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Johnson was right to announce his departure when he did – politicalbetting.com
Johnson was right to announce his departure when he did – politicalbetting.com
One of the most positive things that will be said about Johnson is the manner of his exit. He read how opinion was moving and his announcement was absolutely right. It was him taking the initiative.
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1.06 Liz Truss 94%
17 Rishi Sunak 6%
Next Conservative leader
1.06 Liz Truss 94%
17 Rishi Sunak 6%
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2022/08/30/66ff7/2
I don't see much value here.
My mum voted Truss. The deciding thing apparently was when Sunak said at one hustings that if he was in his Twenties again, he would stay in California. She saw it as disloyal. A bit ironic though, as my folks did emigrate to the States themselves, albeit in their thirties!
Sadly, his last memories of Russia will have been those of war.
The collapse of the Iron curtain in 1989-90 was a world changing moment, and Gorbachev was key to it going off relatively peacefully. We in the West squandered the possibility of a reformed Russia, preferring a corrupt oligarchy until that turned sour. The best thing that we did was to bring Eastern Europe into the EU, into the mainstream of European society, and soon to be joined by Ukraine and Georgia.
Boris Johnson is poised to give approval this week for a nuclear power station costing up to £30 billion as ministers close in on a deal to reopen Britain’s biggest gas storage facility.
The prime minister is preparing to announce an in-principle agreement to offer funding to the Sizewell C reactor in Suffolk before he leaves office, despite concerns about creating a multibillion-pound spending commitment for Liz Truss, the frontrunner to succeed him.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-ready-to-sign-off-on-30bn-sizewell-c-nuclear-power-station-fnnjds2ls
Vilified by the tabloids that adored her when young is my speculation.
Frying pan; fire.
https://mobile.twitter.com/IntelDoge/status/1564820846786535425
DOJ publishes information from FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, includes photograph of documents taken from the White House by Donald Trump after his Presidency. SECRET/SCI markings clearly visible.
Anybody that wanted to see the candidates at hustings could have done so weeks ago, on Zoom.
Normally the way this works is that the government agrees to buy electricity on a fixed price contract, and then the private sector puts up the money to build the plant.
"The prime minister and the chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, approved financing for the construction of two new reactors known as Sizewell C, enabling private funding of about £20-30bn to be raised."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/21/sizewell-c-nuclear-plant-funding-approved-despite-tory-split
"In the documentary Secrets of the Royal Kitchen, former royal chef Graham Newbould revealed: "The royals never have square sandwiches because tradition has it that anyone presenting them with pointed-edged food is trying to overthrow the throne of England."
https://www.mylondon.news/news/uk-world-news/the-queen-royals-pointy-food-24886506?fbclid=IwAR0J2xF5SuYD7n_YkIsN79pA_yNxAv1H2IXjKGCup2GOIQt6u3qYGtmQlyw
https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248
In 50 years:
Scotland:
Population, -900,000 (-16%)
Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.
There is a question as to whether votes are checked against membership lists, as well as if membership lists are up to date. On yesterday's thread we briefly discussed a legal move to check these details. There might be a judicial review, although that too is proceeding with a stunning lack of urgency.
https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2022/08/30/our-case-for-judicial-review-30-august-2022/
We should note that while the Conservative government affects to believe photo ID is essential for the security of elections, the Conservative Party is more relaxed about security when electing a new Prime Minister. Perhaps it feels less need to suppress Labour votes!
A bit like when Paxman got into trouble over a claim about Prince Charles and boiled eggs...
The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
The comparison with S Korea is particularly telling. And note, they still have significant heavy industry, too.
Depressed by how terribly Britain comes out of this chart comparing r&d spending...
https://mobile.twitter.com/bibivanderzee/status/1564854226345508866
(The Nordics look ok though).
https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564538506487160833
Per year. For 50 years.
It's a point I've made here for years - we throw cheap labour at problems rather than investing money because the Government does not provide sufficient incentive (100% corporate tax rebates minimum) on investment...
RIP Gorbachev. His legacy lives on in much of Eastern Europe now, but the fact that Gorbachev is viewed as a traitor now by Russia's leaders is part of why the Cold War should no longer be considered past tense regrettably.
https://twitter.com/scotfax/status/1564687989883682818
Throwing cheap labour at problems is not exactly unknown in China, and yet...
These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
Telegrph
Absent any new information, you would expect Truss's price to fall steadily over the next week. However, as votes are counted, there is a risk of inside information leaking into the market (iirc this happened last time) so tread carefully.
