully had a short, sharp lockdown that was rapidly ended and not repeated?
I can in hindsight point at a country and say we should have done that, Sweden. Can you name any country that had a rapid premature lockdown that worked, fixed things and meant coming out of lockdown sooner?
Following the Swedish model would have been utterly catastrophic. Look at their death rates compared to their immediate neighbours. Thousands of additional people died in Sweden who did not need to because of the route they chose. And that is in spite of the fact that far more people in Sweden work from home anyway so the effects of a lockdown would have been considerably less on their economy.
Many - if not all - European countries got their policies wrong in the pandemic in one way or another. Sweden is certainly no exception.
The thousands of lives saved are people in institutions. If anything like the rest of Europe, these are places where most people have dementia and nobody is coming out alive. To sacrifice everyone's wellbeing for two years is an excessive price to pay for nursing home safety.
A completely false statement. Most of those who died were not people living in nursing homes. Of course if you are advocating just killing off older people to save money then you are welcome to make that claim but you will be treated with the contempt you deserve.
Not simply to save money. And nobody is proposing euthanasia, anyone who dies from a virus is dying from natural causes.
The NHS has never had a blank cheque and nor should it, as even others agree already.
If the cost of keeping one elderly and vulnerable person from having a death from entirely natural causes is ten million pounds and taking a thousand children out of education for six months then is it worthy of "contempt" to question whether that is an acceptable price?
If you go out when infectious, because principles and libertarianism, and someome catches the bug off you and dies, is that 'natural'?
The problem isn't the Tory party, its the voters. People want contradictory things but refuse to accept there is a contradiction. A series of events have empowered them to believe their genuine ignorance on a subject holds the same weight as actual knowledge and experience. They aren't wrong, the experts are wrong.
There is a way through though - find us a new Blair or Thatcher, someone who does know what they are talking about and has political umph. People said "that is Boris" but as all but the remaining holdouts now accept Boris stood for nothing, with no great policies delivered and settled in his time.
Ummm, BoZo was the politician more than any other in my lifetime that told voters they could have contradictory things. Denied the contradictions. That experts were to be derided.
He was the problem
The fact his opponents failed to make their case shows how poor they were
Not entirely.
If you are in a debate with someone shameless and dishonest enough, it can be really hard to persuade an audience.
It tends to go this;
BORIS-ALIKE Something involving cake and eat it
RORY-ALIKE (because he at least tried) That's not possible- once you have eaten your cake, it's gone...
BORIS-ALIKE There you go, with your doomy gloomy negativity. Remember we are Great Britain! We are being held back by your fears... (Continues ad nauseum.)
Boris style cakeism is a really attractive prospectus. It's awfully hard to argue against, because deep down we want it to be true, and want to believe that there's some meanie stopping it being true for us. That's been the case since the apple/snake/Eve fiasco in Genesis.
It would have been better for the UK had someone successfully argued us out of Borisism, but I'm not convinced that was possible.
It would have been better for the Conservatives and the UK to have not fallen for Borisism, but that required human nature to be something it isn't.
The culpability for (gestures round) all of this belongs with the clique who proposed it, who lied to the public about it, who smeared and deposed those who questioned it.
Not particularly with those who fell for it, and certainly not with those who did their best to argue against it.
Unless you had a better plan to argue against Boris, in which case I'm all ears.
And unless he didn't vote for the Conservatives when Mr Johnson was their leader.
I want to make this clear
I supported Johnson on brexit, covid and Ukraine but he lost me from Paterson onwards
Starmer would have had our economy in lockdown forever if he could, and it is to Johnson's credit he opened the economy when he did
That's a very silly thing to write. Starmer wanted us "in lockdown forever"?
Profoundly stupid read of the situation that isn't worthy of yours usual sage analysis.
Forever is a stretch, but Starmer was ALWAYS on the side of more and longer restrictions.
I accept forever was one of my rather exaggerated comments but there is no doubt Starmer favoured a much stricter and longer lockdown and it was Johnson who made the correct decision and it has been proven as the right thing to do
It is rather hot and I apologise for my exaggeration
Boris caused longer lockdowns by always being slow to initiate a lockdown. Had we acted promptly, we would have better controlled infection rates and could’ve come out of lockdown sooner. It’s yet more short term thinking.
Oh what nonsense. Claimed by people who want to justify lockdowns. Taking away civil liberties as a precautionary measure is unacceptable and the virus would still be prevalent on our continent after any lockdown it wasn't a magic pill that would get rid of it.
What country in Europe successfully had a short, sharp lockdown that was rapidly ended and not repeated?
I can in hindsight point at a country and say we should have done that, Sweden. Can you name any country that had a rapid premature lockdown that worked, fixed things and meant coming out of lockdown sooner?
Following the Swedish model would have been utterly catastrophic. Look at their death rates compared to their immediate neighbours. Thousands of additional people died in Sweden who did not need to because of the route they chose. And that is in spite of the fact that far more people in Sweden work from home anyway so the effects of a lockdown would have been considerably less on their economy.
Many - if not all - European countries got their policies wrong in the pandemic in one way or another. Sweden is certainly no exception.
Thousands extra dying, almost all of whom would have died soon anyway, is better than stripping tens of millions of two years of civil liberties, trashing education and development for years that will have consequences for generations to come, spending hundreds of billions and creating NHS waiting lists for years to come.
The price we paid to keep people alive was not a price worth paying. There's more to life than a mortuary league table.
If the vulnerable wishes to shield that should be there prerogative but not at the price of trashing children's education etc
It is not for you to decide who has a right to live and die. I wonder if someone else were making that sort of decision but based on something other than simply age, whether you would be happy to be marked as uneconomic and unworthy of protection. I am sure we could work up a suitable argument as to why you should be sacrificed so we could all save a bit of money.
Is it just me, or do Scot Nats dislike Starmer way more than they did either Milliband or Magic Grandpa? I mean it's not just on PB. Wasn't Tommy Shephard saying some bollocks in the National about how Starmer was the worst Labour leader ever the other day? My guess is because unlike the previous two leaders, they fear Starmer is going to win and get Labour back in office, which they very much don't want.
I, like approx one third of Scots, would prefer a PM Starmer to a PM Truss. If we choose to stay in the Union.
Which of the following do you think would make the best Prime Minister? - Scotland
What makes Starmer so unpalatable, compared to previous Labour leaders, is his ‘Muscular Unionism’. Just another term for bullying.
If I was HY (I am not) I would be telling you that means a Yoon majority of 53%. Let's say accounting for rounding that's 52% plays 48%. Now where have I seen such a compelling case on those numbers?
Hate to tell you, but here’s the VI findings from the same poll 😉
SNP 51% Con 22% Lab 16% LD 5% Grn 4% Ref 1%
Pro-independence parties 55% Unionist parties 44%
So what. Both Truss and Starmer have made clear they will refuse indyref2 and sod all the SNP can do about it unless the Tories win most seats in a hung parliament but Labour and the SNP combined have a majority
Thank you for your novel insight. I’ve never seen that point made before. Very persuasive. Ya twat.
Much like 1 picture from a dalle prompt I want to see the other 5 pictures
The retired RAF press officer, Craig Lindsay - who has kept this image for 30 years - says he has seen all six. He says they are all very similar, except the "object" is in a different place in some
Now, he could easily be a liar and he could easily be part of an elaborate hoax, but that's an odd thing to do at the end of a long career, in your 80s
To channel Mr @moonshine if this is part of Disclosure, it makes bizarre sense. The powers that be are softening us up for the final revelation, but doing it sloooooowly so we don't panic. It has now been happening for several years. Getting retired people to do it is logical, they do not have careers to damage. So maybe Craig Lindsay got a call from the RAF saying "go ahead, you can release it now"
The timing is intriguing
Thr timing being about 25-30 years since the last burst of interst in UFOs, Project Blue Book, Fortean Times type stuff?
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
SNP have done sod all, if they had done anything you'd be able to point out achievements
Says the PB Scotch expert. You Labourites are just as bad as your Tory buddies.
Much like 1 picture from a dalle prompt I want to see the other 5 pictures
The retired RAF press officer, Craig Lindsay - who has kept this image for 30 years - says he has seen all six. He says they are all very similar, except the "object" is in a different place in some
Now, he could easily be a liar and he could easily be part of an elaborate hoax, but that's an odd thing to do at the end of a long career, in your 80s
To channel Mr @moonshine if this is part of Disclosure, it makes bizarre sense. The powers that be are softening us up for the final revelation, but doing it sloooooowly so we don't panic. It has now been happening for several years. Getting retired people to do it is logical, they do not have careers to damage. So maybe Craig Lindsay got a call from the RAF saying "go ahead, you can release it now"
The timing is intriguing
Thr timing being about 25-30 years since the last burst of interst in UFOs, Project Blue Book, Fortean Times type stuff?
Last burst? They seem to have the damned things every few months over in West Lothian. Must be the hillbilly juice they brew there.
Go back and have a look at the Better Together materials. And compare that with your argument now.
I am looking at the result.
In 2014, they voted to stay in the EU.
In 2016, they voted to stay in the EU.
Which result are you disputing?
Not the result - but your interpretation of the 2014 result. In view of it being clear SNP policy to stay in the EU. It ill behoves you to ally with the Brexiters of this world.
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
Do Scottish Labour have anyone of the quality of Mark Drakeford? No wonder Welsh Labour do well and Scottish Labour don’t.
They used to, at least at the top. But not since, I think, Donald Dewar and Wendy Alexander.
I had high hopes for Wendy Alexander. But she didn't really make much of a mark in the role. I don't know enough about internal SLab politics to know if she was being undermined/let-down by rival factions or was just 'not that good'.
That was a long time ago but from memory WA was widely regarded as being stabbed in the back by her friends*. Henry McLeish, her predecessor, was nominally forced out because of subletting his constituency office and forgetting to register it etc. This came out because the story emerged in a newspaper (can't recall which one). Howsoever that happened, as I recall Mr McLeish's leadership did not sit well with certain West Central Belt elements (he being from Fife).
*Edit: partly cos she wanted to take a pro-active approach and declare an indyref early, before the SNP had completely mobilised.
It still baffles me that SLab aren't even that big on Gordon Brown-esque 'Devo Max'. It seems like such an obvious policy play and yet...
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
SNP have done sod all, if they had done anything you'd be able to point out achievements
Says the PB Scotch expert. You Labourites are just as bad as your Tory buddies.
Queensferry Crossing
Child Payment Baby Box
Free bus travel for under 22s
Free period products
Dentistry charges scrapped
Music tuition fees scrapped
Best Performing NHS in the UK
Extended free personal care
Record high health funding
A dozen new Social Security benefits
Free school meals for P1-3s
Best performing A&E in the UK
Record high investment in education
Declared a climate emergency - 1st in world
Planting 22 million trees a year
Scottish National Investment Bank
Building more affordable homes
Small Business Bonus
Expanded MA scheme
Expanded EMAS
School Clothing Grant
Young Person's Guarantee
Investing more in life sciences
Free eye tests
Record support for college students
New progressive tax system
Carer's Allowance Supplement
Record low crime - lowest in over 40 years
Young Carer Grant
Violence Reduction Unit
Record investment in active travel
Best Start Grant
Aberdeen Bypass
Driving forward land reform
Lowering emissions
More investment in Climate Justice Fund
National Islands Plan
Community Empowerment Act
National Marine Plan
Helping deliver COP26
Outperforming UK on foreign investment
Continuing to outperform UK on productivity
Delivering Equally Safe Fund
First gender neutral cabinet in the UK
Keeping Scottish Water in public hands
Ferguson's shipyard jobs saved
BiFab saved
Prestwick Airport saved
Violent crime down
Weapon/knife crime significantly down
Handling the Covid crisis
You're boasting about Ferguson Marine and Prestwick Airport? I mean - seriously?
I note you've missed off Police Scotland and the attempt to kidnap every child in Scotland.
Plus, you may talk about 'record investment' in education, but as with England to put it mildly the concomitant reforms have been - unfortunate.
The truth is the SNP set the blueprint for Johnson's Tories. They have one issue they actually care about and for the rest they randomly throw money at it and boast about the results, regardless of the reality.
And when it goes wrong, they blame nasty foreigners.
Those 'achievements' are a pretty sorry shopping list aren't they. Hopefully they aren't listed by order of importance - number 2 achievement being sending people cardboard boxes in which to deposit their newborns is a bit of a shocker.
Bill Kristol @BillKristol · 3h Impressive foresight on the part of Trump to issue a “standing order” eighteen months ago to declassify the documents the FBI planted this week at Mar-a-Lago.
Much like 1 picture from a dalle prompt I want to see the other 5 pictures
The retired RAF press officer, Craig Lindsay - who has kept this image for 30 years - says he has seen all six. He says they are all very similar, except the "object" is in a different place in some
Now, he could easily be a liar and he could easily be part of an elaborate hoax, but that's an odd thing to do at the end of a long career, in your 80s
To channel Mr @moonshine if this is part of Disclosure, it makes bizarre sense. The powers that be are softening us up for the final revelation, but doing it sloooooowly so we don't panic. It has now been happening for several years. Getting retired people to do it is logical, they do not have careers to damage. So maybe Craig Lindsay got a call from the RAF saying "go ahead, you can release it now"
The timing is intriguing
Thr timing being about 25-30 years since the last burst of interst in UFOs, Project Blue Book, Fortean Times type stuff?
