Ladbrokes open the betting on the Truss successor – politicalbetting.com
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And to give another example, the Drake.HYUFD said:
Members also elected Cameron, Johnson and Blair and Starmer.TimS said:
I think it's a problem in parties where the typically more ideological membership get to choose the leader. Giving votes to the membership has been a huge, almost impossible to reverse error by both main parties. In Labour this is compounded by the union vote.JosiasJessop said:
But is it a permanent change? back in 1995-7 people were saying Blair had changed the party totally: the Clause 4 change and all that. And yet twenty years later Labour elected Corbyn as party leader.CorrectHorseBattery3 said:
I think Keir actually is a very good politician in terms of Labour Party politics, he has basically changed the party completely.OnlyLivingBoy said:
It is one of the annoying features of politics that the kind of people who are obsessed with becoming politicians from a young age, who in many ways are the last people who should be given any kind of power, actually learn plenty of useful skills, and make loads of useful contacts, during their student politics phase, which makes them good at the day to day business of politics. Labour used to have the alternative Trade Union track that provided similar training but that has largely dried up.Stuartinromford said:
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.CorrectHorseBattery3 said:Pathetic result for Liz Truss.
Why does she talk in that odd cadence?
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
One of the reasons Starmer isn't as effective as he should be is that he came to front line politics late, having had a successful career outside politics first. That should make him a better politician, but it doesn't.
I don't see Starmer has put the left in its place anywhere near as firmly as Blair did. It's perfectly possible for the next Labour leader to be a Corbynite - especially if they somehow lose the next GE.
This concerns me.
It was the membership that delivered the joys of IDS, Corbyn and Truss, and the unions that gave us Ed MIliband (though he wasn't that bad in hindsight). If it had been down to MPs then we'd have had leaders like Ken Clark, David Miliband and Yvette Cooper, and today we would be announcing PM Rishi. You might not be fans of any of them but they're not scary.
The Lib Dems, Greens and others are different because either there are insufficient MPs to form a proper electorate, and/or other elected officials or staff are as or more powerful (e.g. MSPs).
MPs alone gave us Michael Foot, Gordon Brown, William Hague and Theresa May so it is not as clear as that
The Drake was elected by members after the Mysterious Death of Carl Sargeant, leading to Carwyn Jones standing down.
The Drake had a closer result than the Truss in the membership ballot.
And went in to get the most successful ever result for Llafur in the Senedd elections in 2021.
And he has given all of us in Wales a free tree
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6 years after the Brexit vote the UK has not lost any territory compared to before the vote actually.Carnyx said:
Why not? The UK has already started breaking up, with the loss of most of Ireland, and the ongoing loss of the rest.HYUFD said:
As Essex is now part of England and the UK.Carnyx said:
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?Theuniondivvie said:
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.williamglenn said:
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?Carnyx said:
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.HYUFD said:
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in ParliamentBartholomewRoberts said:
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.148grss said:
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.BartholomewRoberts said:
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.148grss said:
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.BartholomewRoberts said:
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.148grss said:
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.HYUFD said:
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in lawCarnyx said:
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.HYUFD said:
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a voteScott_xP said:The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row.
2015: Majority to hold a referendum
2016: Majority to Vote Leave
2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote
2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
On your argument most big nations would break up, after all Naples, Venice, Bavaria, Texas etc were once independent nations too as were the Princely states in India
If we go down that line we could start breaking up Scotland too, Shetland for example did not become part of Scotland until the 15th century and much of the Scottish Borders was often under English control0 -
I seem to have won 2 pence with Betfair from the Tory leadership contest. Not sure why.2
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Moonshine spouting moonshine as usual.moonshine said:
Ha! I see Wes Streeting has followed him. Dunce.moonshine said:By the way Ed Davey’s “we must have an immediate election” shows how moronic he is. Is there anyone outside of the commons (or who aspires to enter it) who think what the country needs right now is another 6 weeks with politicians doing no work?
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This is interesting.
Had a summing up conversation with @BorisJohnson in his current capacity. On behalf of all 🇺🇦 people, I thanked him for his personal bravery, principles & a major contribution to countering RF's aggression. I look forward to cooperation with a great friend of 🇺🇦 in a new status.
https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1566792848896397312
Bold highlight is my own. Boris expecting some sort of Ukraine-focused role?1 -
That's unfair to the folk of Haroldswick and Saxa Vord. (Unless you mean you want him to be sent to outer space: I'm not clear on this inference, but they are purportedly building a spaceport on Lamba Ness.) And to HYUFD. O&S has less than 10% Conservative.Mexicanpete said:
If Truss' manifesto was anyone called HYUFD will have all their worldly possessions sequestered and be banished to the Island of Unst would you still vote Tory?HYUFD said:
I have loyally supported every Tory leader since I joined the party under William Hague. However I am a diehard Tory, it is not me Truss needs to worry aboutRazedabode said:How long until HFUYD transforms into Truss’ biggest supporter
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It was terrible. As bad as her first leadership debate where we all wrote her offLuckyguy1983 said:
Oh, was it a cringer? Won't watch then. As she says about Macron, I will judge her by deeds not words.Leon said:On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
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That's interesting.AlistairM said:This is interesting.
Had a summing up conversation with @BorisJohnson in his current capacity. On behalf of all 🇺🇦 people, I thanked him for his personal bravery, principles & a major contribution to countering RF's aggression. I look forward to cooperation with a great friend of 🇺🇦 in a new status.
https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1566792848896397312
Bold highlight is my own. Boris expecting some sort of Ukraine-focused role?
Junior Press Release Writer at the UK embassy in Kyiv?1 -
Even in Truss’ victory Johnson’s rehabilitation continues apace. No-one, not even Sunak, really told a story of why he needed to go during the campaign. Totally logical therefore at some point the party, in electoral difficulties, says get him back. https://twitter.com/MattHighton/status/1566761404501295104/video/13
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You're muddling things again. We're talking about big nations. You know, like you said the words "big nations". And at any excuse, or lack of one, you are yet again threatening Partition.HYUFD said:
6 years after the Brexit vote the UK has not lost any territory compared to before the vote actually.Carnyx said:
Why not? The UK has already started breaking up, with the loss of most of Ireland, and the ongoing loss of the rest.HYUFD said:
As Essex is now part of England and the UK.Carnyx said:
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?Theuniondivvie said:
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.williamglenn said:
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?Carnyx said:
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.HYUFD said:
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in ParliamentBartholomewRoberts said:
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.148grss said:
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.BartholomewRoberts said:
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.148grss said:
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.BartholomewRoberts said:
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.148grss said:
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.HYUFD said:
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in lawCarnyx said:
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.HYUFD said:
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a voteScott_xP said:The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row.
2015: Majority to hold a referendum
2016: Majority to Vote Leave
2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote
2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
On your argument most big nations would break up, after all Naples, Venice, Bavaria, Texas etc were once independent nations too as were the Princely states in India
If we go down that line we could start breaking up Scotland too, Shetland for example did not become part of Scotland until the 15th century and much of the Scottish Borders was often under English control
I suggest you buy one of those:
https://oliviastrains.com/product/hornby-r3913-class-20-9-20905-gbrf-livery-2/
Much more therapeutic than constantly trying to defend parliamentary democracy by denying it.0 -
Put it towards your energy bill.Andy_JS said:I seem to have won 2 pence with Betfair from the Tory leadership contest. Not sure why.
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We're encouraged (there's an official policy of encouragement, but it's very non-specific on the nature of that encouragement) to put pronouns in our email signatures. Some do, some don't (probably 50:50, but edging up). I haven't. If I start to feel like I stand out then I probably will.Leon said:I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
My insurance renewals, particularly car, are normally addressed to 'Dr (male) Selebian' as I choose 'Dr (male)' in the title drop down. Not sure why the companies haven't employed anyone able to add the line or two to the database query to truncate Dr (male) and Dr (female) to plain Dr for salutations and make them look competent. Perhaps they're just being woke?
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First tory MP to wear a poppy would be a good betting market. I reckon that fucking scumbag Browne could go for it before the end of September.3
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Lolz. Dear Xir/ Madamx high jinksLeon said:I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮0 -
Even Theresa May had more charisma than Truss did in that speech, it was the least inspiring introduction from a new Conservative leader since IDS' in 2001.Leon said:
It was terrible. As bad as her first leadership debate where we all wrote her offLuckyguy1983 said:
Oh, was it a cringer? Won't watch then. As she says about Macron, I will judge her by deeds not words.Leon said:On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
However Truss has a lot of plans so let us see where we are in 6 to 12 months0 -
Personal bravery?AlistairM said:This is interesting.