Betfair next prime minister
1.05 Liz Truss 95%
17 Rishi Sunak 6%
Next Conservative leader
1.05 Liz Truss 95%
17.5 Rishi Sunak 6%
I do think the R&D record is a little - but only a little - distorted by the services (particularly financial services) focus of the economy though. Innovation in financial instruments or insurance products, or fashion or children’s TV, doesn’t get into the R&D stats.
Your second paragraph is interesting. I have this feeling that as a region/country becomes less significant as a part of the whole, the more likely it will feel left out. Scotland used to be a much more important to part of the UK (Scots regiments in Empire/the Wars, Scottish monarchy, Glasgow as workshop of the world etc) and this relative decline had led to indy sentiment.
Perhaps exacerbated by the fact North Sea oil didn't really revitalise Scotland (and now Aberdeen is less expensive than Dundee....)
Or is that the last 50 ?
The coal mine was an example of a very small project with an ability to do orders of magnitude greater damage to British soft power or influence on developing world environmental policies than it would ever generate either in GDP, energy security or indeed carbon emissions.
A projection is just that - it projects current trends into the future. It assumes no nuclear war, aliens, civil war etc
We should be wary of the Chinese, but if a subsidiary of the French are putting up the money they're doing so for private sector purposes, not for public sector purposes. They're seeking to make a profit, by being efficient, they're not seeking to do so in order to further the agenda of politicians, unions, civil servants or other "stakeholders".
If anyone can do it more efficiently than the French firm, then they're welcome to create a company and put up the investment themselves. If they can't, then the French subsidiary doing so is the private sector working properly.
The last decade has been quite problematic for that.
"The casualties are going to be off the scale if nothing is done."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/08/30/tories-have-forgotten-how-do-serious-economics/
I am sure our SNP friends will reject this comment but I am increasingly of the opinion Sturgeon wants out and is working on a pathway to achieve this without loss of face
The prospect of indyref2 happening in the next few years is highly unlikely and while I am not a fan she is a consummate politician and will be looking into the future which frankly is a nightmare for all politicians.
An easier life beckons outside politics
And labour latest announcement to help business is to increase the tax on Amazon
They clearly have no idea of the scale of the crisis facing businesses which in one estimate said 170 billion would be needed to insulate them from this crisis
Labour produce superficially popular announcements but when examined they just do not address the scale of the problem and their spokesperson also refused to outline what they would do in six months when energy bills head to £6,000
One of his more startling statistics is that over that 50 years the UK population is expected to drop by 1.2m, 900k of which will be Scots!
Which probably accounts for much of the last few decades disparity between England and Scotland ?
Russia's failure is f-all to do with us. In many ways the west bent over backwards to try to help Russia. From everything from cooperation in the ISS and space, to the dismantling of nuclear subs. to opening markets.
The oligarchy occurred because Russia allowed it to occur.
Nuclear power costs £lots which puts it out of reach of the free market. It is a political football so is largely out of reach of political viability. So create BritZap, allow it to borrow money at government rates to invest in a multi-decade mandate to provide power for the middle of the century. Instead of having a foreign StateCo do this, why not have our own?
Migration to Scotland is low because people don't want to emigrate to Scotland, by and large, not because of an absence of migration to the UK. Emigration from the rest of the world to the UK is still running at extremely high levels.
If the Scottish Government truly wants a pro-migration policy then they have two ways they could be seeking to address why people don't want to emigrate to Scotland as much as they want to emigrate to England and work to fix that problem. That is entirely within their own hands, but blaming London is far easier than actually doing their own job.
Very complicated to assess whether a deal like this is going to be value for money... but probably a good thing to get more nuclear.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/energy-bills-support-scheme-explainer
It’s fair to argue that it’s not enough, or that there’s no support yet for small businesses - but to ignore it completelty it totally disengenuous. We wonder why there’s so little trust in the media.
Survivorship bias means that EDF has outlasted all the other StateCo's in that sector because it is good at its job and knows what it is doing.
Why not create BritZap? Because BritZap won't be as efficient as EDF. If you have a way of making a firm more efficient than EDF then do so in the private sector without state involvement, if you can't, then EDF is the better option.
Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.
As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
If 99.9% of these people settle south of Berwick you must look to other reasons than “parochial jingoism”
1: (What Rochdale suggested) Go independent and have own immigration policy.
2: (My alternative) Address why people don't want to emigrate to Scotland and get more migrants as the UK already is doing.
Going independent isn't the only way to have more immigration, if people from the rest of the world wanted to migrate to Scotland then Scotland could be receiving many more migrants under the existing immigration framework.
Why fewer people want to emigrate to Scotland than England, even proportionately, is a question that the Scottish Government studiously ignores.
It would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.
An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.
It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
Well done, @CarlottaVance .