Is it 25-30 years? Dunno
I had almost zero interest in UFOs until @moonshine alerted me to the fact something genuinely odd was happening, UFO-wise, over in America, with ex presidents, CIA chiefs, NASA chiefs, senators, FBI dudes, generals, admirals, and more, all suddenly saying Yeah there is something up there and we don't know what it is
This surreal behaviour remains the most interesting anomalous phenomenon of all, absent a video of an alien buggering an elk
The problem isn't the Tory party, its the voters. People want contradictory things but refuse to accept there is a contradiction. A series of events have empowered them to believe their genuine ignorance on a subject holds the same weight as actual knowledge and experience. They aren't wrong, the experts are wrong.
There is a way through though - find us a new Blair or Thatcher, someone who does know what they are talking about and has political umph. People said "that is Boris" but as all but the remaining holdouts now accept Boris stood for nothing, with no great policies delivered and settled in his time.
Ummm, BoZo was the politician more than any other in my lifetime that told voters they could have contradictory things. Denied the contradictions. That experts were to be derided.
He was the problem
The fact his opponents failed to make their case shows how poor they were
Not entirely.
If you are in a debate with someone shameless and dishonest enough, it can be really hard to persuade an audience.
It tends to go this;
BORIS-ALIKE Something involving cake and eat it
RORY-ALIKE (because he at least tried) That's not possible- once you have eaten your cake, it's gone...
BORIS-ALIKE There you go, with your doomy gloomy negativity. Remember we are Great Britain! We are being held back by your fears... (Continues ad nauseum.)
Boris style cakeism is a really attractive prospectus. It's awfully hard to argue against, because deep down we want it to be true, and want to believe that there's some meanie stopping it being true for us. That's been the case since the apple/snake/Eve fiasco in Genesis.
It would have been better for the UK had someone successfully argued us out of Borisism, but I'm not convinced that was possible.
It would have been better for the Conservatives and the UK to have not fallen for Borisism, but that required human nature to be something it isn't.
The culpability for (gestures round) all of this belongs with the clique who proposed it, who lied to the public about it, who smeared and deposed those who questioned it.
Not particularly with those who fell for it, and certainly not with those who did their best to argue against it.
Unless you had a better plan to argue against Boris, in which case I'm all ears.
And unless he didn't vote for the Conservatives when Mr Johnson was their leader.
I want to make this clear
I supported Johnson on brexit, covid and Ukraine but he lost me from Paterson onwards
Starmer would have had our economy in lockdown forever if he could, and it is to Johnson's credit he opened the economy when he did
That's a very silly thing to write. Starmer wanted us "in lockdown forever"?
Profoundly stupid read of the situation that isn't worthy of yours usual sage analysis.
Forever is a stretch, but Starmer was ALWAYS on the side of more and longer restrictions.
I accept forever was one of my rather exaggerated comments but there is no doubt Starmer favoured a much stricter and longer lockdown and it was Johnson who made the correct decision and it has been proven as the right thing to do
It is rather hot and I apologise for my exaggeration
Boris caused longer lockdowns by always being slow to initiate a lockdown. Had we acted promptly, we would have better controlled infection rates and could’ve come out of lockdown sooner. It’s yet more short term thinking.
Oh what nonsense. Claimed by people who want to justify lockdowns. Taking away civil liberties as a precautionary measure is unacceptable and the virus would still be prevalent on our continent after any lockdown it wasn't a magic pill that would get rid of it.
What country in Europe successfully had a short, sharp lockdown that was rapidly ended and not repeated?
I can in hindsight point at a country and say we should have done that, Sweden. Can you name any country that had a rapid premature lockdown that worked, fixed things and meant coming out of lockdown sooner?
Following the Swedish model would have been utterly catastrophic. Look at their death rates compared to their immediate neighbours. Thousands of additional people died in Sweden who did not need to because of the route they chose. And that is in spite of the fact that far more people in Sweden work from home anyway so the effects of a lockdown would have been considerably less on their economy.
Many - if not all - European countries got their policies wrong in the pandemic in one way or another. Sweden is certainly no exception.
The thousands of lives saved are people in institutions. If anything like the rest of Europe, these are places where most people have dementia and nobody is coming out alive. To sacrifice everyone's wellbeing for two years is an excessive price to pay for nursing home safety.
A completely false statement. Most of those who died were not people living in nursing homes. Of course if you are advocating just killing off older people to save money then you are welcome to make that claim but you will be treated with the contempt you deserve.
Not simply to save money. And nobody is proposing euthanasia, anyone who dies from a virus is dying from natural causes.
The NHS has never had a blank cheque and nor should it, as even others agree already.
If the cost of keeping one elderly and vulnerable person from having a death from entirely natural causes is ten million pounds and taking a thousand children out of education for six months then is it worthy of "contempt" to question whether that is an acceptable price?
If you go out when infectious, because principles and libertarianism, and someome catches the bug off you and dies, is that 'natural'?
Yes.
COVID is part of nature.
If you go out with the sniffles pre COVID and someone catches the bug off you and does, is that natural?
Those 'achievements' are a pretty sorry shopping list aren't they. Hopefully they aren't listed by order of importance - number 2 achievement being sending people cardboard boxes in which to deposit their newborns is a bit of a shocker.
You don't know anything about it, do you? It's a surprisingly popular and useful measure.
Go back and have a look at the Better Together materials. And compare that with your argument now.
I am looking at the result.
In 2014, they voted to stay in the EU.
In 2016, they voted to stay in the EU.
Which result are you disputing?
Not the result - but your interpretation of the 2014 result. In view of it being clear SNP policy to stay in the EU. It ill behoves you to ally with the Brexiters of this world.
It doesn't matter what the SNP policy was. Leaving the UK would have meant leaving the EU. Sure, they could have applied for entry after leaving, but however fast it happened it wouldn't have been instant.
Yes, it is fair to say that the 'No' campaign oversold the likelihood of Britain staying in the EU, but the SNP simply lied. And it wasn't even a clever lie.
That graph is shocking: the poorest 20% in England & her satellite states are going to get absolutely hammered compared to the richest 20%.
While the poor suffer more than the rich nearly everywhere, they are better protected in France, Italy, Germany etc
Isn't the greatest per capita consumption of energy in Scandinavia? I am sure someone will find a graph that shows this. Clearing the roads of snow (for hundreds and hundreds of kilometres) and heating 200-300 sqm houses favoured by the most people through minus 30 degree winters is bound to use up vast amounts of energy, mainly oil and gas. It seems to me like, if you go through Sweden or Finland - which I have done a lot; much of it is actually also suburban sprawl. They have never built to any density because of the unlimited supply of land. This sprawl just goes on for miles. House after house (200-300 sqm) with 3-4 cars. Also... limited use of public transport. So the trains are empty and cost little or nothing to use. And lots are actually diesel. Even busses - massively subsidised and good, but not used all that much .. not on anything like the density in the UK. Because of the disparate suburban planning over the past decades , things like shopping centres and swimming pools are located out of centre. So to get from A to B by bus, even though its possible, it takes an hour to to a journey that takes 15 minutes by car. Outside the progressive cities with new apartment blocks and townhouse style developments, it seems like people are driving everywhere and aspiring to live to these timber framed modernist mansions. I don't see how that can all be improved particularly.
So even if you have redistributive policies in Sweden, it won't correct a more fundamental problem which will take a lot longer to resolve. By contrast, countries like the UK could adopt redistributive policies a lot more quickly and painlessly.
We have PB Scotch Experts. Now we have a PB Swedish Expert telling someone who lives in Sweden what living in Sweden is like. PB, there’s nothing like it!
Yeah, well firstly, you don't know anything about me and what I may or not know about Sweden. Secondly the poster just suggested that the country with the second highest per capita consumption of energy in the EU (IE Sweden) was a good country to be a consumer, when raw energy prices are rising very significantly. It is perfectly reasonable to point out in response that Sweden has an objective problem with consumption, even if the impact may be masked by redistributive policies.
Huh? It wasn’t me who said that, it was The Economist. Hint: click the link.
Yes... but you were agreeing with it. Leaving this aside, I would be interested in your thoughts about energy consumption in Sweden. Am I right or wrong in my basic analysis of the problem?
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
SNP have done sod all, if they had done anything you'd be able to point out achievements
Says the PB Scotch expert. You Labourites are just as bad as your Tory buddies.
Queensferry Crossing
Child Payment Baby Box
Free bus travel for under 22s
Free period products
Dentistry charges scrapped
Music tuition fees scrapped
Best Performing NHS in the UK
Extended free personal care
Record high health funding
A dozen new Social Security benefits
Free school meals for P1-3s
Best performing A&E in the UK
Record high investment in education
Declared a climate emergency - 1st in world
Planting 22 million trees a year
Scottish National Investment Bank
Building more affordable homes
Small Business Bonus
Expanded MA scheme
Expanded EMAS
School Clothing Grant
Young Person's Guarantee
Investing more in life sciences
Free eye tests
Record support for college students
New progressive tax system
Carer's Allowance Supplement
Record low crime - lowest in over 40 years
Young Carer Grant
Violence Reduction Unit
Record investment in active travel
Best Start Grant
Aberdeen Bypass
Driving forward land reform
Lowering emissions
More investment in Climate Justice Fund
National Islands Plan
Community Empowerment Act
National Marine Plan
Helping deliver COP26
Outperforming UK on foreign investment
Continuing to outperform UK on productivity
Delivering Equally Safe Fund
First gender neutral cabinet in the UK
Keeping Scottish Water in public hands
Ferguson's shipyard jobs saved
BiFab saved
Prestwick Airport saved
Violent crime down
Weapon/knife crime significantly down
Handling the Covid crisis
That’s the sort of list you would think a Labour party would want to implement. However, Scottish Labour opposed most of them.
Go back and have a look at the Better Together materials. And compare that with your argument now.
I am looking at the result.
In 2014, they voted to stay in the EU.
In 2016, they voted to stay in the EU.
Which result are you disputing?
Not the result - but your interpretation of the 2014 result. In view of it being clear SNP policy to stay in the EU. It ill behoves you to ally with the Brexiters of this world.
It may have been "SNP policy" to stay in the EU - was it? I just remember the SNP mumbling about it and swiftly moving the question on - but you know full well that a YES vote would have meant instant ejection from the EU, then reapplication by iScotland as a new country, years later, negotiating its own fishing policies, sorting out its new commissioner, its MEPs and so on
The EU is legalistic. Brussels doesn't just shrug and say ah fuck it, a 29th country, whatever, in you come. That's not how accession works. The process would have been painful and technical, and maybe even hostile if Spain was so minded (to teach the Catalans)
That’s the sort of list you would think a Labour party would want to implement. However, Scottish Labour opposed most of them.
I saw a suggestion recently that the UK Government should offer to build the ferries on the Clyde at the shipyard that is currently churning out Royal Navy ships.
If they start now they would still be finished before the SNP ones...
Go back and have a look at the Better Together materials. And compare that with your argument now.
I am looking at the result.
In 2014, they voted to stay in the EU.
In 2016, they voted to stay in the EU.
Which result are you disputing?
Not the result - but your interpretation of the 2014 result. In view of it being clear SNP policy to stay in the EU. It ill behoves you to ally with the Brexiters of this world.
It may have been "SNP policy" to stay in the EU - was it? I just remember the SNP mumbling about it and swiftly moving the question on - but you know full well that a YES vote would have meant instant ejection from the EU, then reapplication by iScotland as a new country, years later, negotiating its own fishing policies, sorting out its new commissioner, its MEPs and so on
The EU is legalistic. Brussels doesn't just shrug and say ah fuck it, a 29th country, whatever, in you come. That's not how accession works. The process would have been painful and technical, and maybe even hostile if Spain was so minded (to teach the Catalans)
Eliding or denying this is beneath you
It was very much the position of the Unionists that voting No to indy was the only way to stay in the EU. And then we had 2016. Which wrecks your argument.
That graph is shocking: the poorest 20% in England & her satellite states are going to get absolutely hammered compared to the richest 20%.
While the poor suffer more than the rich nearly everywhere, they are better protected in France, Italy, Germany etc
Isn't the greatest per capita consumption of energy in Scandinavia? I am sure someone will find a graph that shows this. Clearing the roads of snow (for hundreds and hundreds of kilometres) and heating 200-300 sqm houses favoured by the most people through minus 30 degree winters is bound to use up vast amounts of energy, mainly oil and gas. It seems to me like, if you go through Sweden or Finland - which I have done a lot; much of it is actually also suburban sprawl. They have never built to any density because of the unlimited supply of land. This sprawl just goes on for miles. House after house (200-300 sqm) with 3-4 cars. Also... limited use of public transport. So the trains are empty and cost little or nothing to use. And lots are actually diesel. Even busses - massively subsidised and good, but not used all that much .. not on anything like the density in the UK. Because of the disparate suburban planning over the past decades , things like shopping centres and swimming pools are located out of centre. So to get from A to B by bus, even though its possible, it takes an hour to to a journey that takes 15 minutes by car. Outside the progressive cities with new apartment blocks and townhouse style developments, it seems like people are driving everywhere and aspiring to live to these timber framed modernist mansions. I don't see how that can all be improved particularly.