Had a summing up conversation with @BorisJohnson in his current capacity. On behalf of all 🇺🇦 people, I thanked him for his personal bravery, principles & a major contribution to countering RF's aggression. I look forward to cooperation with a great friend of 🇺🇦 in a new status.
https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1566792848896397312
Bold highlight is my own. Boris expecting some sort of Ukraine-focused role?
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Despite countless twunks on Twatter moaning about Tories and sewage, I spent a lovely week in North Devon last week and saw no sewage there either...Leon said:That’s…. quite a beach. Strong recommend. No sewage visible
We have an issue with heavy rain and a system that can't cope, but I can't believe that we are the only european country where that happens. We must do better, but idiots on twitter can do one, quite frankly.1 -
Mine are one and onesLeon said:I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮1 -
The key to this is not just Truss but Kwarteng selling the energy proposals at the dispatch boxHYUFD said:
Even Theresa May had more charisma than Truss did in that speech, it was the least inspiring introduction from a new Conservative leader since IDS' in 2001.Leon said:
It was terrible. As bad as her first leadership debate where we all wrote her offLuckyguy1983 said:
Oh, was it a cringer? Won't watch then. As she says about Macron, I will judge her by deeds not words.Leon said:On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
However Truss has a lot of plans so let us see where we are in 6 to 12 months
Truss success or otherwise is tied in to Kwarteng providing help to consumers and businesses1 -
Paradise by the dashboard light?BartholomewRoberts said:
The great philosopher Mr M Loaf has a maxim that should be ominous for Truss then.CarlottaVance said:
And two of them have gone on to continue as PM from General Elections subsequently….nico679 said:
The Tories are taking the piss ! They’ve changed leader 3 times in 6 years .CarlottaVance said:Just like Gordon Brown did….
NEW:
Shadow Secretary of State for Health Wes Streeting has called for an immediate election, saying Liz Truss needs to 'seek a fresh mandate'.
https://twitter.com/electpoliticsuk/status/15667781735215267861 -
A friend says she’s getting subtle pressure to add her pronouns (same company)Selebian said:
We're encouraged (there's an official policy of encouragement, but it's very non-specific on the nature of that encouragement) to put pronouns in our email signatures. Some do, some don't (probably 50:50, but edging up). I haven't. If I start to feel like I stand out then I probably will.Leon said:I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
My insurance renewals, particularly car, are normally addressed to 'Dr (male) Selebian' as I choose 'Dr (male)' in the title drop down. Not sure why the companies haven't employed anyone able to add the line or two to the database query to truncate Dr (male) and Dr (female) to plain Dr for salutations and make them look competent. Perhaps they're just being woke?
Bonkers
Incidentally the pronouns came at the top of an email admitting they’d made a tremendous mistake and could I help them sort it out
Perhaps if they were less bothered about their gender status they wouldn’t make howling errors in the job
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In a Western world threatened by an expansionist Russia and China, the idea we would be stronger against them economically and militarily broken up into tiny nations is absurdCarnyx said:
You're muddling things again. We're talking about big nations. You know, like you said the words "big nations". And at any excuse, or lack of one, you are yet again threatening Partition.HYUFD said:
6 years after the Brexit vote the UK has not lost any territory compared to before the vote actually.Carnyx said:
Why not? The UK has already started breaking up, with the loss of most of Ireland, and the ongoing loss of the rest.HYUFD said:
As Essex is now part of England and the UK.Carnyx said:
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?Theuniondivvie said:
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.williamglenn said:
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?Carnyx said:
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.HYUFD said:
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in ParliamentBartholomewRoberts said:
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.148grss said:
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.BartholomewRoberts said:
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.148grss said:
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.BartholomewRoberts said:
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.148grss said:
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.HYUFD said:
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in lawCarnyx said:
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.HYUFD said:
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a voteScott_xP said:The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row.
2015: Majority to hold a referendum
2016: Majority to Vote Leave
2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote
2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
On your argument most big nations would break up, after all Naples, Venice, Bavaria, Texas etc were once independent nations too as were the Princely states in India
If we go down that line we could start breaking up Scotland too, Shetland for example did not become part of Scotland until the 15th century and much of the Scottish Borders was often under English control
I suggest you buy one of those:
https://oliviastrains.com/product/hornby-r3913-class-20-9-20905-gbrf-livery-2/
Much more therapeutic than constantly trying to defend parliamentary democracy by denying it.0 -
To be fair it wasn't a cringer, it was a nothinger. She has clearly decided that, impatient as everyone is for some action, she's not going to say anything until she's ready. For now, it's just Britiain is great, Boris was great, thank you all.Luckyguy1983 said:
Oh, was it a cringer? Won't watch then. As she says about Macron, I will judge her by deeds not words.Leon said:On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
That might be wise, but she's testing the theory that first impressions are important. A lot of people won't really have paid attention to her before and will have given this speech a listen, without taking much away.1 -
The currently more important speech will be later this week, I expect.Scott_xP said:
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...Leon said:On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
There are plenty of good proposals out there; she needs to filter out the self-interest by the lobbies who wrote the various documents.1 -
NATO Sec Gen perhaps?MattW said:
That's interesting.AlistairM said:This is interesting.
Had a summing up conversation with @BorisJohnson in his current capacity. On behalf of all 🇺🇦 people, I thanked him for his personal bravery, principles & a major contribution to countering RF's aggression. I look forward to cooperation with a great friend of 🇺🇦 in a new status.
https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1566792848896397312
Bold highlight is my own. Boris expecting some sort of Ukraine-focused role?
Junior Press Release Writer at the UK embassy in Kyiv?
0 -
IndeedStuartinromford said:
Hasn't that process already started with the absorption of "North East London" (aka the Barking Episcopal Area, aka Dagenham, Ilford, Romford and points in-between) into Greater London?Carnyx said:
TBF, Essex certainly has remained a distinct polity since before its annexation in 825, so it actually predates England. Just suggest to HYUFD that it is abolished and split between GLC and Suffolk, and see what happens.Theuniondivvie said:
As with an English parliament, it’s supporters would probably think it should be handed to them on a plate without popular support or political parties backing such a proposition.Carnyx said:
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?Theuniondivvie said:
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.williamglenn said:
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?Carnyx said:
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.HYUFD said:
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in ParliamentBartholomewRoberts said:
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.148grss said:
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.BartholomewRoberts said:
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.148grss said:
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.BartholomewRoberts said:
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.148grss said:
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.HYUFD said:
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in lawCarnyx said:
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.HYUFD said:
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a voteScott_xP said:The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row.
2015: Majority to hold a referendum
2016: Majority to Vote Leave
2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote
2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
Still traumatises some round these parts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj8ThOmPTuM0 -
Your friend should make a complaint about being pressured to potentially be outed against *** willLeon said:
A friend says she’s getting subtle pressure to add her pronouns (same company)Selebian said:
We're encouraged (there's an official policy of encouragement, but it's very non-specific on the nature of that encouragement) to put pronouns in our email signatures. Some do, some don't (probably 50:50, but edging up). I haven't. If I start to feel like I stand out then I probably will.Leon said:I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
My insurance renewals, particularly car, are normally addressed to 'Dr (male) Selebian' as I choose 'Dr (male)' in the title drop down. Not sure why the companies haven't employed anyone able to add the line or two to the database query to truncate Dr (male) and Dr (female) to plain Dr for salutations and make them look competent. Perhaps they're just being woke?
Bonkers
Incidentally the pronouns came at the top of an email admitting they’d made a tremendous mistake and could I help them sort it out
Perhaps if they were less bothered about their gender status they wouldn’t make howling errors in the job
0 -
I can't recall whether you were for or against Brexit.HYUFD said:
In a Western world threatened by an expansionist Russia and China, the idea we would be stronger against them economically and militarily broken up into tiny nations is absurdCarnyx said:
You're muddling things again. We're talking about big nations. You know, like you said the words "big nations". And at any excuse, or lack of one, you are yet again threatening Partition.HYUFD said:
6 years after the Brexit vote the UK has not lost any territory compared to before the vote actually.Carnyx said:
Why not? The UK has already started breaking up, with the loss of most of Ireland, and the ongoing loss of the rest.HYUFD said:
As Essex is now part of England and the UK.Carnyx said:
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?Theuniondivvie said:
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.williamglenn said:
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?Carnyx said:
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.HYUFD said:
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in ParliamentBartholomewRoberts said:
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.148grss said:
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.BartholomewRoberts said:
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.148grss said:
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.BartholomewRoberts said:
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.148grss said:
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.HYUFD said:
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in lawCarnyx said:
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.HYUFD said:
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a voteScott_xP said:The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row.