So even if you have redistributive policies in Sweden, it won't correct a more fundamental problem which will take a lot longer to resolve. By contrast, countries like the UK could adopt redistributive policies a lot more quickly and painlessly.
We have PB Scotch Experts. Now we have a PB Swedish Expert telling someone who lives in Sweden what living in Sweden is like. PB, there’s nothing like it!
Yeah, well firstly, you don't know anything about me and what I may or not know about Sweden. Secondly the poster just suggested that the country with the second highest per capita consumption of energy in the EU (IE Sweden) was a good country to be a consumer, when raw energy prices are rising very significantly. It is perfectly reasonable to point out in response that Sweden has an objective problem with consumption, even if the impact may be masked by redistributive policies.
Huh? It wasn’t me who said that, it was The Economist. Hint: click the link.
Yes... but you were agreeing with it. Leaving this aside, I would be interested in your thoughts about energy consumption in Sweden. Am I right or wrong in my basic analysis of the problem?
You could be wrong.
Simply saying that people in a country rely upon more energy doesn't mean they're automatically more vulnerable to swings in gas prices specifically.
If their energy demands aren't coupled to gas price levels, eg because hypothetically they use hydroelectric power instead of gas, then that'd make them less vulnerable.
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
SNP have done sod all, if they had done anything you'd be able to point out achievements
Says the PB Scotch expert. You Labourites are just as bad as your Tory buddies.
Queensferry Crossing
Child Payment Baby Box
Free bus travel for under 22s
Free period products
Dentistry charges scrapped
Music tuition fees scrapped
Best Performing NHS in the UK
Extended free personal care
Record high health funding
A dozen new Social Security benefits
Free school meals for P1-3s
Best performing A&E in the UK
Record high investment in education
Declared a climate emergency - 1st in world
Planting 22 million trees a year
Scottish National Investment Bank
Building more affordable homes
Small Business Bonus
Expanded MA scheme
Expanded EMAS
School Clothing Grant
Young Person's Guarantee
Investing more in life sciences
Free eye tests
Record support for college students
New progressive tax system
Carer's Allowance Supplement
Record low crime - lowest in over 40 years
Young Carer Grant
Violence Reduction Unit
Record investment in active travel
Best Start Grant
Aberdeen Bypass
Driving forward land reform
Lowering emissions
More investment in Climate Justice Fund
National Islands Plan
Community Empowerment Act
National Marine Plan
Helping deliver COP26
Outperforming UK on foreign investment
Continuing to outperform UK on productivity
Delivering Equally Safe Fund
First gender neutral cabinet in the UK
Keeping Scottish Water in public hands
Ferguson's shipyard jobs saved
BiFab saved
Prestwick Airport saved
Violent crime down
Weapon/knife crime significantly down
Handling the Covid crisis
That’s the sort of list you would think a Labour party would want to implement. However, Scottish Labour opposed most of them.
Slab did do that sort of thing before 2010 (with the LDs of course - feudal law, and so on). But it became their principle to oppose anything the SNP wanted, even if it was Labour policy.
Much like 1 picture from a dalle prompt I want to see the other 5 pictures
The retired RAF press officer, Craig Lindsay - who has kept this image for 30 years - says he has seen all six. He says they are all very similar, except the "object" is in a different place in some
Now, he could easily be a liar and he could easily be part of an elaborate hoax, but that's an odd thing to do at the end of a long career, in your 80s
To channel Mr @moonshine if this is part of Disclosure, it makes bizarre sense. The powers that be are softening us up for the final revelation, but doing it sloooooowly so we don't panic. It has now been happening for several years. Getting retired people to do it is logical, they do not have careers to damage. So maybe Craig Lindsay got a call from the RAF saying "go ahead, you can release it now"
The timing is intriguing
Thr timing being about 25-30 years since the last burst of interst in UFOs, Project Blue Book, Fortean Times type stuff?
Is it 25-30 years? Dunno
I had almost zero interest in UFOs until @moonshine alerted me to the fact something genuinely odd was happening, UFO-wise, over in America, with ex presidents, CIA chiefs, NASA chiefs, senators, FBI dudes, generals, admirals, and more, all suddenly saying Yeah there is something up there and we don't know what it is
This surreal behaviour remains the most interesting anomalous phenomenon of all, absent a video of an alien buggering an elk
Exactly. It's American elites being lying scrotes. I fail to see how this is news. They have after all been at it since the Boston Tea Party.
Go back and have a look at the Better Together materials. And compare that with your argument now.
I am looking at the result.
In 2014, they voted to stay in the EU.
In 2016, they voted to stay in the EU.
Which result are you disputing?
Not the result - but your interpretation of the 2014 result. In view of it being clear SNP policy to stay in the EU. It ill behoves you to ally with the Brexiters of this world.
It doesn't matter what the SNP policy was. Leaving the UK would have meant leaving the EU. Sure, they could have applied for entry after leaving, but however fast it happened it wouldn't have been instant.
Yes, it is fair to say that the 'No' campaign oversold the likelihood of Britain staying in the EU, but the SNP simply lied. And it wasn't even a clever lie.
But independence would not have been instant, either. There wouldk hasve been a transition period. So your logic isn't working.
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
SNP have done sod all, if they had done anything you'd be able to point out achievements
Says the PB Scotch expert. You Labourites are just as bad as your Tory buddies.
Queensferry Crossing
Child Payment Baby Box
Free bus travel for under 22s
Free period products
Dentistry charges scrapped
Music tuition fees scrapped
Best Performing NHS in the UK
Extended free personal care
Record high health funding
A dozen new Social Security benefits
Free school meals for P1-3s
Best performing A&E in the UK
Record high investment in education
Declared a climate emergency - 1st in world
Planting 22 million trees a year
Scottish National Investment Bank
Building more affordable homes
Small Business Bonus
Expanded MA scheme
Expanded EMAS
School Clothing Grant
Young Person's Guarantee
Investing more in life sciences
Free eye tests
Record support for college students
New progressive tax system
Carer's Allowance Supplement
Record low crime - lowest in over 40 years
Young Carer Grant
Violence Reduction Unit
Record investment in active travel
Best Start Grant
Aberdeen Bypass
Driving forward land reform
Lowering emissions
More investment in Climate Justice Fund
National Islands Plan
Community Empowerment Act
National Marine Plan
Helping deliver COP26
Outperforming UK on foreign investment
Continuing to outperform UK on productivity
Delivering Equally Safe Fund
First gender neutral cabinet in the UK
Keeping Scottish Water in public hands
Ferguson's shipyard jobs saved
BiFab saved
Prestwick Airport saved
Violent crime down
Weapon/knife crime significantly down
Handling the Covid crisis
That’s the sort of list you would think a Labour party would want to implement. However, Scottish Labour opposed most of them.
Really? If that's the sum of their ambitions, no wonder nobody can be bothered to vote for them.
The problem isn't the Tory party, its the voters. People want contradictory things but refuse to accept there is a contradiction. A series of events have empowered them to believe their genuine ignorance on a subject holds the same weight as actual knowledge and experience. They aren't wrong, the experts are wrong.
There is a way through though - find us a new Blair or Thatcher, someone who does know what they are talking about and has political umph. People said "that is Boris" but as all but the remaining holdouts now accept Boris stood for nothing, with no great policies delivered and settled in his time.
Ummm, BoZo was the politician more than any other in my lifetime that told voters they could have contradictory things. Denied the contradictions. That experts were to be derided.
He was the problem
The fact his opponents failed to make their case shows how poor they were
Not entirely.
If you are in a debate with someone shameless and dishonest enough, it can be really hard to persuade an audience.
It tends to go this;
BORIS-ALIKE Something involving cake and eat it
RORY-ALIKE (because he at least tried) That's not possible- once you have eaten your cake, it's gone...
BORIS-ALIKE There you go, with your doomy gloomy negativity. Remember we are Great Britain! We are being held back by your fears... (Continues ad nauseum.)
Boris style cakeism is a really attractive prospectus. It's awfully hard to argue against, because deep down we want it to be true, and want to believe that there's some meanie stopping it being true for us. That's been the case since the apple/snake/Eve fiasco in Genesis.
It would have been better for the UK had someone successfully argued us out of Borisism, but I'm not convinced that was possible.
It would have been better for the Conservatives and the UK to have not fallen for Borisism, but that required human nature to be something it isn't.
The culpability for (gestures round) all of this belongs with the clique who proposed it, who lied to the public about it, who smeared and deposed those who questioned it.
Not particularly with those who fell for it, and certainly not with those who did their best to argue against it.
Unless you had a better plan to argue against Boris, in which case I'm all ears.
And unless he didn't vote for the Conservatives when Mr Johnson was their leader.
I want to make this clear
I supported Johnson on brexit, covid and Ukraine but he lost me from Paterson onwards
Starmer would have had our economy in lockdown forever if he could, and it is to Johnson's credit he opened the economy when he did
That's a very silly thing to write. Starmer wanted us "in lockdown forever"?
Profoundly stupid read of the situation that isn't worthy of yours usual sage analysis.
Forever is a stretch, but Starmer was ALWAYS on the side of more and longer restrictions.
I accept forever was one of my rather exaggerated comments but there is no doubt Starmer favoured a much stricter and longer lockdown and it was Johnson who made the correct decision and it has been proven as the right thing to do
It is rather hot and I apologise for my exaggeration
Boris caused longer lockdowns by always being slow to initiate a lockdown. Had we acted promptly, we would have better controlled infection rates and could’ve come out of lockdown sooner. It’s yet more short term thinking.
Oh what nonsense. Claimed by people who want to justify lockdowns. Taking away civil liberties as a precautionary measure is unacceptable and the virus would still be prevalent on our continent after any lockdown it wasn't a magic pill that would get rid of it.
What country in Europe successfully had a short, sharp lockdown that was rapidly ended and not repeated?
I can in hindsight point at a country and say we should have done that, Sweden. Can you name any country that had a rapid premature lockdown that worked, fixed things and meant coming out of lockdown sooner?
Following the Swedish model would have been utterly catastrophic. Look at their death rates compared to their immediate neighbours. Thousands of additional people died in Sweden who did not need to because of the route they chose. And that is in spite of the fact that far more people in Sweden work from home anyway so the effects of a lockdown would have been considerably less on their economy.
Many - if not all - European countries got their policies wrong in the pandemic in one way or another. Sweden is certainly no exception.
The thousands of lives saved are people in institutions. If anything like the rest of Europe, these are places where most people have dementia and nobody is coming out alive. To sacrifice everyone's wellbeing for two years is an excessive price to pay for nursing home safety.
A completely false statement. Most of those who died were not people living in nursing homes. Of course if you are advocating just killing off older people to save money then you are welcome to make that claim but you will be treated with the contempt you deserve.
Not simply to save money. And nobody is proposing euthanasia, anyone who dies from a virus is dying from natural causes.
The NHS has never had a blank cheque and nor should it, as even others agree already.
If the cost of keeping one elderly and vulnerable person from having a death from entirely natural causes is ten million pounds and taking a thousand children out of education for six months then is it worthy of "contempt" to question whether that is an acceptable price?
If you go out when infectious, because principles and libertarianism, and someome catches the bug off you and dies, is that 'natural'?
Yes.
COVID is part of nature.
If you go out with the sniffles pre COVID and someone catches the bug off you and does, is that natural?
No, because it is not my nature to go out spreading disease if I know I have it.
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
SNP have done sod all, if they had done anything you'd be able to point out achievements
Says the PB Scotch expert. You Labourites are just as bad as your Tory buddies.
Queensferry Crossing
Child Payment Baby Box
Free bus travel for under 22s
Free period products
Dentistry charges scrapped
Music tuition fees scrapped
Best Performing NHS in the UK
Extended free personal care
Record high health funding
A dozen new Social Security benefits
Free school meals for P1-3s
Best performing A&E in the UK
Record high investment in education
Declared a climate emergency - 1st in world
Planting 22 million trees a year
Scottish National Investment Bank
Building more affordable homes
Small Business Bonus
Expanded MA scheme
Expanded EMAS
School Clothing Grant
Young Person's Guarantee
Investing more in life sciences
Free eye tests
Record support for college students
New progressive tax system
Carer's Allowance Supplement
Record low crime - lowest in over 40 years
Young Carer Grant
Violence Reduction Unit
Record investment in active travel
Best Start Grant
Aberdeen Bypass
Driving forward land reform
Lowering emissions
More investment in Climate Justice Fund
National Islands Plan
Community Empowerment Act
National Marine Plan
Helping deliver COP26
Outperforming UK on foreign investment
Continuing to outperform UK on productivity
Delivering Equally Safe Fund
First gender neutral cabinet in the UK
Keeping Scottish Water in public hands
Ferguson's shipyard jobs saved
BiFab saved
Prestwick Airport saved
Violent crime down
Weapon/knife crime significantly down
Handling the Covid crisis
Count me in! It does read like a Soviet era dreamscape. There are a few 3/10s that you are claiming as victories. And there's enough woke in there to have Leon and Casino's eyes swivelling.
Go back and have a look at the Better Together materials. And compare that with your argument now.
I am looking at the result.
In 2014, they voted to stay in the EU.
In 2016, they voted to stay in the EU.
Which result are you disputing?
Not the result - but your interpretation of the 2014 result. In view of it being clear SNP policy to stay in the EU. It ill behoves you to ally with the Brexiters of this world.
It may have been "SNP policy" to stay in the EU - was it? I just remember the SNP mumbling about it and swiftly moving the question on - but you know full well that a YES vote would have meant instant ejection from the EU, then reapplication by iScotland as a new country, years later, negotiating its own fishing policies, sorting out its new commissioner, its MEPs and so on
The EU is legalistic. Brussels doesn't just shrug and say ah fuck it, a 29th country, whatever, in you come. That's not how accession works. The process would have been painful and technical, and maybe even hostile if Spain was so minded (to teach the Catalans)
Eliding or denying this is beneath you
It was very much the position of the Unionists that voting No to indy was the only way to stay in the EU. And then we had 2016. Which wrecks your argument.
Well, it was.
That it wasn't a guarantee of staying in the EU should have been made clearer, and I said that at the time even though I fully expected Britain to vote Remain in any referendum.
There were two ways for Scotland to leave the EU, and one to stay in. The first way to leave was if they voted for independence. The second was if they didn't vote for independence but Britain at a later date left the EU. The only way to stay in was to vote against independence *and* for Britain to stay in the EU (which it might well have done if turnout in Scotland had been as high as in England).
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
SNP have done sod all, if they had done anything you'd be able to point out achievements
Says the PB Scotch expert. You Labourites are just as bad as your Tory buddies.
Queensferry Crossing
Child Payment Baby Box
Free bus travel for under 22s
Free period products
Dentistry charges scrapped
Music tuition fees scrapped
Best Performing NHS in the UK
Extended free personal care
Record high health funding
A dozen new Social Security benefits
Free school meals for P1-3s
Best performing A&E in the UK
Record high investment in education
Declared a climate emergency - 1st in world
Planting 22 million trees a year
Scottish National Investment Bank
Building more affordable homes
Small Business Bonus
Expanded MA scheme
Expanded EMAS
School Clothing Grant
Young Person's Guarantee
Investing more in life sciences
Free eye tests
Record support for college students
New progressive tax system
Carer's Allowance Supplement
Record low crime - lowest in over 40 years
Young Carer Grant
Violence Reduction Unit
Record investment in active travel
Best Start Grant
Aberdeen Bypass
Driving forward land reform
Lowering emissions
More investment in Climate Justice Fund
National Islands Plan
Community Empowerment Act
National Marine Plan
Helping deliver COP26
Outperforming UK on foreign investment
Continuing to outperform UK on productivity
Delivering Equally Safe Fund
First gender neutral cabinet in the UK
Keeping Scottish Water in public hands
Ferguson's shipyard jobs saved
BiFab saved
Prestwick Airport saved
Violent crime down
Weapon/knife crime significantly down
Handling the Covid crisis
What have the Romans done for us?
At least they weren't woke.
You sure? Even bloody tables were declared female. Edit: more precisely, 'feminine'. Though they had a neuter gender as well. Would be useful today.
I think their enthusiastic embracing of slavery probably rules the Romans out from being very woke.....
Truss isn't in the same league as Sanna Marin in terms of coolness, her basic problem is that the tories are hated by young people, those of us in our 40s and under who vote for them tend to do so without drawing attention to ourselves.
It would nonethless be very entertaining to watch Truss try and fail to pull off a 'Corbyn at Glastonbury' moment.
Go back and have a look at the Better Together materials. And compare that with your argument now.
I am looking at the result.
In 2014, they voted to stay in the EU.
In 2016, they voted to stay in the EU.
Which result are you disputing?
Not the result - but your interpretation of the 2014 result. In view of it being clear SNP policy to stay in the EU. It ill behoves you to ally with the Brexiters of this world.
It doesn't matter what the SNP policy was. Leaving the UK would have meant leaving the EU. Sure, they could have applied for entry after leaving, but however fast it happened it wouldn't have been instant.
Yes, it is fair to say that the 'No' campaign oversold the likelihood of Britain staying in the EU, but the SNP simply lied. And it wasn't even a clever lie.
But independence would not have been instant, either. There wouldk hasve been a transition period. So your logic isn't working.
No, my logic works because Scotland could not apply until it was independent. Transition periods are irrelevant in that sense.
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
SNP have done sod all, if they had done anything you'd be able to point out achievements
Says the PB Scotch expert. You Labourites are just as bad as your Tory buddies.
Queensferry Crossing
Child Payment Baby Box
Free bus travel for under 22s
Free period products
Dentistry charges scrapped
Music tuition fees scrapped
Best Performing NHS in the UK
Extended free personal care
Record high health funding
A dozen new Social Security benefits
Free school meals for P1-3s
Best performing A&E in the UK
Record high investment in education
Declared a climate emergency - 1st in world
Planting 22 million trees a year
Scottish National Investment Bank
Building more affordable homes
Small Business Bonus
Expanded MA scheme
Expanded EMAS
School Clothing Grant
Young Person's Guarantee
Investing more in life sciences
Free eye tests
Record support for college students
New progressive tax system
Carer's Allowance Supplement
Record low crime - lowest in over 40 years
Young Carer Grant
Violence Reduction Unit
Record investment in active travel
Best Start Grant
Aberdeen Bypass
Driving forward land reform
Lowering emissions
More investment in Climate Justice Fund
National Islands Plan
Community Empowerment Act
National Marine Plan
Helping deliver COP26
Outperforming UK on foreign investment
Continuing to outperform UK on productivity
Delivering Equally Safe Fund
First gender neutral cabinet in the UK
Keeping Scottish Water in public hands
Ferguson's shipyard jobs saved
BiFab saved
Prestwick Airport saved
Violent crime down
Weapon/knife crime significantly down
Handling the Covid crisis
What have the Romans done for us?
At least they weren't woke.
You sure? Even bloody tables were declared female. Edit: more precisely, 'feminine'. Though they had a neuter gender as well. Would be useful today.
I think their enthusiastic embracing of slavery probably rules the Romans out from being very woke.....
Although they weren't racist. You were a Roman, or you weren't. If you were a Roman, regardless of the colour of your skin you could go all the way to the top. If you weren't you were buggered (usually literally).
Those 'achievements' are a pretty sorry shopping list aren't they. Hopefully they aren't listed by order of importance - number 2 achievement being sending people cardboard boxes in which to deposit their newborns is a bit of a shocker.
You don't know anything about it, do you? It's a surprisingly popular and useful measure.
I do actually. I've listened to an interview of the original programme creator who strongly criticised the SNP fact-finders for being completely dismissive about the wider programme and saying 'Yeh, just tell us about the boxes'. If they wanted highly visible tokenistic garbage, they can hardly complain when that's what gets highlighted.
The GOP needs more people like this who are prepared to fight back against the Trump Cult.
Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 @RonFilipkowski · 23h When John Bolton says on Newsmax that we are safer under Biden then we would have been under Trump, the host loses his mind and they have an epic battle. I know people hate Bolton, but this is fantastic - he debunks every fake narrative they created about his foreign policy.
Truss isn't in the same league as Sanna Marin in terms of coolness, her basic problem is that the tories are hated by young people, those of us in our 40s and under who vote for them tend to do so without drawing attention to ourselves.
It would nonethless be very entertaining to watch Truss try and fail to pull off a 'Corbyn at Glastonbury' moment.
That graph is shocking: the poorest 20% in England & her satellite states are going to get absolutely hammered compared to the richest 20%.
While the poor suffer more than the rich nearly everywhere, they are better protected in France, Italy, Germany etc
Isn't the greatest per capita consumption of energy in Scandinavia? I am sure someone will find a graph that shows this. Clearing the roads of snow (for hundreds and hundreds of kilometres) and heating 200-300 sqm houses favoured by the most people through minus 30 degree winters is bound to use up vast amounts of energy, mainly oil and gas. It seems to me like, if you go through Sweden or Finland - which I have done a lot; much of it is actually also suburban sprawl. They have never built to any density because of the unlimited supply of land. This sprawl just goes on for miles. House after house (200-300 sqm) with 3-4 cars. Also... limited use of public transport. So the trains are empty and cost little or nothing to use. And lots are actually diesel. Even busses - massively subsidised and good, but not used all that much .. not on anything like the density in the UK. Because of the disparate suburban planning over the past decades , things like shopping centres and swimming pools are located out of centre. So to get from A to B by bus, even though its possible, it takes an hour to to a journey that takes 15 minutes by car. Outside the progressive cities with new apartment blocks and townhouse style developments, it seems like people are driving everywhere and aspiring to live to these timber framed modernist mansions. I don't see how that can all be improved particularly.
So even if you have redistributive policies in Sweden, it won't correct a more fundamental problem which will take a lot longer to resolve. By contrast, countries like the UK could adopt redistributive policies a lot more quickly and painlessly.
We have PB Scotch Experts. Now we have a PB Swedish Expert telling someone who lives in Sweden what living in Sweden is like. PB, there’s nothing like it!
Yeah, well firstly, you don't know anything about me and what I may or not know about Sweden. Secondly the poster just suggested that the country with the second highest per capita consumption of energy in the EU (IE Sweden) was a good country to be a consumer, when raw energy prices are rising very significantly. It is perfectly reasonable to point out in response that Sweden has an objective problem with consumption, even if the impact may be masked by redistributive policies.
Huh? It wasn’t me who said that, it was The Economist. Hint: click the link.
Yes... but you were agreeing with it. Leaving this aside, I would be interested in your thoughts about energy consumption in Sweden. Am I right or wrong in my basic analysis of the problem?
You could be wrong.
Simply saying that people in a country rely upon more energy doesn't mean they're automatically more vulnerable to swings in gas prices specifically.
If their energy demands aren't coupled to gas price levels, eg because hypothetically they use hydroelectric power instead of gas, then that'd make them less vulnerable.
And this is spot on: both Norway and Sweden's electricity production is dominated by hydropower. (Just as Denmark's is by wind.)
The three countries are therefore much better positioned to weather high gas prices, because it barely affects the price of electricity generation.
It was very much the position of the Unionists that voting No to indy was the only way to stay in the EU. And then we had 2016. Which wrecks your argument.
Not really.
This is tedious, but I guess necessary.
A YES vote would have meant Scotland exiting the EU.
If X, then Y.
This is a fact. If we are to have a reasoned debate we must hold it within the realm of facts.
The argument at the time was if you want NOT Y, then you should vote NOT X.
The SNP have since claimed this means a NOT X vote prevents Y.
Go back and have a look at the Better Together materials. And compare that with your argument now.
I am looking at the result.
In 2014, they voted to stay in the EU.
In 2016, they voted to stay in the EU.
Which result are you disputing?
Not the result - but your interpretation of the 2014 result. In view of it being clear SNP policy to stay in the EU. It ill behoves you to ally with the Brexiters of this world.
It may have been "SNP policy" to stay in the EU - was it? I just remember the SNP mumbling about it and swiftly moving the question on - but you know full well that a YES vote would have meant instant ejection from the EU, then reapplication by iScotland as a new country, years later, negotiating its own fishing policies, sorting out its new commissioner, its MEPs and so on
The EU is legalistic. Brussels doesn't just shrug and say ah fuck it, a 29th country, whatever, in you come. That's not how accession works. The process would have been painful and technical, and maybe even hostile if Spain was so minded (to teach the Catalans)
Eliding or denying this is beneath you
It was very much the position of the Unionists that voting No to indy was the only way to stay in the EU. And then we had 2016. Which wrecks your argument.
My argument is simply that in voting YES in 2014 you were voting to leave the EU, the SNP didn't like to talk about this, but it is the case. I am glad you now agree
The argument about Brexit is different; I can easily understand how some Scots feel they have been Brexited against their will. But this is quite rich coming from the Nats of 2014
Re Scandinavia: Norway get 90% of its electricity from renewables. Sweden is a little less, but mostly because they are about 20-25% nuclear.
It does look like Norway and Sweden are in a pretty good position (aside from reliance on fossil fuels for transportation). Finland and Estonia the situation is a lot more problematic because they don't have anything near the same capacity with renewables.
Go back and have a look at the Better Together materials. And compare that with your argument now.
I am looking at the result.
In 2014, they voted to stay in the EU.
In 2016, they voted to stay in the EU.
Which result are you disputing?
Not the result - but your interpretation of the 2014 result. In view of it being clear SNP policy to stay in the EU. It ill behoves you to ally with the Brexiters of this world.
It doesn't matter what the SNP policy was. Leaving the UK would have meant leaving the EU. Sure, they could have applied for entry after leaving, but however fast it happened it wouldn't have been instant.
Yes, it is fair to say that the 'No' campaign oversold the likelihood of Britain staying in the EU, but the SNP simply lied. And it wasn't even a clever lie.