2015: Majority to hold a referendum
2016: Majority to Vote Leave
2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote
2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
On your argument most big nations would break up, after all Naples, Venice, Bavaria, Texas etc were once independent nations too as were the Princely states in India
If we go down that line we could start breaking up Scotland too, Shetland for example did not become part of Scotland until the 15th century and much of the Scottish Borders was often under English control
I suggest you buy one of those:
https://oliviastrains.com/product/hornby-r3913-class-20-9-20905-gbrf-livery-2/
Much more therapeutic than constantly trying to defend parliamentary democracy by denying it.
1 -
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment like that?Scott_xP said:
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...Leon said:On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
As a politician you need to get yourself across, build faith in your seriousness and professionalism. As leader of a nation you have to lead it. I know people say the delivery was stilted and naff, but more importantly her team didn’t write her a speech?
It just seems a wasted moment. 🤷♀️0 -
I see Scotty has decided the idiotic nickname he's going to spam us with for the next several years.0
-
Front line infantry.AlistairM said:This is interesting.
Had a summing up conversation with @BorisJohnson in his current capacity. On behalf of all 🇺🇦 people, I thanked him for his personal bravery, principles & a major contribution to countering RF's aggression. I look forward to cooperation with a great friend of 🇺🇦 in a new status.
https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1566792848896397312
Bold highlight is my own. Boris expecting some sort of Ukraine-focused role?0 -
Liz Truss's comprehensive school was so rough they didn't even teach her to shake hands politely with the losing candidate.5
-
How was that done, just inserted at top of email - 'my pronouns are'? That's a little odd.Leon said:
A friend says she’s getting subtle pressure to add her pronouns (same company)Selebian said:
We're encouraged (there's an official policy of encouragement, but it's very non-specific on the nature of that encouragement) to put pronouns in our email signatures. Some do, some don't (probably 50:50, but edging up). I haven't. If I start to feel like I stand out then I probably will.Leon said:I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
My insurance renewals, particularly car, are normally addressed to 'Dr (male) Selebian' as I choose 'Dr (male)' in the title drop down. Not sure why the companies haven't employed anyone able to add the line or two to the database query to truncate Dr (male) and Dr (female) to plain Dr for salutations and make them look competent. Perhaps they're just being woke?
Bonkers
Incidentally the pronouns came at the top of an email admitting they’d made a tremendous mistake and could I help them sort it out
Perhaps if they were less bothered about their gender status they wouldn’t make howling errors in the job
At least in email sig (it tends to be in brackets after name) it's easy to find if anyone is actually wondering/bothered but doesn't get in the way. Like twitter handles etc which tend to be in the same place
I hadn't noticed it at our co until I became aware it was officially encouraged, which I think was through someone mentioning it to me0 -
A company i worked for mail merged out a sales letter to all on our spreadsheet databases (financial services), forgetting entirely the (deceased) cells.Selebian said:
We're encouraged (there's an official policy of encouragement, but it's very non-specific on the nature of that encouragement) to put pronouns in our email signatures. Some do, some don't (probably 50:50, but edging up). I haven't. If I start to feel like I stand out then I probably will.Leon said:I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
My insurance renewals, particularly car, are normally addressed to 'Dr (male) Selebian' as I choose 'Dr (male)' in the title drop down. Not sure why the companies haven't employed anyone able to add the line or two to the database query to truncate Dr (male) and Dr (female) to plain Dr for salutations and make them look competent. Perhaps they're just being woke?
Cue some very pissed off grieving widows and widowers.2 -
...
Does two count as several?Driver said:I see Scotty has decided the idiotic nickname he's going to spam us with for the next several years,
0 -
Kwarteng quickly went from being a rising star to being almost completely anonymous for years, so it will be interesting to see how he fares assuming that he will step into a very big job with a big profile.Big_G_NorthWales said:
The key to this is not just Truss but Kwarteng selling the energy proposals at the dispatch boxHYUFD said:
Even Theresa May had more charisma than Truss did in that speech, it was the least inspiring introduction from a new Conservative leader since IDS' in 2001.Leon said:
It was terrible. As bad as her first leadership debate where we all wrote her offLuckyguy1983 said:
Oh, was it a cringer? Won't watch then. As she says about Macron, I will judge her by deeds not words.Leon said:On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
However Truss has a lot of plans so let us see where we are in 6 to 12 months
Truss success or otherwise is tied in to Kwarteng providing help to consumers and businesses1 -
Wasn't valuing the ability to entertain the audience how we ended up where we were?Leon said:
It was terrible. As bad as her first leadership debate where we all wrote her offLuckyguy1983 said:
Oh, was it a cringer? Won't watch then. As she says about Macron, I will judge her by deeds not words.Leon said:On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
Theresa wasn't great either, and neither was Gordon.
I look forward to the day when the PM is essentially a black box that publishes a manifesto, makes decisions and nobody cares what it looks like as long as it doesn't screw up.1 -
Eccentric formatting to be sureSelebian said:
How was that done, just inserted at top of email - 'my pronouns are'? That's a little odd.Leon said:
A friend says she’s getting subtle pressure to add her pronouns (same company)Selebian said:
We're encouraged (there's an official policy of encouragement, but it's very non-specific on the nature of that encouragement) to put pronouns in our email signatures. Some do, some don't (probably 50:50, but edging up). I haven't. If I start to feel like I stand out then I probably will.Leon said:I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
My insurance renewals, particularly car, are normally addressed to 'Dr (male) Selebian' as I choose 'Dr (male)' in the title drop down. Not sure why the companies haven't employed anyone able to add the line or two to the database query to truncate Dr (male) and Dr (female) to plain Dr for salutations and make them look competent. Perhaps they're just being woke?
Bonkers
Incidentally the pronouns came at the top of an email admitting they’d made a tremendous mistake and could I help them sort it out
Perhaps if they were less bothered about their gender status they wouldn’t make howling errors in the job
At least in email sig (it tends to be in brackets after name) it's easy to find if anyone is actually wondering/bothered but doesn't get in the way. Like twitter handles etc which tend to be in the same place
I hadn't noticed it at our co until I became aware it was officially encouraged, which I think was through someone mentioning it to me
It’s just a slightly annoying barnacle. Which sits on a mighty rock of madness0 -
...
Perhaps the height difference just meant he was out of her line of sight?rottenborough said:Liz Truss's comprehensive school was so rough they didn't even teach her to shake hands politely with the losing candidate.
0 -
The posh boys are no longer in charge of the Tories after the defeat of the Wykehamist Rishi who I am sure would have shaken hands with Truss. Truss the first state educated Tory leader since May and the first comprehensive educated Tory leader since Hague.rottenborough said:Liz Truss's comprehensive school was so rough they didn't even teach her to shake hands politely with the losing candidate.
The posh boys are back in charge of Labour though, Starmer the first secondary school privately educated Labour leader since Blair0 -
I like to confuse people by mixing them up: he/her usually does it.Leon said:
A friend says she’s getting subtle pressure to add her pronouns (same company)Selebian said:
We're encouraged (there's an official policy of encouragement, but it's very non-specific on the nature of that encouragement) to put pronouns in our email signatures. Some do, some don't (probably 50:50, but edging up). I haven't. If I start to feel like I stand out then I probably will.Leon said:I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
My insurance renewals, particularly car, are normally addressed to 'Dr (male) Selebian' as I choose 'Dr (male)' in the title drop down. Not sure why the companies haven't employed anyone able to add the line or two to the database query to truncate Dr (male) and Dr (female) to plain Dr for salutations and make them look competent. Perhaps they're just being woke?
Bonkers
Incidentally the pronouns came at the top of an email admitting they’d made a tremendous mistake and could I help them sort it out
Perhaps if they were less bothered about their gender status they wouldn’t make howling errors in the job3 -
Was it from LadyG or Byronic? I recall they were a bit blurry round the gender edges.Leon said:I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮1 -
"I would do anything for love, but I won't do that"?BartholomewRoberts said:
The great philosopher Mr M Loaf has a maxim that should be ominous for Truss then.CarlottaVance said:
And two of them have gone on to continue as PM from General Elections subsequently….nico679 said:
The Tories are taking the piss ! They’ve changed leader 3 times in 6 years .CarlottaVance said:Just like Gordon Brown did….