But independence would not have been instant, either. There wouldk hasve been a transition period. So your logic isn't working.
Transition? In theory, Westminster could have passed an Act the following week to dissolve the Union, saying that was the settled intention of the Scots.
Would have been something to see the SNP MPs trooping through the No lobby saying "We want freedom! Just - not yet...."
Much like 1 picture from a dalle prompt I want to see the other 5 pictures
The retired RAF press officer, Craig Lindsay - who has kept this image for 30 years - says he has seen all six. He says they are all very similar, except the "object" is in a different place in some
Now, he could easily be a liar and he could easily be part of an elaborate hoax, but that's an odd thing to do at the end of a long career, in your 80s
To channel Mr @moonshine if this is part of Disclosure, it makes bizarre sense. The powers that be are softening us up for the final revelation, but doing it sloooooowly so we don't panic. It has now been happening for several years. Getting retired people to do it is logical, they do not have careers to damage. So maybe Craig Lindsay got a call from the RAF saying "go ahead, you can release it now"
The timing is intriguing
Thr timing being about 25-30 years since the last burst of interst in UFOs, Project Blue Book, Fortean Times type stuff?
Is it 25-30 years? Dunno
I had almost zero interest in UFOs until @moonshine alerted me to the fact something genuinely odd was happening, UFO-wise, over in America, with ex presidents, CIA chiefs, NASA chiefs, senators, FBI dudes, generals, admirals, and more, all suddenly saying Yeah there is something up there and we don't know what it is
This surreal behaviour remains the most interesting anomalous phenomenon of all, absent a video of an alien buggering an elk
UFO activity was reported over Iranian nuclear sites much more recently than 25-30 years ago:
How long until there's a UFO flap relating to Zaporizhzhia or at other nuke sites in Ukraine or Russia or maybe in the Crimea, or in Belarus near the Lithuanian border, to maximise psywar sh*ts and giggles?
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
SNP have done sod all, if they had done anything you'd be able to point out achievements
Says the PB Scotch expert. You Labourites are just as bad as your Tory buddies.
Queensferry Crossing
Child Payment Baby Box
Free bus travel for under 22s
Free period products
Dentistry charges scrapped
Music tuition fees scrapped
Best Performing NHS in the UK
Extended free personal care
Record high health funding
A dozen new Social Security benefits
Free school meals for P1-3s
Best performing A&E in the UK
Record high investment in education
Declared a climate emergency - 1st in world
Planting 22 million trees a year
Scottish National Investment Bank
Building more affordable homes
Small Business Bonus
Expanded MA scheme
Expanded EMAS
School Clothing Grant
Young Person's Guarantee
Investing more in life sciences
Free eye tests
Record support for college students
New progressive tax system
Carer's Allowance Supplement
Record low crime - lowest in over 40 years
Young Carer Grant
Violence Reduction Unit
Record investment in active travel
Best Start Grant
Aberdeen Bypass
Driving forward land reform
Lowering emissions
More investment in Climate Justice Fund
National Islands Plan
Community Empowerment Act
National Marine Plan
Helping deliver COP26
Outperforming UK on foreign investment
Continuing to outperform UK on productivity
Delivering Equally Safe Fund
First gender neutral cabinet in the UK
Keeping Scottish Water in public hands
Ferguson's shipyard jobs saved
BiFab saved
Prestwick Airport saved
Violent crime down
Weapon/knife crime significantly down
Handling the Covid crisis
What have the Romans done for us?
At least they weren't woke.
You sure? Even bloody tables were declared female. Edit: more precisely, 'feminine'. Though they had a neuter gender as well. Would be useful today.
I think their enthusiastic embracing of slavery probably rules the Romans out from being very woke.....
Although they weren't racist. You were a Roman, or you weren't. If you were a Roman, regardless of the colour of your skin you could go all the way to the top. If you weren't you were buggered (usually literally).
Truss isn't in the same league as Sanna Marin in terms of coolness, her basic problem is that the tories are hated by young people, those of us in our 40s and under who vote for them tend to do so without drawing attention to ourselves.
It would nonethless be very entertaining to watch Truss try and fail to pull off a 'Corbyn at Glastonbury' moment.
Much like 1 picture from a dalle prompt I want to see the other 5 pictures
The retired RAF press officer, Craig Lindsay - who has kept this image for 30 years - says he has seen all six. He says they are all very similar, except the "object" is in a different place in some
Now, he could easily be a liar and he could easily be part of an elaborate hoax, but that's an odd thing to do at the end of a long career, in your 80s
To channel Mr @moonshine if this is part of Disclosure, it makes bizarre sense. The powers that be are softening us up for the final revelation, but doing it sloooooowly so we don't panic. It has now been happening for several years. Getting retired people to do it is logical, they do not have careers to damage. So maybe Craig Lindsay got a call from the RAF saying "go ahead, you can release it now"
The timing is intriguing
Thr timing being about 25-30 years since the last burst of interst in UFOs, Project Blue Book, Fortean Times type stuff?
Is it 25-30 years? Dunno
I had almost zero interest in UFOs until @moonshine alerted me to the fact something genuinely odd was happening, UFO-wise, over in America, with ex presidents, CIA chiefs, NASA chiefs, senators, FBI dudes, generals, admirals, and more, all suddenly saying Yeah there is something up there and we don't know what it is
This surreal behaviour remains the most interesting anomalous phenomenon of all, absent a video of an alien buggering an elk
Exactly. It's American elites being lying scrotes. I fail to see how this is news. They have after all been at it since the Boston Tea Party.
Or in short - "Psychological warfare? Load of ol' cobblers if you ask me!"
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
SNP have done sod all, if they had done anything you'd be able to point out achievements
Says the PB Scotch expert. You Labourites are just as bad as your Tory buddies.
Queensferry Crossing
Child Payment Baby Box
Free bus travel for under 22s
Free period products
Dentistry charges scrapped
Music tuition fees scrapped
Best Performing NHS in the UK
Extended free personal care
Record high health funding
A dozen new Social Security benefits
Free school meals for P1-3s
Best performing A&E in the UK
Record high investment in education
Declared a climate emergency - 1st in world
Planting 22 million trees a year
Scottish National Investment Bank
Building more affordable homes
Small Business Bonus
Expanded MA scheme
Expanded EMAS
School Clothing Grant
Young Person's Guarantee
Investing more in life sciences
Free eye tests
Record support for college students
New progressive tax system
Carer's Allowance Supplement
Record low crime - lowest in over 40 years
Young Carer Grant
Violence Reduction Unit
Record investment in active travel
Best Start Grant
Aberdeen Bypass
Driving forward land reform
Lowering emissions
More investment in Climate Justice Fund
National Islands Plan
Community Empowerment Act
National Marine Plan
Helping deliver COP26
Outperforming UK on foreign investment
Continuing to outperform UK on productivity
Delivering Equally Safe Fund
First gender neutral cabinet in the UK
Keeping Scottish Water in public hands
Ferguson's shipyard jobs saved
BiFab saved
Prestwick Airport saved
Violent crime down
Weapon/knife crime significantly down
Handling the Covid crisis
What have the Romans done for us?
At least they weren't woke.
You sure? Even bloody tables were declared female. Edit: more precisely, 'feminine'. Though they had a neuter gender as well. Would be useful today.
I think their enthusiastic embracing of slavery probably rules the Romans out from being very woke.....
Although they weren't racist. You were a Roman, or you weren't. If you were a Roman, regardless of the colour of your skin you could go all the way to the top. If you weren't you were buggered (usually literally).
Much like 1 picture from a dalle prompt I want to see the other 5 pictures
The retired RAF press officer, Craig Lindsay - who has kept this image for 30 years - says he has seen all six. He says they are all very similar, except the "object" is in a different place in some
Now, he could easily be a liar and he could easily be part of an elaborate hoax, but that's an odd thing to do at the end of a long career, in your 80s
To channel Mr @moonshine if this is part of Disclosure, it makes bizarre sense. The powers that be are softening us up for the final revelation, but doing it sloooooowly so we don't panic. It has now been happening for several years. Getting retired people to do it is logical, they do not have careers to damage. So maybe Craig Lindsay got a call from the RAF saying "go ahead, you can release it now"
The timing is intriguing
Thr timing being about 25-30 years since the last burst of interst in UFOs, Project Blue Book, Fortean Times type stuff?
Is it 25-30 years? Dunno
I had almost zero interest in UFOs until @moonshine alerted me to the fact something genuinely odd was happening, UFO-wise, over in America, with ex presidents, CIA chiefs, NASA chiefs, senators, FBI dudes, generals, admirals, and more, all suddenly saying Yeah there is something up there and we don't know what it is
This surreal behaviour remains the most interesting anomalous phenomenon of all, absent a video of an alien buggering an elk
Have you seen Joe Rogan’s interview with Bob Lazar, watched so far by more than 40m people?
Truss isn't in the same league as Sanna Marin in terms of coolness, her basic problem is that the tories are hated by young people, those of us in our 40s and under who vote for them tend to do so without drawing attention to ourselves.
It would nonethless be very entertaining to watch Truss try and fail to pull off a 'Corbyn at Glastonbury' moment.
That's because the Tories pretend young people don't exist, or that we're stupid.
Perhaps they should stop pissing us off and appeal to us in any way and people might vote for them. Thatcher won the youth vote
Re Scandinavia: Norway get 90% of its electricity from renewables. Sweden is a little less, but mostly because they are about 20-25% nuclear.
It does look like Norway and Sweden are in a pretty good position (aside from reliance on fossil fuels for transportation). Finland and Estonia the situation is a lot more problematic because they don't have anything near the same capacity with renewables.
Norway has one of the most electrified transport systems (i.e. electric cars) in the world, so they are quite well protected there too.
Re. UFOs: to read around the subject, take a look at the CIA's use in the Philippines of belief in the existence of "aswang" creatures.
(I have a CIA or maybe US military document on this and other similar psychological warfare plays, but couldn't find either it or a link. If I find it in my library, I will post the title.)
Re Scandinavia: Norway get 90% of its electricity from renewables. Sweden is a little less, but mostly because they are about 20-25% nuclear.
It does look like Norway and Sweden are in a pretty good position (aside from reliance on fossil fuels for transportation). Finland and Estonia the situation is a lot more problematic because they don't have anything near the same capacity with renewables.
Norway has one of the most electrified transport systems (i.e. electric cars) in the world, so they are quite well protected there too.
And to think some people think the response to high fossil fuel prices should be to cut back on investing in cheap renewables.
Go back and have a look at the Better Together materials. And compare that with your argument now.
I am looking at the result.
In 2014, they voted to stay in the EU.
In 2016, they voted to stay in the EU.
Which result are you disputing?
Not the result - but your interpretation of the 2014 result. In view of it being clear SNP policy to stay in the EU. It ill behoves you to ally with the Brexiters of this world.
It may have been "SNP policy" to stay in the EU - was it? I just remember the SNP mumbling about it and swiftly moving the question on - but you know full well that a YES vote would have meant instant ejection from the EU, then reapplication by iScotland as a new country, years later, negotiating its own fishing policies, sorting out its new commissioner, its MEPs and so on
The EU is legalistic. Brussels doesn't just shrug and say ah fuck it, a 29th country, whatever, in you come. That's not how accession works. The process would have been painful and technical, and maybe even hostile if Spain was so minded (to teach the Catalans)
Eliding or denying this is beneath you
It was very much the position of the Unionists that voting No to indy was the only way to stay in the EU. And then we had 2016. Which wrecks your argument.
Well, it was.
That it wasn't a guarantee of staying in the EU should have been made clearer, and I said that at the time even though I fully expected Britain to vote Remain in any referendum.
There were two ways for Scotland to leave the EU, and one to stay in. The first way to leave was if they voted for independence. The second was if they didn't vote for independence but Britain at a later date left the EU. The only way to stay in was to vote against independence *and* for Britain to stay in the EU (which it might well have done if turnout in Scotland had been as high as in England).
Indeed. Had I been eligible to vote in the 2014 referendum then one of the reasons (amongst many) that I would have voted for Independence would have been because it would have meant leaving the EU. Double benefit as far as I would have been concerned.
The problem isn't the Tory party, its the voters. People want contradictory things but refuse to accept there is a contradiction. A series of events have empowered them to believe their genuine ignorance on a subject holds the same weight as actual knowledge and experience. They aren't wrong, the experts are wrong.
There is a way through though - find us a new Blair or Thatcher, someone who does know what they are talking about and has political umph. People said "that is Boris" but as all but the remaining holdouts now accept Boris stood for nothing, with no great policies delivered and settled in his time.
Ummm, BoZo was the politician more than any other in my lifetime that told voters they could have contradictory things. Denied the contradictions. That experts were to be derided.
He was the problem
The fact his opponents failed to make their case shows how poor they were
Not entirely.
If you are in a debate with someone shameless and dishonest enough, it can be really hard to persuade an audience.
It tends to go this;
BORIS-ALIKE Something involving cake and eat it
RORY-ALIKE (because he at least tried) That's not possible- once you have eaten your cake, it's gone...
BORIS-ALIKE There you go, with your doomy gloomy negativity. Remember we are Great Britain! We are being held back by your fears... (Continues ad nauseum.)
Boris style cakeism is a really attractive prospectus. It's awfully hard to argue against, because deep down we want it to be true, and want to believe that there's some meanie stopping it being true for us. That's been the case since the apple/snake/Eve fiasco in Genesis.
It would have been better for the UK had someone successfully argued us out of Borisism, but I'm not convinced that was possible.
It would have been better for the Conservatives and the UK to have not fallen for Borisism, but that required human nature to be something it isn't.
The culpability for (gestures round) all of this belongs with the clique who proposed it, who lied to the public about it, who smeared and deposed those who questioned it.
Not particularly with those who fell for it, and certainly not with those who did their best to argue against it.
Unless you had a better plan to argue against Boris, in which case I'm all ears.
And unless he didn't vote for the Conservatives when Mr Johnson was their leader.
I want to make this clear
I supported Johnson on brexit, covid and Ukraine but he lost me from Paterson onwards
Starmer would have had our economy in lockdown forever if he could, and it is to Johnson's credit he opened the economy when he did
That's a very silly thing to write. Starmer wanted us "in lockdown forever"?
Profoundly stupid read of the situation that isn't worthy of yours usual sage analysis.
Forever is a stretch, but Starmer was ALWAYS on the side of more and longer restrictions.
I accept forever was one of my rather exaggerated comments but there is no doubt Starmer favoured a much stricter and longer lockdown and it was Johnson who made the correct decision and it has been proven as the right thing to do
It is rather hot and I apologise for my exaggeration
Boris caused longer lockdowns by always being slow to initiate a lockdown. Had we acted promptly, we would have better controlled infection rates and could’ve come out of lockdown sooner. It’s yet more short term thinking.
Oh what nonsense. Claimed by people who want to justify lockdowns. Taking away civil liberties as a precautionary measure is unacceptable and the virus would still be prevalent on our continent after any lockdown it wasn't a magic pill that would get rid of it.
What country in Europe successfully had a short, sharp lockdown that was rapidly ended and not repeated?
I can in hindsight point at a country and say we should have done that, Sweden. Can you name any country that had a rapid premature lockdown that worked, fixed things and meant coming out of lockdown sooner?
Following the Swedish model would have been utterly catastrophic. Look at their death rates compared to their immediate neighbours. Thousands of additional people died in Sweden who did not need to because of the route they chose. And that is in spite of the fact that far more people in Sweden work from home anyway so the effects of a lockdown would have been considerably less on their economy.
Many - if not all - European countries got their policies wrong in the pandemic in one way or another. Sweden is certainly no exception.
The thousands of lives saved are people in institutions. If anything like the rest of Europe, these are places where most people have dementia and nobody is coming out alive. To sacrifice everyone's wellbeing for two years is an excessive price to pay for nursing home safety.
A completely false statement. Most of those who died were not people living in nursing homes. Of course if you are advocating just killing off older people to save money then you are welcome to make that claim but you will be treated with the contempt you deserve.
Not simply to save money. And nobody is proposing euthanasia, anyone who dies from a virus is dying from natural causes.
The NHS has never had a blank cheque and nor should it, as even others agree already.
If the cost of keeping one elderly and vulnerable person from having a death from entirely natural causes is ten million pounds and taking a thousand children out of education for six months then is it worthy of "contempt" to question whether that is an acceptable price?
Just stick your granny outside in the snow. If she dies of the cold then it is because of natural causes.
And now for something completely different: Suppose Elon Musk comes to you and asks you for advice on his Mars colony. He has decided, he tells you, that it would be best if the colonists owned their own homes. Which, he asks you, would result in the happiest, most productive, community?
1. The prices of the homes, once built, would decline like most consumer goods do. 2. The prices of the homes would stay constant, provided they are maintained by the home owner(s). 3. The prices of the homes would increase, but not enough to make them a good investment. 4. The prices of the homes would increase fast enough to make them good investments.
To simplify the problem, I am assuming there is neither inflation nor deflation.
(All four can be found in parts of the United States. For example, the first is what happens to recreational vehicles.)
Assume no physical shortage of "land", which I think is reasonable for at least the first few hundred years of the colony. (The colonists will, in the early years, live underground. Given the lower gravity on Mars, it should be possible to tunnel more deeply than on earth, so communities with hundreds of levels could be built. And since Mars doesn't now have oceans, almost the entire planet is open for home building.
I pose this question because I think it helps us think about home prices, abstractly, without thinking about how they affect us personally, now. (Full disclosure: I don't have an answer to my own question.)
The best Sunday Times political long reads are at moments of great importance, where intrigue and revelation spills from the page. The most fun ones come when the whole govt descends into a Thick of It-style circular firing squad. This week @HarryYorke1 and I present the latter https://twitter.com/ShippersUnbound/status/1558467329566162945/photo/1
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
SNP have done sod all, if they had done anything you'd be able to point out achievements
Says the PB Scotch expert. You Labourites are just as bad as your Tory buddies.
Queensferry Crossing
Child Payment Baby Box
Free bus travel for under 22s
Free period products
Dentistry charges scrapped
Music tuition fees scrapped
Best Performing NHS in the UK
Extended free personal care
Record high health funding
A dozen new Social Security benefits
Free school meals for P1-3s
Best performing A&E in the UK
Record high investment in education
Declared a climate emergency - 1st in world
Planting 22 million trees a year
Scottish National Investment Bank
Building more affordable homes
Small Business Bonus
Expanded MA scheme
Expanded EMAS
School Clothing Grant
Young Person's Guarantee
Investing more in life sciences
Free eye tests
Record support for college students
New progressive tax system
Carer's Allowance Supplement
Record low crime - lowest in over 40 years
Young Carer Grant
Violence Reduction Unit
Record investment in active travel
Best Start Grant
Aberdeen Bypass
Driving forward land reform
Lowering emissions
More investment in Climate Justice Fund
National Islands Plan
Community Empowerment Act
National Marine Plan
Helping deliver COP26
Outperforming UK on foreign investment
Continuing to outperform UK on productivity
Delivering Equally Safe Fund
First gender neutral cabinet in the UK
Keeping Scottish Water in public hands
Ferguson's shipyard jobs saved
BiFab saved
Prestwick Airport saved
Violent crime down
Weapon/knife crime significantly down
Handling the Covid crisis
What have the Romans done for us?
At least they weren't woke.
You sure? Even bloody tables were declared female. Edit: more precisely, 'feminine'. Though they had a neuter gender as well. Would be useful today.
I think their enthusiastic embracing of slavery probably rules the Romans out from being very woke.....
Well all the men wore skirts. Who can forget Richard Burton as Mark Anthony in that tight, thigh-skimming number. Cleopatra didn't get a look in.
The researchers are adamant the photo was NOT taken near a loch or wide river. Meaning that the rock in a loch is OUT
"One of our team, Giles Stevens, is local to the Calvine area and has spent a lot of time searching for the location where the images were taken. We’ll discuss on an upcoming livestream. Details soon."
Which leaves increasingly absurd explanations. I don't believe it is a kite
You cannot know for certain. We've been through this. Do keep up
I stick by my previous comments. From what we know at the moment, it isn't a UFO/UAP. People are fapping themselves off desperately wanting to believe; the same sorts who 'believed' the X-Files series as paralleling the truth (I knew one such loon at uni...)
As others have said, it is the very definition of a UAP
There are eye witness reports of an unidentified aerial phenomenon, evidence in the MoD files to back it up, and also a photo (or six)
Now, they might show a rock in a loch, but a lot of credible people are saying this jobby is in the air. So: UAP until we know more
That's a bullsh*t argument: UAP came into credence because UFO became so debased as a term, used as shorthand for 'aliens!'.
The problem isn't the Tory party, its the voters. People want contradictory things but refuse to accept there is a contradiction. A series of events have empowered them to believe their genuine ignorance on a subject holds the same weight as actual knowledge and experience. They aren't wrong, the experts are wrong.
There is a way through though - find us a new Blair or Thatcher, someone who does know what they are talking about and has political umph. People said "that is Boris" but as all but the remaining holdouts now accept Boris stood for nothing, with no great policies delivered and settled in his time.
Ummm, BoZo was the politician more than any other in my lifetime that told voters they could have contradictory things. Denied the contradictions. That experts were to be derided.
He was the problem
The fact his opponents failed to make their case shows how poor they were
Not entirely.
If you are in a debate with someone shameless and dishonest enough, it can be really hard to persuade an audience.
It tends to go this;
BORIS-ALIKE Something involving cake and eat it
RORY-ALIKE (because he at least tried) That's not possible- once you have eaten your cake, it's gone...
BORIS-ALIKE There you go, with your doomy gloomy negativity. Remember we are Great Britain! We are being held back by your fears... (Continues ad nauseum.)
Boris style cakeism is a really attractive prospectus. It's awfully hard to argue against, because deep down we want it to be true, and want to believe that there's some meanie stopping it being true for us. That's been the case since the apple/snake/Eve fiasco in Genesis.
It would have been better for the UK had someone successfully argued us out of Borisism, but I'm not convinced that was possible.
It would have been better for the Conservatives and the UK to have not fallen for Borisism, but that required human nature to be something it isn't.
The culpability for (gestures round) all of this belongs with the clique who proposed it, who lied to the public about it, who smeared and deposed those who questioned it.
Not particularly with those who fell for it, and certainly not with those who did their best to argue against it.
Unless you had a better plan to argue against Boris, in which case I'm all ears.
And unless he didn't vote for the Conservatives when Mr Johnson was their leader.
I want to make this clear
I supported Johnson on brexit, covid and Ukraine but he lost me from Paterson onwards
Starmer would have had our economy in lockdown forever if he could, and it is to Johnson's credit he opened the economy when he did
That's a very silly thing to write. Starmer wanted us "in lockdown forever"?
Profoundly stupid read of the situation that isn't worthy of yours usual sage analysis.
Forever is a stretch, but Starmer was ALWAYS on the side of more and longer restrictions.
I accept forever was one of my rather exaggerated comments but there is no doubt Starmer favoured a much stricter and longer lockdown and it was Johnson who made the correct decision and it has been proven as the right thing to do
It is rather hot and I apologise for my exaggeration
Boris caused longer lockdowns by always being slow to initiate a lockdown. Had we acted promptly, we would have better controlled infection rates and could’ve come out of lockdown sooner. It’s yet more short term thinking.
Oh what nonsense. Claimed by people who want to justify lockdowns. Taking away civil liberties as a precautionary measure is unacceptable and the virus would still be prevalent on our continent after any lockdown it wasn't a magic pill that would get rid of it.
What country in Europe successfully had a short, sharp lockdown that was rapidly ended and not repeated?
I can in hindsight point at a country and say we should have done that, Sweden. Can you name any country that had a rapid premature lockdown that worked, fixed things and meant coming out of lockdown sooner?
Following the Swedish model would have been utterly catastrophic. Look at their death rates compared to their immediate neighbours. Thousands of additional people died in Sweden who did not need to because of the route they chose. And that is in spite of the fact that far more people in Sweden work from home anyway so the effects of a lockdown would have been considerably less on their economy.
Many - if not all - European countries got their policies wrong in the pandemic in one way or another. Sweden is certainly no exception.
The thousands of lives saved are people in institutions. If anything like the rest of Europe, these are places where most people have dementia and nobody is coming out alive. To sacrifice everyone's wellbeing for two years is an excessive price to pay for nursing home safety.
A completely false statement. Most of those who died were not people living in nursing homes. Of course if you are advocating just killing off older people to save money then you are welcome to make that claim but you will be treated with the contempt you deserve.
Not simply to save money. And nobody is proposing euthanasia, anyone who dies from a virus is dying from natural causes.
The NHS has never had a blank cheque and nor should it, as even others agree already.
If the cost of keeping one elderly and vulnerable person from having a death from entirely natural causes is ten million pounds and taking a thousand children out of education for six months then is it worthy of "contempt" to question whether that is an acceptable price?
Just stick your granny outside in the snow. If she dies of the cold then it is because of natural causes.
Twat.
I find the lack of empathy in some to the elderly quite disturbing
Maybe ask the elderly's children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren how they feel about the elderly
Re. UFOs: to read around the subject, take a look at the CIA's use in the Philippines of belief in the existence of "aswang" creatures.
(I have a CIA or maybe US military document on this and other similar psychological warfare plays, but couldn't find either it or a link. If I find it in my library, I will post the title.)
You're the most interesting alleged-Russian-bot we've had on here. Thanks. I will have a look
I have to say I like John Bolton's quip about the Iranian effort to kill him: "Former National Security Adviser John Bolton said he was not impressed with the low price offered by an Iranian military operative to have him assassinated, joking that he was “embarrassed” by his $300,000 price tag." source: https://nypost.com/2022/08/11/john-bolton-embarrassed-at-low-price-offered-to-assassinate-him/
(By the way, when Bolton resigned, Trump immediately withdrew Bolton's Secret Service protection.)
And now for something completely different: Suppose Elon Musk comes to you and asks you for advice on his Mars colony. He has decided, he tells you, that it would be best if the colonists owned their own homes. Which, he asks you, would result in the happiest, most productive, community?