NEW:
Shadow Secretary of State for Health Wes Streeting has called for an immediate election, saying Liz Truss needs to 'seek a fresh mandate'.
https://twitter.com/electpoliticsuk/status/15667781735215267863 -
I voted RemainOldKingCole said:
I can't recall whether you were for or against Brexit.HYUFD said:
In a Western world threatened by an expansionist Russia and China, the idea we would be stronger against them economically and militarily broken up into tiny nations is absurdCarnyx said:
You're muddling things again. We're talking about big nations. You know, like you said the words "big nations". And at any excuse, or lack of one, you are yet again threatening Partition.HYUFD said:
6 years after the Brexit vote the UK has not lost any territory compared to before the vote actually.Carnyx said:
Why not? The UK has already started breaking up, with the loss of most of Ireland, and the ongoing loss of the rest.HYUFD said:
As Essex is now part of England and the UK.Carnyx said:
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?Theuniondivvie said:
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.williamglenn said:
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?Carnyx said:
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.HYUFD said:
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in ParliamentBartholomewRoberts said:
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.148grss said:
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.BartholomewRoberts said:
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.148grss said:
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.BartholomewRoberts said:
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.148grss said:
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.HYUFD said:
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in lawCarnyx said:
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.HYUFD said:
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a voteScott_xP said:The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row.
2015: Majority to hold a referendum
2016: Majority to Vote Leave
2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote
2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
On your argument most big nations would break up, after all Naples, Venice, Bavaria, Texas etc were once independent nations too as were the Princely states in India
If we go down that line we could start breaking up Scotland too, Shetland for example did not become part of Scotland until the 15th century and much of the Scottish Borders was often under English control
I suggest you buy one of those:
https://oliviastrains.com/product/hornby-r3913-class-20-9-20905-gbrf-livery-2/
Much more therapeutic than constantly trying to defend parliamentary democracy by denying it.0 -
How does that go?Leon said:I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
Dear Leon,
Before I proceed to the main theme of my email I would like to point out that I prefer to be 'she/her'
Now that that is out of the way, I would like to remind you that you owe my firm £3000 for wine deliveries.2 -
I would be tempted to use they/them and then try to outsource the boring bits of work to someone elsercs1000 said:
I like to confuse people by mixing them up: he/her usually does it.Leon said:
A friend says she’s getting subtle pressure to add her pronouns (same company)Selebian said:
We're encouraged (there's an official policy of encouragement, but it's very non-specific on the nature of that encouragement) to put pronouns in our email signatures. Some do, some don't (probably 50:50, but edging up). I haven't. If I start to feel like I stand out then I probably will.Leon said:I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
My insurance renewals, particularly car, are normally addressed to 'Dr (male) Selebian' as I choose 'Dr (male)' in the title drop down. Not sure why the companies haven't employed anyone able to add the line or two to the database query to truncate Dr (male) and Dr (female) to plain Dr for salutations and make them look competent. Perhaps they're just being woke?
Bonkers
Incidentally the pronouns came at the top of an email admitting they’d made a tremendous mistake and could I help them sort it out
Perhaps if they were less bothered about their gender status they wouldn’t make howling errors in the job0 -
He'll make it feel that way.Mexicanpete said:...
Does two count as several?Driver said:I see Scotty has decided the idiotic nickname he's going to spam us with for the next several years,
0 -
Negative lateral flow tests, face masks and pronoun badges will be de rigeur at Californian thanksgiving this yearLeon said:
Eccentric formatting to be sureSelebian said:
How was that done, just inserted at top of email - 'my pronouns are'? That's a little odd.Leon said:
A friend says she’s getting subtle pressure to add her pronouns (same company)Selebian said:
We're encouraged (there's an official policy of encouragement, but it's very non-specific on the nature of that encouragement) to put pronouns in our email signatures. Some do, some don't (probably 50:50, but edging up). I haven't. If I start to feel like I stand out then I probably will.Leon said:I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
My insurance renewals, particularly car, are normally addressed to 'Dr (male) Selebian' as I choose 'Dr (male)' in the title drop down. Not sure why the companies haven't employed anyone able to add the line or two to the database query to truncate Dr (male) and Dr (female) to plain Dr for salutations and make them look competent. Perhaps they're just being woke?
Bonkers
Incidentally the pronouns came at the top of an email admitting they’d made a tremendous mistake and could I help them sort it out
Perhaps if they were less bothered about their gender status they wouldn’t make howling errors in the job
At least in email sig (it tends to be in brackets after name) it's easy to find if anyone is actually wondering/bothered but doesn't get in the way. Like twitter handles etc which tend to be in the same place
I hadn't noticed it at our co until I became aware it was officially encouraged, which I think was through someone mentioning it to me
It’s just a slightly annoying barnacle. Which sits on a mighty rock of madness0 -
(Radiohead/Coldplay)rcs1000 said:
I like to confuse people by mixing them up: he/her usually does it.Leon said:
A friend says she’s getting subtle pressure to add her pronouns (same company)Selebian said:
We're encouraged (there's an official policy of encouragement, but it's very non-specific on the nature of that encouragement) to put pronouns in our email signatures. Some do, some don't (probably 50:50, but edging up). I haven't. If I start to feel like I stand out then I probably will.Leon said:I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
My insurance renewals, particularly car, are normally addressed to 'Dr (male) Selebian' as I choose 'Dr (male)' in the title drop down. Not sure why the companies haven't employed anyone able to add the line or two to the database query to truncate Dr (male) and Dr (female) to plain Dr for salutations and make them look competent. Perhaps they're just being woke?
Bonkers
Incidentally the pronouns came at the top of an email admitting they’d made a tremendous mistake and could I help them sort it out
Perhaps if they were less bothered about their gender status they wouldn’t make howling errors in the job1 -
Deleted - images upside down again!
What is the fix for photos being displayed upside down?
0 -
This coast - the Costa Vicentina - actually reminds me a little of Devon and Cornwall. Emptier and sunnier, and not as charming inland as the nicer bits of Devon/Cornwall - but definitely echoes. The wild Atlantic battering west facing cliffsturbotubbs said:
Despite countless twunks on Twatter moaning about Tories and sewage, I spent a lovely week in North Devon last week and saw no sewage there either...Leon said:That’s…. quite a beach. Strong recommend. No sewage visible
We have an issue with heavy rain and a system that can't cope, but I can't believe that we are the only european country where that happens. We must do better, but idiots on twitter can do one, quite frankly.
I fear we probably do have some particular issues with sewage in the UK because parts of the UK are so crowded. We have increased Englands population by 10 million in a few decades. Have we improved our infrastructure accordingly? Not really
0 -
"My pronouns are obvious".eek said:
I would be tempted to use they/them and then try to outsource the boring bits of work to someone elsercs1000 said:
I like to confuse people by mixing them up: he/her usually does it.Leon said:
A friend says she’s getting subtle pressure to add her pronouns (same company)Selebian said:
We're encouraged (there's an official policy of encouragement, but it's very non-specific on the nature of that encouragement) to put pronouns in our email signatures. Some do, some don't (probably 50:50, but edging up). I haven't. If I start to feel like I stand out then I probably will.Leon said:I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
My insurance renewals, particularly car, are normally addressed to 'Dr (male) Selebian' as I choose 'Dr (male)' in the title drop down. Not sure why the companies haven't employed anyone able to add the line or two to the database query to truncate Dr (male) and Dr (female) to plain Dr for salutations and make them look competent. Perhaps they're just being woke?
Bonkers
Incidentally the pronouns came at the top of an email admitting they’d made a tremendous mistake and could I help them sort it out
Perhaps if they were less bothered about their gender status they wouldn’t make howling errors in the job0 -
Bloomberg claiming the aluminium industry is facing an extinction event across production
It is just so scary now Russia has closed gas to Europe until Russian sanctions are removed0 -
Nice. Someone’s actually sculpted that, out of wood and everything, apparently. Not AI.
There’s a touch of the Cummings there for me. Giggidy.
0 -
My pronouns are in a state of flux. Good luck and may your God guide youDriver said:
"My pronouns are obvious".eek said:
I would be tempted to use they/them and then try to outsource the boring bits of work to someone elsercs1000 said:
I like to confuse people by mixing them up: he/her usually does it.Leon said:
A friend says she’s getting subtle pressure to add her pronouns (same company)Selebian said:
We're encouraged (there's an official policy of encouragement, but it's very non-specific on the nature of that encouragement) to put pronouns in our email signatures. Some do, some don't (probably 50:50, but edging up). I haven't. If I start to feel like I stand out then I probably will.Leon said:I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
My insurance renewals, particularly car, are normally addressed to 'Dr (male) Selebian' as I choose 'Dr (male)' in the title drop down. Not sure why the companies haven't employed anyone able to add the line or two to the database query to truncate Dr (male) and Dr (female) to plain Dr for salutations and make them look competent. Perhaps they're just being woke?