1. The prices of the homes, once built, would decline like most consumer goods do. 2. The prices of the homes would stay constant, provided they are maintained by the home owner(s). 3. The prices of the homes would increase, but not enough to make them a good investment. 4. The prices of the homes would increase fast enough to make them good investments.
To simplify the problem, I am assuming there is neither inflation nor deflation.
(All four can be found in parts of the United States. For example, the first is what happens to recreational vehicles.)
Assume no physical shortage of "land", which I think is reasonable for at least the first few hundred years of the colony. (The colonists will, in the early years, live underground. Given the lower gravity on Mars, it should be possible to tunnel more deeply than on earth, so communities with hundreds of levels could be built. And since Mars doesn't now have oceans, almost the entire planet is open for home building.
I pose this question because I think it helps us think about home prices, abstractly, without thinking about how they affect us personally, now. (Full disclosure: I don't have an answer to my own question.)
I have always held a very strong view that houses should be seen as homes to live in not investments. That is not to criticise those who take advantage of the increase in value and see it as a replacement for their butchered pensions over the years, simply that our current system is fundamentally flawed as it leads to us regarding a vital resource which we all need as little more than a great money making scheme. We need to fix both our housing market and our pension/retirement provision at the same time.
Which is a very long winded way of saying that my preference would be for the price to remain static with respect to inflation. Remove the 'investment' aspect of house buying and maintain them as homes to live in.
Re. UFOs: to read around the subject, take a look at the CIA's use in the Philippines of belief in the existence of "aswang" creatures.
(I have a CIA or maybe US military document on this and other similar psychological warfare plays, but couldn't find either it or a link. If I find it in my library, I will post the title.)
Agh, couldn't find the aswang document. Found a 1950 USAF one: "The Exploitation of Superstitions for the Purposes of Psychological Warfare". It's online.
This is all pre Kek and dubs.
Those who actually know something about Russia and the Ukraine rather than making sounds about noble Zelensky vs evil Putin while their heads are wedged up their fundaments may be aware that apocalypticism is a pretty damned big thing in Orthodox Christianity. So that might be where someone sticks a wedge and wiggles it...
As for the aswang play, that was under USAF Brig-Gen Edward Lansdale.
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
SNP have done sod all, if they had done anything you'd be able to point out achievements
Says the PB Scotch expert. You Labourites are just as bad as your Tory buddies.
Queensferry Crossing
Child Payment Baby Box
Free bus travel for under 22s
Free period products
Dentistry charges scrapped
Music tuition fees scrapped
Best Performing NHS in the UK
Extended free personal care
Record high health funding
A dozen new Social Security benefits
Free school meals for P1-3s
Best performing A&E in the UK
Record high investment in education
Declared a climate emergency - 1st in world
Planting 22 million trees a year
Scottish National Investment Bank
Building more affordable homes
Small Business Bonus
Expanded MA scheme
Expanded EMAS
School Clothing Grant
Young Person's Guarantee
Investing more in life sciences
Free eye tests
Record support for college students
New progressive tax system
Carer's Allowance Supplement
Record low crime - lowest in over 40 years
Young Carer Grant
Violence Reduction Unit
Record investment in active travel
Best Start Grant
Aberdeen Bypass
Driving forward land reform
Lowering emissions
More investment in Climate Justice Fund
National Islands Plan
Community Empowerment Act
National Marine Plan
Helping deliver COP26
Outperforming UK on foreign investment
Continuing to outperform UK on productivity
Delivering Equally Safe Fund
First gender neutral cabinet in the UK
Keeping Scottish Water in public hands
Ferguson's shipyard jobs saved
BiFab saved
Prestwick Airport saved
Violent crime down
Weapon/knife crime significantly down
Handling the Covid crisis
What have the Romans done for us?
At least they weren't woke.
You sure? Even bloody tables were declared female. Edit: more precisely, 'feminine'. Though they had a neuter gender as well. Would be useful today.
I think their enthusiastic embracing of slavery probably rules the Romans out from being very woke.....
Well all the men wore skirts. Who can forget Richard Burton as Mark Anthony in that tight, thigh-skimming number. Cleopatra didn't get a look in.
About the elderly our 8 year old grandson said to his Grandma a couple of days ago. 'How old are you Grandma?' When she replied 'I am 82' his face showed great concern as it is not on his agenda that his Grandma would not always be there for him
Re. UFOs: to read around the subject, take a look at the CIA's use in the Philippines of belief in the existence of "aswang" creatures.
(I have a CIA or maybe US military document on this and other similar psychological warfare plays, but couldn't find either it or a link. If I find it in my library, I will post the title.)
Agh, couldn't find the aswang document. Found a 1950 USAF one: "The Exploitation of Superstitions for the Purposes of Psychological Warfare". It's online.
This is all pre Kek and dubs.
Those who actually know something about Russia and the Ukraine rather than making sounds about noble Zelensky vs evil Putin while their heads are wedged up their fundaments may be aware that apocalypticism is a pretty damned big thing in Orthodox Christianity. So that might be where someone sticks a wedge and wiggles it...
As for the aswang play, that was under USAF Brig-Gen Edward Lansdale.
Do you make sounds about evil Zelensky versus noble Putin?
About the elderly our 8 year old grandson said to his Grandma a couple of days ago. 'How old are you Grandma?' When she replied 'I am 82' his face showed great concern as it is not on his agenda that his Grandma would not always be there for him
A bit harsh to describe an 8 year old as elderly. I know they start early these days.
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
SNP have done sod all, if they had done anything you'd be able to point out achievements
Says the PB Scotch expert. You Labourites are just as bad as your Tory buddies.
Queensferry Crossing
Child Payment Baby Box
Free bus travel for under 22s
Free period products
Dentistry charges scrapped
Music tuition fees scrapped
Best Performing NHS in the UK
Extended free personal care
Record high health funding
A dozen new Social Security benefits
Free school meals for P1-3s
Best performing A&E in the UK
Record high investment in education
Declared a climate emergency - 1st in world
Planting 22 million trees a year
Scottish National Investment Bank
Building more affordable homes
Small Business Bonus
Expanded MA scheme
Expanded EMAS
School Clothing Grant
Young Person's Guarantee
Investing more in life sciences
Free eye tests
Record support for college students
New progressive tax system
Carer's Allowance Supplement
Record low crime - lowest in over 40 years
Young Carer Grant
Violence Reduction Unit
Record investment in active travel
Best Start Grant
Aberdeen Bypass
Driving forward land reform
Lowering emissions
More investment in Climate Justice Fund
National Islands Plan
Community Empowerment Act
National Marine Plan
Helping deliver COP26
Outperforming UK on foreign investment
Continuing to outperform UK on productivity
Delivering Equally Safe Fund
First gender neutral cabinet in the UK
Keeping Scottish Water in public hands
Ferguson's shipyard jobs saved
BiFab saved
Prestwick Airport saved
Violent crime down
Weapon/knife crime significantly down
Handling the Covid crisis
What have the Romans done for us?
At least they weren't woke.
You sure? Even bloody tables were declared female. Edit: more precisely, 'feminine'. Though they had a neuter gender as well. Would be useful today.
I think their enthusiastic embracing of slavery probably rules the Romans out from being very woke.....
Well all the men wore skirts. Who can forget Richard Burton as Mark Anthony in that tight, thigh-skimming number. Cleopatra didn't get a look in.
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
Do Scottish Labour have anyone of the quality of Mark Drakeford? No wonder Welsh Labour do well and Scottish Labour don’t.
They used to, at least at the top. But not since, I think, Donald Dewar and Wendy Alexander.
I had high hopes for Wendy Alexander. But she didn't really make much of a mark in the role. I don't know enough about internal SLab politics to know if she was being undermined/let-down by rival factions or was just 'not that good'.
Oh, she was good alright. Her boss however had a wee mental breakdown.
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
Do Scottish Labour have anyone of the quality of Mark Drakeford? No wonder Welsh Labour do well and Scottish Labour don’t.
They used to, at least at the top. But not since, I think, Donald Dewar and Wendy Alexander.
I had high hopes for Wendy Alexander. But she didn't really make much of a mark in the role. I don't know enough about internal SLab politics to know if she was being undermined/let-down by rival factions or was just 'not that good'.
Oh, she was good alright. Her boss however had a wee mental breakdown.
About the elderly our 8 year old grandson said to his Grandma a couple of days ago. 'How old are you Grandma?' When she replied 'I am 82' his face showed great concern as it is not on his agenda that his Grandma would not always be there for him
A bit harsh to describe an 8 year old as elderly. I know they start early these days.
He is a very wise young man and I am sure you understand my point
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
Do Scottish Labour have anyone of the quality of Mark Drakeford? No wonder Welsh Labour do well and Scottish Labour don’t.
They used to, at least at the top. But not since, I think, Donald Dewar and Wendy Alexander.
I had high hopes for Wendy Alexander. But she didn't really make much of a mark in the role. I don't know enough about internal SLab politics to know if she was being undermined/let-down by rival factions or was just 'not that good'.
Oh, she was good alright. Her boss however had a wee mental breakdown.
The Kyiv Independent @KyivIndependent ⚡️Governor: Russian army command leaves Kherson.
According to Mykolaiv Oblast Governor Vitaliy Kim, the Russian army command has been moving to the left bank of the Dnipro River. 4:39 PM · Aug 13, 2022
The Kyiv Independent @KyivIndependent ⚡️Governor: Russian army command leaves Kherson.
According to Mykolaiv Oblast Governor Vitaliy Kim, the Russian army command has been moving to the left bank of the Dnipro River. 4:39 PM · Aug 13, 2022
Go back and have a look at the Better Together materials. And compare that with your argument now.
I am looking at the result.
In 2014, they voted to stay in the EU.
In 2016, they voted to stay in the EU.
Which result are you disputing?
Not the result - but your interpretation of the 2014 result. In view of it being clear SNP policy to stay in the EU. It ill behoves you to ally with the Brexiters of this world.
It doesn't matter what the SNP policy was. Leaving the UK would have meant leaving the EU. Sure, they could have applied for entry after leaving, but however fast it happened it wouldn't have been instant.
Yes, it is fair to say that the 'No' campaign oversold the likelihood of Britain staying in the EU, but the SNP simply lied. And it wasn't even a clever lie.
But independence would not have been instant, either. There wouldk hasve been a transition period. So your logic isn't working.
No, my logic works because Scotland could not apply until it was independent. Transition periods are irrelevant in that sense.
SNP pro-EUism is just "we support whoever's playing against England" in political clothing. Not worth taking seriously.
The pro-indy vote in Scotland, just like the all-Britain pro-Brexit vote, is "higher among non-graduates". At least that's a polite way of putting it. Their efforts at winning the few extra % they need are aimed at thicko xenophobes.
The day after an indy victory in a referendum they would wheel around and say the most important zone to have a free trade agreement with is rUK.
An iScotland might be able to negotiate entry into the EU, but they'd obviously have to have a hard border with England as the price. There's no Good Friday Agreement they could cite as a prior commitment that the EU would have to accept. If they signed one, the EU would just say fine, you signed that, now f*** off and enjoy your Jockolution. They couldn't say that to Britain (and Ireland) in the negotiation of the Brexit arrangements. A hard border with refugee camps on the north side of it. The only reason anyone would vote for that sh*t is because they hate the English.
The Kyiv Independent @KyivIndependent ⚡️Governor: Russian army command leaves Kherson.
According to Mykolaiv Oblast Governor Vitaliy Kim, the Russian army command has been moving to the left bank of the Dnipro River. 4:39 PM · Aug 13, 2022
About the elderly our 8 year old grandson said to his Grandma a couple of days ago. 'How old are you Grandma?' When she replied 'I am 82' his face showed great concern as it is not on his agenda that his Grandma would not always be there for him
A bit harsh to describe an 8 year old as elderly. I know they start early these days.
He is a very wise young man and I am sure you understand my point
Is he a 'G' - down the family name line, and inheriting the castle? ( I know you don't have a castle)
Much like 1 picture from a dalle prompt I want to see the other 5 pictures
The retired RAF press officer, Craig Lindsay - who has kept this image for 30 years - says he has seen all six. He says they are all very similar, except the "object" is in a different place in some
Now, he could easily be a liar and he could easily be part of an elaborate hoax, but that's an odd thing to do at the end of a long career, in your 80s
To channel Mr @moonshine if this is part of Disclosure, it makes bizarre sense. The powers that be are softening us up for the final revelation, but doing it sloooooowly so we don't panic. It has now been happening for several years. Getting retired people to do it is logical, they do not have careers to damage. So maybe Craig Lindsay got a call from the RAF saying "go ahead, you can release it now"
The timing is intriguing
Thr timing being about 25-30 years since the last burst of interst in UFOs, Project Blue Book, Fortean Times type stuff?
Is it 25-30 years? Dunno
I had almost zero interest in UFOs until @moonshine alerted me to the fact something genuinely odd was happening, UFO-wise, over in America, with ex presidents, CIA chiefs, NASA chiefs, senators, FBI dudes, generals, admirals, and more, all suddenly saying Yeah there is something up there and we don't know what it is
This surreal behaviour remains the most interesting anomalous phenomenon of all, absent a video of an alien buggering an elk
Regarding Covid, I think it's great that we seem to have got back to the vast majority of people, media, politicians etc not giving it one moments thought. I'm going to an event today that 12 month's ago I needed a Covid pass for and everyone would be wearing masks on the journey over. No more. Despite the latest ONS survey saying 1 in 25 have Covid right now. It's just background noise like every other virus, and there's no new Covid variant that will put us back in lockdown or in masks en mass.
Of the Covid response, my main criticism is that we were too accepting of restrictions after the elderly and vulnerable were double vaccinated. The removal of all restrictions should have happened prior to summer 2021 and have never returned in any form.
But it's behind us now, which isn't the case in every country, so it could be worse.
Going to a Jerry Sadowitz comedy gig and then complaining that you're offended is like going to a Russell Howard comedy gig and then complaining that you're bored
That's a truly impressive thread. A rare example of two incredibly ill-informed people talking absolute bullshit that completely misses every single meaningful point.
The key is that the increased capacity on local lines and major stations - especially Crewe, Manchester Piccadilly and Birmingham New Street - will dramatically increase the number of pathways and therefore trains for services running to North and Mid Wales. Without having to spend a penny on the Welsh network itself.
So it's perfectly reasonable to see HS2 as benefitting England and Wales.
By the time you get to Scotland, the impact is rather more marginal.
What does a good old definitely-non-anti-semitic-but-anti-zionist activist do when they go to a pro-Palestine demo and find themselves stood next to this?
About the elderly our 8 year old grandson said to his Grandma a couple of days ago. 'How old are you Grandma?' When she replied 'I am 82' his face showed great concern as it is not on his agenda that his Grandma would not always be there for him
A bit harsh to describe an 8 year old as elderly. I know they start early these days.
He is a very wise young man and I am sure you understand my point
Is he a 'G' - down the family name line, and inheriting the castle? ( I know you don't have a castle)
About the elderly our 8 year old grandson said to his Grandma a couple of days ago. 'How old are you Grandma?' When she replied 'I am 82' his face showed great concern as it is not on his agenda that his Grandma would not always be there for him
A bit harsh to describe an 8 year old as elderly. I know they start early these days.
He is a very wise young man and I am sure you understand my point
Is he a 'G' - down the family name line, and inheriting the castle? ( I know you don't have a castle)
On the Spectator piece, whilst it nails just how pointless this government is, I can't help feel a little sorry for the party.
The problem isn't the Tory party, its the voters. People want contradictory things but refuse to accept there is a contradiction. A series of events have empowered them to believe their genuine ignorance on a subject holds the same weight as actual knowledge and experience. They aren't wrong, the experts are wrong.
People don't understand their problems so can't ask for solutions. So they tie the politicians up in knots, demanding solutions they can't have for problems they utterly misunderstand. Tories - and Labour for that matter - have to sing stupid songs because that has become the only way to get elected.
There is a way through though - find us a new Blair or Thatcher, someone who does know what they are talking about and has political umph. People said "that is Boris" but as all but the remaining holdouts now accept Boris stood for nothing, with no great policies delivered and settled in his time.
Is there such a politician?
I am not sure I agree. Blair and Thatcher came with their own baggage and both flattered to deceive.
What we do need is collegiate Cabinet Government working as a team to resolve the issues of the day. Maybe Sunak could have been your man?
We don't need Blair, Thatcher blowhards, and we certainly don't need Johnson/Truss.
I do find a lot to like about Rochdale's analysis there. A politician can't diss the voters but I think it's ok for us. As for who we need - here's a surprising (incl to me) thought. Maybe, just maybe, if what we're looking for is indeed collegiate unfussy 'art of the possible' government, free of all this utter crap of the last few years, then the person to deliver this, or as close as can reasonably be expected, is a certain dull as ditchwater ex DPP with a brutalist haircut by the name of Keir Starmer.
I was thinking the same, I just didn't want to say his name
Part of the problem is that "the system" expects and almost demands infighting between departments.
A senior civil servant told me that the Coalition years were very difficult, because of the nearly complete sync between the Treasury and No.10
Despite repeated efforts, they couldn't get proper infighting going between Cameron and Osborne
Comments
Yet other times I look at it and I think: WTF is that thing in the sky, and why was I filtering it out before?
Another analogy is with the infamous blue/gold coloured dress
https://slate.com/technology/2017/04/heres-why-people-saw-the-dress-differently.html
Visegrád 24
@visegrad24
·
4h
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin (left) preparing to take the stage at the Flow Music Festival in Helsinki.
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1558393927245484042
They voted against leaving the EU in 2014, and again in 2016
In 2014, they voted to stay in the EU.
In 2016, they voted to stay in the EU.
Which result are you disputing?
Then again, many things about SLab baffle me.
I note you've missed off Police Scotland and the attempt to kidnap every child in Scotland.
Plus, you may talk about 'record investment' in education, but as with England to put it mildly the concomitant reforms have been - unfortunate.
The truth is the SNP set the blueprint for Johnson's Tories. They have one issue they actually care about and for the rest they randomly throw money at it and boast about the results, regardless of the reality.
And when it goes wrong, they blame nasty foreigners.
@BillKristol
·
3h
Impressive foresight on the part of Trump to issue a “standing order” eighteen months ago to declassify the documents the FBI planted this week at Mar-a-Lago.
https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/1558406920591052800
I had almost zero interest in UFOs until @moonshine alerted me to the fact something genuinely odd was happening, UFO-wise, over in America, with ex presidents, CIA chiefs, NASA chiefs, senators, FBI dudes, generals, admirals, and more, all suddenly saying Yeah there is something up there and we don't know what it is
This surreal behaviour remains the most interesting anomalous phenomenon of all, absent a video of an alien buggering an elk
COVID is part of nature.
If you go out with the sniffles pre COVID and someone catches the bug off you and does, is that natural?
Yes, it is fair to say that the 'No' campaign oversold the likelihood of Britain staying in the EU, but the SNP simply lied. And it wasn't even a clever lie.
Leaving this aside, I would be interested in your thoughts about energy consumption in Sweden.
Am I right or wrong in my basic analysis of the problem?
The EU is legalistic. Brussels doesn't just shrug and say ah fuck it, a 29th country, whatever, in you come. That's not how accession works. The process would have been painful and technical, and maybe even hostile if Spain was so minded (to teach the Catalans)
Eliding or denying this is beneath you
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-62531870
If they start now they would still be finished before the SNP ones...
Simply saying that people in a country rely upon more energy doesn't mean they're automatically more vulnerable to swings in gas prices specifically.
If their energy demands aren't coupled to gas price levels, eg because hypothetically they use hydroelectric power instead of gas, then that'd make them less vulnerable.
That it wasn't a guarantee of staying in the EU should have been made clearer, and I said that at the time even though I fully expected Britain to vote Remain in any referendum.
There were two ways for Scotland to leave the EU, and one to stay in. The first way to leave was if they voted for independence. The second was if they didn't vote for independence but Britain at a later date left the EU. The only way to stay in was to vote against independence *and* for Britain to stay in the EU (which it might well have done if turnout in Scotland had been as high as in England).
It would nonethless be very entertaining to watch Truss try and fail to pull off a 'Corbyn at Glastonbury' moment.
Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦
@RonFilipkowski
·
23h
When John Bolton says on Newsmax that we are safer under Biden then we would have been under Trump, the host loses his mind and they have an epic battle. I know people hate Bolton, but this is fantastic - he debunks every fake narrative they created about his foreign policy.
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1558106666788339718
The three countries are therefore much better positioned to weather high gas prices, because it barely affects the price of electricity generation.
This is tedious, but I guess necessary.
A YES vote would have meant Scotland exiting the EU.
If X, then Y.
This is a fact. If we are to have a reasoned debate we must hold it within the realm of facts.
The argument at the time was if you want NOT Y, then you should vote NOT X.
The SNP have since claimed this means a NOT X vote prevents Y.
This is of course absolute bollocks...
The argument about Brexit is different; I can easily understand how some Scots feel they have been Brexited against their will. But this is quite rich coming from the Nats of 2014
Would have been something to see the SNP MPs trooping through the No lobby saying "We want freedom! Just - not yet...."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpeck/2014/01/14/did-iranian-fighters-battle-ufos/?sh=1784d82c1a32
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/did-iran-really-see-ufos-above-their-nuclear-facilities-200018
How long until there's a UFO flap relating to Zaporizhzhia or at other nuke sites in Ukraine or Russia or maybe in the Crimea, or in Belarus near the Lithuanian border, to maximise psywar sh*ts and giggles?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=BEWz4SXfyCQ
Lazar worked in Area 51, trying to reverse-engineer the alien spaceships they keep there. He doesn’t do many interviews, like one a decade.
Perhaps they should stop pissing us off and appeal to us in any way and people might vote for them. Thatcher won the youth vote
(I have a CIA or maybe US military document on this and other similar psychological warfare plays, but couldn't find either it or a link. If I find it in my library, I will post the title.)
Twat.
1. The prices of the homes, once built, would decline like most consumer goods do.
2. The prices of the homes would stay constant, provided they are maintained by the home owner(s).
3. The prices of the homes would increase, but not enough to make them a good investment.
4. The prices of the homes would increase fast enough to make them good investments.
To simplify the problem, I am assuming there is neither inflation nor deflation.
(All four can be found in parts of the United States. For example, the first is what happens to recreational vehicles.)
Assume no physical shortage of "land", which I think is reasonable for at least the first few hundred years of the colony. (The colonists will, in the early years, live underground. Given the lower gravity on Mars, it should be possible to tunnel more deeply than on earth, so communities with hundreds of levels could be built. And since Mars doesn't now have oceans, almost the entire planet is open for home building.
I pose this question because I think it helps us think about home prices, abstractly, without thinking about how they affect us personally, now. (Full disclosure: I don't have an answer to my own question.)
Maybe ask the elderly's children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren how they feel about the elderly
All life is precious
source: https://nypost.com/2022/08/11/john-bolton-embarrassed-at-low-price-offered-to-assassinate-him/
(By the way, when Bolton resigned, Trump immediately withdrew Bolton's Secret Service protection.)
Which is a very long winded way of saying that my preference would be for the price to remain static with respect to inflation. Remove the 'investment' aspect of house buying and maintain them as homes to live in.
This is all pre Kek and dubs.
Those who actually know something about Russia and the Ukraine rather than making sounds about noble Zelensky vs evil Putin while their heads are wedged up their fundaments may be aware that apocalypticism is a pretty damned big thing in Orthodox Christianity. So that might be where someone sticks a wedge and wiggles it...
As for the aswang play, that was under USAF Brig-Gen Edward Lansdale.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/labour-implodes-over-independence-vote-2468509
@KyivIndependent
⚡️Governor: Russian army command leaves Kherson.
According to Mykolaiv Oblast Governor Vitaliy Kim, the Russian army command has been moving to the left bank of the Dnipro River.
4:39 PM · Aug 13, 2022
https://mobile.twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1558478313701707778
LOL
I dunno, standards are just dropping everywhere.
The pro-indy vote in Scotland, just like the all-Britain pro-Brexit vote, is "higher among non-graduates". At least that's a polite way of putting it. Their efforts at winning the few extra % they need are aimed at thicko xenophobes.
The day after an indy victory in a referendum they would wheel around and say the most important zone to have a free trade agreement with is rUK.
An iScotland might be able to negotiate entry into the EU, but they'd obviously have to have a hard border with England as the price. There's no Good Friday Agreement they could cite as a prior commitment that the EU would have to accept. If they signed one, the EU would just say fine, you signed that, now f*** off and enjoy your Jockolution. They couldn't say that to Britain (and Ireland) in the negotiation of the Brexit arrangements. A hard border with refugee camps on the north side of it. The only reason anyone would vote for that sh*t is because they hate the English.
I challenged him over the decision to class HS2 as an England & Wales project, despite the fact none of HS2 is in Wales.
They ended the interview after I pressed him on it.
Let's look at what he said:
Thread
https://twitter.com/WillHayCardiff/status/1558445762870394880
Jerry Sadowitz. Cancelled. On the FRINGE
Yes, that's really Fringe
https://twitter.com/LeoKearse/status/1558462042503348225?s=20&t=PFlBO1YefoBmpyIZrdHHyQ
If you haven't read The Invisibles by Grant Morrison you really should, you'd fucking love it.
Of the Covid response, my main criticism is that we were too accepting of restrictions after the elderly and vulnerable were double vaccinated. The removal of all restrictions should have happened prior to summer 2021 and have never returned in any form.
But it's behind us now, which isn't the case in every country, so it could be worse.
The key is that the increased capacity on local lines and major stations - especially Crewe, Manchester Piccadilly and Birmingham New Street - will dramatically increase the number of pathways and therefore trains for services running to North and Mid Wales. Without having to spend a penny on the Welsh network itself.
So it's perfectly reasonable to see HS2 as benefitting England and Wales.
By the time you get to Scotland, the impact is rather more marginal.
A senior civil servant told me that the Coalition years were very difficult, because of the nearly complete sync between the Treasury and No.10
Despite repeated efforts, they couldn't get proper infighting going between Cameron and Osborne