Bonkers
Incidentally the pronouns came at the top of an email admitting they’d made a tremendous mistake and could I help them sort it out
Perhaps if they were less bothered about their gender status they wouldn’t make howling errors in the job1 -
Makes entire sense. Too much risk of a retaliatory Glasgow, or perhaps one should say Paisley, kiss when the victor's defences are down.rottenborough said:Liz Truss's comprehensive school was so rough they didn't even teach her to shake hands politely with the losing candidate.
0 -
Starmer went to a grammar school that converted to a private school while he was there, and his family didn't pay any fees. I don't really see how that makes him posh, compared to someone who attended a £40k/year school for instance.HYUFD said:
The posh boys are no longer in charge of the Tories after the defeat of the Wykehamist Rishi who I am sure would have shaken hands with Truss. Truss the first state educated Tory leader since May and the first comprehensive educated Tory leader since Hague.rottenborough said:Liz Truss's comprehensive school was so rough they didn't even teach her to shake hands politely with the losing candidate.
The posh boys are back in charge of Labour though, Starmer the first secondary school privately educated Labour leader since Blair3 -
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...MoonRabbit said:
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment like that?Scott_xP said:
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...Leon said:On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
As a politician you need to get yourself across, build faith in your seriousness and professionalism. As leader of a nation you have to lead it. I know people say the delivery was stilted and naff, but more importantly her team didn’t write her a speech?
It just seems a wasted moment. 🤷♀️
Go on. Name a good speech she has given.
(Like a lot of politicians, she's arrived at the top badly undercooked. I'm remarkably OK as a public speaker. But that's after many years of doing it five times a day, five days a week.)0 -
Do you think this is all going to end up in WWIII? The kind of economic war we're seeing between Russia and the west feels like a prelude to an actual conflict to me but then I just can't imagine Russia and USA actually going to war in the end.Big_G_NorthWales said:Bloomberg claiming the aluminium industry is facing an extinction event across production
It is just so scary now Russia has closed gas to Europe until Russian sanctions are removed1 -
You mean, like the Tories have safeguarded UK military power? Look at what DA was saying about the Royal Artillery yesterday.HYUFD said:
In a Western world threatened by an expansionist Russia and China, the idea we would be stronger against them economically and militarily broken up into tiny nations is absurdCarnyx said:
You're muddling things again. We're talking about big nations. You know, like you said the words "big nations". And at any excuse, or lack of one, you are yet again threatening Partition.HYUFD said:
6 years after the Brexit vote the UK has not lost any territory compared to before the vote actually.Carnyx said:
Why not? The UK has already started breaking up, with the loss of most of Ireland, and the ongoing loss of the rest.HYUFD said:
As Essex is now part of England and the UK.Carnyx said:
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?Theuniondivvie said:
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.williamglenn said:
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?Carnyx said:
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.HYUFD said:
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in ParliamentBartholomewRoberts said:
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.148grss said:
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.BartholomewRoberts said:
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.148grss said:
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.BartholomewRoberts said:
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.148grss said:
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.HYUFD said:
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in lawCarnyx said:
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.HYUFD said:
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a voteScott_xP said:The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row.
2015: Majority to hold a referendum
2016: Majority to Vote Leave
2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote
2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
On your argument most big nations would break up, after all Naples, Venice, Bavaria, Texas etc were once independent nations too as were the Princely states in India
If we go down that line we could start breaking up Scotland too, Shetland for example did not become part of Scotland until the 15th century and much of the Scottish Borders was often under English control
I suggest you buy one of those:
https://oliviastrains.com/product/hornby-r3913-class-20-9-20905-gbrf-livery-2/
Much more therapeutic than constantly trying to defend parliamentary democracy by denying it.
Top Tip from IndyViz: don't bullshit about the promised advantages of being in the Union if they don't actually exist any more (e.g. EU membership).0 -
Just looked up and saw Ben Wallace at the dispatch box and it shows how ridiculous the last 8 weeks have been as I was taken by surprised at live HOC0
-
The problem is caused by rainwater flooding the sewerage system during periods of heavy rain, not by the volume of human waste going into the system.Leon said:
This coast - the Costa Vicentina - actually reminds me a little of Devon and Cornwall. Emptier and sunnier, and not as charming inland as the nicer bits of Devon/Cornwall - but definitely echoes. The wild Atlantic battering west facing cliffsturbotubbs said:
Despite countless twunks on Twatter moaning about Tories and sewage, I spent a lovely week in North Devon last week and saw no sewage there either...Leon said:That’s…. quite a beach. Strong recommend. No sewage visible
We have an issue with heavy rain and a system that can't cope, but I can't believe that we are the only european country where that happens. We must do better, but idiots on twitter can do one, quite frankly.
I fear we probably do have some particular issues with sewage in the UK because parts of the UK are so crowded. We have increased Englands population by 10 million in a few decades. Have we improved our infrastructure accordingly? Not really0 -
North Devon's best beach:
Hard to beat the UK when the weather is this good.
2 -
This has been anticipated by the market for months. Gas to Europe is a tiny percent of Russia’s exports but a high proportion of European energy so it was always going to happen, as the only high card really left to Putin. In a way it’s a good thing, as it should sharpen any minds in continental Europe that still thought we’d ever be going back to where we were. Aluminium is a proxy for energy costs given the refining process.Big_G_NorthWales said:Bloomberg claiming the aluminium industry is facing an extinction event across production
It is just so scary now Russia has closed gas to Europe until Russian sanctions are removed
Think of this another way. We are at war with Russia in everything but name. And the worst thing we are facing is how to socialise higher energy costs within society. A few Brits have been killed in fighting, “recently retired” Hereford residents I expect. But there shouldn’t be much expectation of worse than that if basic heating costs are covered this winter, and we don’t have accidentally long periods of power outages at certain households. Quite remarkable when you think of my statement that we are at war with Russia.
2 -
I really hope not but it ends either with Russia being defeated, or Ukraine sacrificed on Europe's catastrophic decision, led by Merkel, to prostitute itself at the foot of Putin's gas and oilGIN1138 said:
Do you think this is all going to end up in WWIII? The kind of economic war we're seeing between Russia and the west feels like a prelude to an actual conflict to me but then I just can't imagine Russia and USA actually going to war in the end.Big_G_NorthWales said:Bloomberg claiming the aluminium industry is facing an extinction event across production
It is just so scary now Russia has closed gas to Europe until Russian sanctions are removed3 -
I think there is zero chance of us using WMD first.GIN1138 said:
Do you think this is all going to end up in WWIII? The kind of economic war we're seeing between Russia and the west feels like a prelude to an actual conflict to me but then I just can't imagine Russia and USA actually going to war in the end.Big_G_NorthWales said:Bloomberg claiming the aluminium industry is facing an extinction event across production
It is just so scary now Russia has closed gas to Europe until Russian sanctions are removed
As for Russia: they know that the use of a strategic nuke will mean WWIII. One where everyone loses. A tactical nuke within Ukraine might not cause a NATO retaliation, but with such a long front, one or two tactical nukes would make little difference: and make Russia even more of a pariah - and lose them some of the'friends' they have atm.
What concerns me is them laying dirty: the use of dirty, radiological or chemical weapons. Think Salisbury or Litvinenko. Something a little more deniable.1 -
We have multiple problems. And some of them do relate to the overuse of our landscape, due to population pressuresOnlyLivingBoy said:
The problem is caused by rainwater flooding the sewerage system during periods of heavy rain, not by the volume of human waste going into the system.Leon said:
This coast - the Costa Vicentina - actually reminds me a little of Devon and Cornwall. Emptier and sunnier, and not as charming inland as the nicer bits of Devon/Cornwall - but definitely echoes. The wild Atlantic battering west facing cliffsturbotubbs said:
Despite countless twunks on Twatter moaning about Tories and sewage, I spent a lovely week in North Devon last week and saw no sewage there either...Leon said:That’s…. quite a beach. Strong recommend. No sewage visible
We have an issue with heavy rain and a system that can't cope, but I can't believe that we are the only european country where that happens. We must do better, but idiots on twitter can do one, quite frankly.
I fear we probably do have some particular issues with sewage in the UK because parts of the UK are so crowded. We have increased Englands population by 10 million in a few decades. Have we improved our infrastructure accordingly? Not really
The effluent flooding into the Wye, for instance
0 -
Just catching up with the exciting news. Even by her low standards that was a pretty ropey acceptance address.
Let's hope she does as little harm as possible before she leads the Tories to defeat.0 -
The UK still has the 2nd strongest military in Western Europe after France and nuclear weapons.Carnyx said:
You mean, like the Tories have safeguarded UK military power? Look at what DA was saying about the Royal Artillery yesterday.HYUFD said:
In a Western world threatened by an expansionist Russia and China, the idea we would be stronger against them economically and militarily broken up into tiny nations is absurdCarnyx said:
You're muddling things again. We're talking about big nations. You know, like you said the words "big nations". And at any excuse, or lack of one, you are yet again threatening Partition.HYUFD said:
6 years after the Brexit vote the UK has not lost any territory compared to before the vote actually.Carnyx said:
Why not? The UK has already started breaking up, with the loss of most of Ireland, and the ongoing loss of the rest.HYUFD said:
As Essex is now part of England and the UK.Carnyx said:
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?Theuniondivvie said:
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.williamglenn said:
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?Carnyx said:
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.HYUFD said:
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in ParliamentBartholomewRoberts said:
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.148grss said:
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.BartholomewRoberts said:
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.148grss said:
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.BartholomewRoberts said:
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.148grss said:
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.HYUFD said:
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in lawCarnyx said:
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.HYUFD said:
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a voteScott_xP said:The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row.
2015: Majority to hold a referendum
2016: Majority to Vote Leave
2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote
2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
On your argument most big nations would break up, after all Naples, Venice, Bavaria, Texas etc were once independent nations too as were the Princely states in India
If we go down that line we could start breaking up Scotland too, Shetland for example did not become part of Scotland until the 15th century and much of the Scottish Borders was often under English control
I suggest you buy one of those:
https://oliviastrains.com/product/hornby-r3913-class-20-9-20905-gbrf-livery-2/
Much more therapeutic than constantly trying to defend parliamentary democracy by denying it.
Top Tip from IndyViz: don't bullshit about the promised advantages of being in the Union if they don't actually exist any more (e.g. EU membership).
Scexit now would of course also mean a hard border at Berwick. Though of course leaving the UK to rejoin the EU is not really voting for independence at all, in the long term just swapping Westminster for Brussels and Strasbourg as the ultimate source of power over Scotland0 -
Well no, it’s not about how awful as public speaking it was, it’s how the team around her wasted the set piece moment to get important points across winning hearts and minds - it was a free hit in terms of having attention laid on, winning hearts and minds now makes it easier for the battle ahead. They should have written two strong speeches for today and tomorrow, otherwise it makes no political sense. Not to me anyway.Stuartinromford said:
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...MoonRabbit said:
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment like that?Scott_xP said:
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...Leon said:On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
As a politician you need to get yourself across, build faith in your seriousness and professionalism. As leader of a nation you have to lead it. I know people say the delivery was stilted and naff, but more importantly her team didn’t write her a speech?
It just seems a wasted moment. 🤷♀️
Go on. Name a good speech she has given.
(Like a lot of politicians, she's arrived at the top badly undercooked. I'm remarkably OK as a public speaker. But that's after many years of doing it five times a day, five days a week.)1 -
TBF, it wasn't me saying it, it was a (presumably stone deaf) officer in the RA saying it.Carnyx said:
You mean, like the Tories have safeguarded UK military power? Look at what DA was saying about the Royal Artillery yesterday.HYUFD said:
In a Western world threatened by an expansionist Russia and China, the idea we would be stronger against them economically and militarily broken up into tiny nations is absurdCarnyx said:
You're muddling things again. We're talking about big nations. You know, like you said the words "big nations". And at any excuse, or lack of one, you are yet again threatening Partition.HYUFD said:
6 years after the Brexit vote the UK has not lost any territory compared to before the vote actually.Carnyx said:
Why not? The UK has already started breaking up, with the loss of most of Ireland, and the ongoing loss of the rest.HYUFD said:
As Essex is now part of England and the UK.Carnyx said:
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?Theuniondivvie said:
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.williamglenn said:
That argument depends on not respecting the scope of devolution. If an Essex independence party won the council elections, would it be a mandate for a referendum?Carnyx said:
But you have a problem right there. You have Scotland which has voted to have Indyref2 in both parliaments, conclusively in terms of a majority in both parliaments. Which is a clear win in parliamentary democracy terms. And what parliament wants parliament gets. That's the constitution, not some 16th century stuff about divine right of the monarchy.HYUFD said:
Personally I would have no more referendums ever, they are divisive, dominate politics at the expense of more important issues and ultimately we are a parliamentary not a direct democracy. Our constitution is based on Crown in ParliamentBartholomewRoberts said:
I'm a republican too and if we have a referendum and 52% vote to abolish the monarchy I'd bloody well expect and demand that the monarchy is abolished.148grss said:
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.BartholomewRoberts said:
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.148grss said:
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.BartholomewRoberts said:
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.148grss said:
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.HYUFD said:
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in lawCarnyx said:
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.HYUFD said:
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a voteScott_xP said:The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row.
2015: Majority to hold a referendum
2016: Majority to Vote Leave
2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote
2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
Yes means yes, no means no. Whatever the majority goes with, that was the choice made.
Yes there may be issues down the line but that's for Parliament to resolve. We evolve over time. Whatever problems that come up, like the Unionists objections to the Protocol as an example, need to be dealt with democratically over time by Parliament, like the new PM-elect's proposed NI Protocol Bill.
On your argument most big nations would break up, after all Naples, Venice, Bavaria, Texas etc were once independent nations too as were the Princely states in India
If we go down that line we could start breaking up Scotland too, Shetland for example did not become part of Scotland until the 15th century and much of the Scottish Borders was often under English control
I suggest you buy one of those:
https://oliviastrains.com/product/hornby-r3913-class-20-9-20905-gbrf-livery-2/
Much more therapeutic than constantly trying to defend parliamentary democracy by denying it.
Top Tip from IndyViz: don't bullshit about the promised advantages of being in the Union if they don't actually exist any more (e.g. EU membership).0 -
When in business I had no problem with public speaking and did so for many yearsStuartinromford said:
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...MoonRabbit said:
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment like that?Scott_xP said:
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...Leon said:On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
As a politician you need to get yourself across, build faith in your seriousness and professionalism. As leader of a nation you have to lead it. I know people say the delivery was stilted and naff, but more importantly her team didn’t write her a speech?
It just seems a wasted moment. 🤷♀️
Go on. Name a good speech she has given.
(Like a lot of politicians, she's arrived at the top badly undercooked. I'm remarkably OK as a public speaker. But that's after many years of doing it five times a day, five days a week.)
Even so, many very capable people simply could not do public speaking no matter how much they wanted to0 -
It is Dominic Cummings in a blonde wig, isn't it?northern_monkey said:Nice. Someone’s actually sculpted that, out of wood and everything, apparently. Not AI.
There’s a touch of the Cummings there for me. Giggidy.1 -
If you find public speaking tricky, I would venture that Prime Minister might not be the job for you.Big_G_NorthWales said:
When in business I had no problem with public speaking and did so for many yearsStuartinromford said:
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...MoonRabbit said:
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment like that?Scott_xP said:
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...Leon said:On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
As a politician you need to get yourself across, build faith in your seriousness and professionalism. As leader of a nation you have to lead it. I know people say the delivery was stilted and naff, but more importantly her team didn’t write her a speech?
It just seems a wasted moment. 🤷♀️
Go on. Name a good speech she has given.
(Like a lot of politicians, she's arrived at the top badly undercooked. I'm remarkably OK as a public speaker. But that's after many years of doing it five times a day, five days a week.)
Even so, many very capable people simply could not do public speaking no matter how much they wanted to
1 -
So wife has Covid, which probably doesn't come as a great surprise as we have attended a 3 day wedding party in Spain with huge amounts of mixing. Very, very mild symptoms so far (slightly warm with an awareness of throat). Line went bold red almost before swab liquid got near it, in anticipation.
Will I still escape the dreaded virus? Still a covid virgin.0 -
Putin’s now a dead man walking. It’s a matter of time before a big chunk of his army is destroyed west of the Dnipro. And next year Ukraine can play the same game with Crimea, which would probably be the fatal blow to his domestic authority. Countless thousands more innocents are sadly going to die before we reach that point but I think the prospect of it being millions is no longer seriously on the table.JosiasJessop said:
I think there is zero chance of us using WMD first.GIN1138 said:
Do you think this is all going to end up in WWIII? The kind of economic war we're seeing between Russia and the west feels like a prelude to an actual conflict to me but then I just can't imagine Russia and USA actually going to war in the end.Big_G_NorthWales said:Bloomberg claiming the aluminium industry is facing an extinction event across production
It is just so scary now Russia has closed gas to Europe until Russian sanctions are removed
As for Russia: they know that the use of a strategic nuke will mean WWIII. One where everyone loses. A tactical nuke within Ukraine might not cause a NATO retaliation, but with such a long front, one or two tactical nukes would make little difference: and make Russia even more of a pariah - and lose them some of the'friends' they have atm.
What concerns me is them laying dirty: the use of dirty, radiological or chemical weapons. Think Salisbury or Litvinenko. Something a little more
deniable.
We’re going to wake up one day, very high chance during Truss’s term of office, to find Putin is out the picture. My personal bet is it will precipitate or be accompanied by the unwinding of the Russian Federation. That will be the dangerous bit, making sure that nuke silos are secure and that independent nations are incentivise to trade them away rather than proliferation via balkanisation.
2 -
There was some talk about this on the Alistair Campell / Rory Stewart podcast recently. From memory, the problem is that the UK is unusual in having the same pipes taking rainwater and sewage. Most of the time, that's fine, and fixing it properly by separating the flows is really expensive to do now.Leon said:
We have multiple problems. And some of them do relate to the overuse of our landscape, due to population pressuresOnlyLivingBoy said:
The problem is caused by rainwater flooding the sewerage system during periods of heavy rain, not by the volume of human waste going into the system.Leon said:
This coast - the Costa Vicentina - actually reminds me a little of Devon and Cornwall. Emptier and sunnier, and not as charming inland as the nicer bits of Devon/Cornwall - but definitely echoes. The wild Atlantic battering west facing cliffsturbotubbs said:
Despite countless twunks on Twatter moaning about Tories and sewage, I spent a lovely week in North Devon last week and saw no sewage there either...Leon said:That’s…. quite a beach. Strong recommend. No sewage visible
We have an issue with heavy rain and a system that can't cope, but I can't believe that we are the only european country where that happens. We must do better, but idiots on twitter can do one, quite frankly.
I fear we probably do have some particular issues with sewage in the UK because parts of the UK are so crowded. We have increased Englands population by 10 million in a few decades. Have we improved our infrastructure accordingly? Not really
The effluent flooding into the Wye, for instance
The curse of doing things first.0 -
HYUFD persists with that canard about Starmer; I really don't see why. It's been demonstrated beyond doubt to him that he is wrong to suggest that Starmer was privately educated but he still keeps on about it. I suppose the only reason is that at the forthcoming general election the comprehensively educated Truss will be contrasted with the "privately educated " Starmer.OnlyLivingBoy said:
Starmer went to a grammar school that converted to a private school while he was there, and his family didn't pay any fees. I don't really see how that makes him posh, compared to someone who attended a £40k/year school for instance.HYUFD said:
The posh boys are no longer in charge of the Tories after the defeat of the Wykehamist Rishi who I am sure would have shaken hands with Truss. Truss the first state educated Tory leader since May and the first comprehensive educated Tory leader since Hague.rottenborough said:Liz Truss's comprehensive school was so rough they didn't even teach her to shake hands politely with the losing candidate.
The posh boys are back in charge of Labour though, Starmer the first secondary school privately educated Labour leader since Blair0 -
I rather disagree with you about today being her opportunity to win over doubtersMoonRabbit said:
Well no, it’s not about how awful as public speaking it was, it’s how the team around her wasted the set piece moment to get important points across winning hearts and minds - it was a free hit in terms of having attention laid on, winning hearts and minds now makes it easier for the battle ahead. They should have written two strong speeches for today and tomorrow, otherwise it makes no political sense. Not to me anyway.Stuartinromford said:
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...MoonRabbit said:
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment like that?Scott_xP said:
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...Leon said:On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
As a politician you need to get yourself across, build faith in your seriousness and professionalism. As leader of a nation you have to lead it. I know people say the delivery was stilted and naff, but more importantly her team didn’t write her a speech?
It just seems a wasted moment. 🤷♀️
Go on. Name a good speech she has given.
(Like a lot of politicians, she's arrived at the top badly undercooked. I'm remarkably OK as a public speaker. But that's after many years of doing it five times a day, five days a week.)
For me it is her speech to the country outside Downing Street tomorrow afternoon about 4.00pm as she speaks as Prime Minister for the first time0 -
@geoallison
I'm genuinely worried, this morning I found that a harassment campaign is being conducted against me. Folk are posting my details and asking where I live on the following post by @eRestUK (David Hynds) all because I reported on shipbuilding on the Clyde.
I tried to engage with David on this, offering to chat to him about the article but instead he blocked me before posting more abuse to his audience. Journalism in Scotland is becoming dangerous, my crime was simply posting a list of ships and their launch dates.
https://twitter.com/geoallison/status/15667610810240040970 -
I attended a convention two weeks ago - hundreds of guests plus others in the hotel. Also a mini (the car) event in N Devon last week (hundreds of people), Still not had covid, nor has the wife. Long may it continue.kjh said:So wife has Covid, which probably doesn't come as a great surprise as we have attended a 3 day wedding party in Spain with huge amounts of mixing. Very, very mild symptoms so far (slightly warm with an awareness of throat). Line went bold red almost before swab liquid got near it, in anticipation.
Will I still escape the dreaded virus? Still a covid virgin.2 -
Ugh this happened to me this year. Public sewer got a fatberg which meant all the effluent backed up to my rainwater drains all around the house.Stuartinromford said:
There was some talk about this on the Alistair Campell / Rory Stewart podcast recently. From memory, the problem is that the UK is unusual in having the same pipes taking rainwater andLeon said:
We have multiple problems. And some of them do relate to the overuse of our landscape, due to population pressuresOnlyLivingBoy said:
The problem is caused by rainwater flooding the sewerage system during periods of heavy rain, not by the volume of human waste going into the system.Leon said:
This coast - the Costa Vicentina - actually reminds me a little of Devon and Cornwall. Emptier and sunnier, and not as charming inland as the nicer bits of Devon/Cornwall - but definitely echoes. The wild Atlantic battering west facing cliffsturbotubbs said:
Despite countless twunks on Twatter moaning about Tories and sewage, I spent a lovely week in North Devon last week and saw no sewage there either...Leon said:That’s…. quite a beach. Strong recommend. No sewage visible
We have an issue with heavy rain and a system that can't cope, but I can't believe that we are the only european country where that happens. We must do better, but idiots on twitter can do one, quite frankly.
I fear we probably do have some particular issues with sewage in the UK because parts of the UK are so crowded. We have increased Englands population by 10 million in a few decades. Have we improved our infrastructure accordingly? Not really
The effluent flooding into the Wye, for instance
sewage. Most of the time, that's fine, and fixing it properly by separating the flows is really expensive to do now.
The curse of doing things first.
0 -
It seemed that the Tory party wanted to swing to the right.0 -
I doubt that came into Truss's thoughtsJonathan said:
If you find public speaking tricky, I would venture that Prime Minister might not be the job for you.Big_G_NorthWales said:
When in business I had no problem with public speaking and did so for many yearsStuartinromford said:
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...MoonRabbit said:
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment like that?Scott_xP said:
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...Leon said:On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
As a politician you need to get yourself across, build faith in your seriousness and professionalism. As leader of a nation you have to lead it. I know people say the delivery was stilted and naff, but more importantly her team didn’t write her a speech?
It just seems a wasted moment. 🤷♀️
Go on. Name a good speech she has given.
(Like a lot of politicians, she's arrived at the top badly undercooked. I'm remarkably OK as a public speaker. But that's after many years of doing it five times a day, five days a week.)
Even so, many very capable people simply could not do public speaking no matter how much they wanted to0 -
Yes and no. I was surprised when I turned on at lunchtime that we weren’t getting the processional handover in the hours straight after. Wouldn’t have tuned in if I’d known. I’m sure I couldn’t have been the only one.Big_G_NorthWales said:
I rather disagree with you about today being her opportunity to win over doubtersMoonRabbit said:
Well no, it’s not about how awful as public speaking it was, it’s how the team around her wasted the set piece moment to get important points across winning hearts and minds - it was a free hit in terms of having attention laid on, winning hearts and minds now makes it easier for the battle ahead. They should have written two strong speeches for today and tomorrow, otherwise it makes no political sense. Not to me anyway.Stuartinromford said:
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...MoonRabbit said:
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment like that?Scott_xP said:
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...Leon said:On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
As a politician you need to get yourself across, build faith in your seriousness and professionalism. As leader of a nation you have to lead it. I know people say the delivery was stilted and naff, but more importantly her team didn’t write her a speech?
It just seems a wasted moment. 🤷♀️
Go on. Name a good speech she has given.
(Like a lot of politicians, she's arrived at the top badly undercooked. I'm remarkably OK as a public speaker. But that's after many years of doing it five times a day, five days a week.)
For me it is her speech to the country outside Downing Street tomorrow afternoon about 4.00pm as she speaks as Prime Minister for the first time1 -
It's a really shit Christmas.moonshine said:Yes and no. I was surprised when I turned on at lunchtime that we weren’t getting the processional handover in the hours straight after. Wouldn’t have tuned in if I’d known. I’m sure I couldn’t have been the only one.
Tomorrow's the day, but we already opened the present.
And it's Liz Truss...0 -
No. I think Biden and whoever is handling him are crazy enough, but I don't think they have anywhere near the domestic political unity to pull it off, thank the Lord.GIN1138 said:
Do you think this is all going to end up in WWIII? The kind of economic war we're seeing between Russia and the west feels like a prelude to an actual conflict to me but then I just can't imagine Russia and USA actually going to war in the end.Big_G_NorthWales said:Bloomberg claiming the aluminium industry is facing an extinction event across production
It is just so scary now Russia has closed gas to Europe until Russian sanctions are removed0 -
I completely disagree with you, it was two big platforms offering opportunity to get points across and win people over - explain the difficult details to party workers today you can’t do with the sound bites tomorrow.Big_G_NorthWales said:
I rather disagree with you about today being her opportunity to win over doubtersMoonRabbit said:
Well no, it’s not about how awful as public speaking it was, it’s how the team around her wasted the set piece moment to get important points across winning hearts and minds - it was a free hit in terms of having attention laid on, winning hearts and minds now makes it easier for the battle ahead. They should have written two strong speeches for today and tomorrow, otherwise it makes no political sense. Not to me anyway.Stuartinromford said:
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...MoonRabbit said:
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment like that?Scott_xP said:
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...Leon said:On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
As a politician you need to get yourself across, build faith in your seriousness and professionalism. As leader of a nation you have to lead it. I know people say the delivery was stilted and naff, but more importantly her team didn’t write her a speech?
It just seems a wasted moment. 🤷♀️
Go on. Name a good speech she has given.
(Like a lot of politicians, she's arrived at the top badly undercooked. I'm remarkably OK as a public speaker. But that's after many years of doing it five times a day, five days a week.)
For me it is her speech to the country outside Downing Street tomorrow afternoon about 4.00pm as she speaks as Prime Minister for the first time
But we are both in agreement, she needs to be far better tomorrow than nothing to say and saying it badly today.2 -
A
Frankly pathetic compared to a standard Hebridean beach.turbotubbs said:North Devon's best beach:
Hard to beat the UK when the weather is this good. 1 -
Put some bread under your bacon, and enjoy toast and dripping, a cleaner grill pan, and less sewerage issues. Win, win, win.moonshine said:
Ugh this happened to me this year. Public sewer got a fatberg which meant all the effluent backed up to my rainwater drains all around the house.Stuartinromford said:
There was some talk about this on the Alistair Campell / Rory Stewart podcast recently. From memory, the problem is that the UK is unusual in having the same pipes taking rainwater andLeon said:
We have multiple problems. And some of them do relate to the overuse of our landscape, due to population pressuresOnlyLivingBoy said:
The problem is caused by rainwater flooding the sewerage system during periods of heavy rain, not by the volume of human waste going into the system.Leon said:
This coast - the Costa Vicentina - actually reminds me a little of Devon and Cornwall. Emptier and sunnier, and not as charming inland as the nicer bits of Devon/Cornwall - but definitely echoes. The wild Atlantic battering west facing cliffsturbotubbs said:
Despite countless twunks on Twatter moaning about Tories and sewage, I spent a lovely week in North Devon last week and saw no sewage there either...Leon said:That’s…. quite a beach. Strong recommend. No sewage visible
We have an issue with heavy rain and a system that can't cope, but I can't believe that we are the only european country where that happens. We must do better, but idiots on twitter can do one, quite frankly.
I fear we probably do have some particular issues with sewage in the UK because parts of the UK are so crowded. We have increased Englands population by 10 million in a few decades. Have we improved our infrastructure accordingly? Not really
The effluent flooding into the Wye, for instance
sewage. Most of the time, that's fine, and fixing it properly by separating the flows is really expensive to do now.
The curse of doing things first.0 -
Westward Ho!?turbotubbs said:North Devon's best beach:
Hard to beat the UK when the weather is this good.0 -
Fair point, but Johnson and Truss both have to fly to Balmoral in the morning (separately apparently) and then Truss has to return to Downing Street, so the biggest speech of her career is tomorrow at 4.00pmmoonshine said:
Yes and no. I was surprised when I turned on at lunchtime that we weren’t getting the processional handover in the hours straight after. Wouldn’t have tuned in if I’d known. I’m sure I couldn’t have been the only one.Big_G_NorthWales said:
I rather disagree with you about today being her opportunity to win over doubtersMoonRabbit said:
Well no, it’s not about how awful as public speaking it was, it’s how the team around her wasted the set piece moment to get important points across winning hearts and minds - it was a free hit in terms of having attention laid on, winning hearts and minds now makes it easier for the battle ahead. They should have written two strong speeches for today and tomorrow, otherwise it makes no political sense. Not to me anyway.Stuartinromford said:
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...MoonRabbit said:
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment like that?Scott_xP said:
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...Leon said:On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
As a politician you need to get yourself across, build faith in your seriousness and professionalism. As leader of a nation you have to lead it. I know people say the delivery was stilted and naff, but more importantly her team didn’t write her a speech?
It just seems a wasted moment. 🤷♀️
Go on. Name a good speech she has given.
(Like a lot of politicians, she's arrived at the top badly undercooked. I'm remarkably OK as a public speaker. But that's after many years of doing it five times a day, five days a week.)
For me it is her speech to the country outside Downing Street tomorrow afternoon about 4.00pm as she speaks as Prime Minister for the first time1 -
You lay the groundwork today for the more important speech tomorrow.MoonRabbit said:
I completely disagree with you, it was two big platforms offering opportunity to get points across and win people over - explain the difficult details to party workers today you can’t do with the sound bites tomorrow.Big_G_NorthWales said:
I rather disagree with you about today being her opportunity to win over doubtersMoonRabbit said:
Well no, it’s not about how awful as public speaking it was, it’s how the team around her wasted the set piece moment to get important points across winning hearts and minds - it was a free hit in terms of having attention laid on, winning hearts and minds now makes it easier for the battle ahead. They should have written two strong speeches for today and tomorrow, otherwise it makes no political sense. Not to me anyway.Stuartinromford said:
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...MoonRabbit said:
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment like that?Scott_xP said:
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...Leon said:On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
As a politician you need to get yourself across, build faith in your seriousness and professionalism. As leader of a nation you have to lead it. I know people say the delivery was stilted and naff, but more importantly her team didn’t write her a speech?
It just seems a wasted moment. 🤷♀️
Go on. Name a good speech she has given.
(Like a lot of politicians, she's arrived at the top badly undercooked. I'm remarkably OK as a public speaker. But that's after many years of doing it five times a day, five days a week.)
For me it is her speech to the country outside Downing Street tomorrow afternoon about 4.00pm as she speaks as Prime Minister for the first time
But we are both in agreement, she needs to be far better tomorrow than nothing to say and saying it badly today.
But she didn't do that so tomorrow becomes a bigger issue...1 -
You pronounced this nonsense.Luckyguy1983 said:
No. I think Biden and whoever is handling him are crazy enough, but I don't think they have anywhere near the domestic political unity to pull it off, thank the Lord.GIN1138 said:
Do you think this is all going to end up in WWIII? The kind of economic war we're seeing between Russia and the west feels like a prelude to an actual conflict to me but then I just can't imagine Russia and USA actually going to war in the end.Big_G_NorthWales said:Bloomberg claiming the aluminium industry is facing an extinction event across production
It is just so scary now Russia has closed gas to Europe until Russian sanctions are removed0 -
I think the exact opposite. Biden is a Cold War warrior. He’s handled the crisis with remarkable poise and we are lucky to have him as US leader at this moment. And I say that as someone who is otherwise utterly unimpressed by him.Luckyguy1983 said:
No. I think Biden and whoever is handling him are crazy enough, but I don't think they have anywhere near the domestic political unity to pull it off, thank the Lord.GIN1138 said:
Do you think this is all going to end up in WWIII? The kind of economic war we're seeing between Russia and the west feels like a prelude to an actual conflict to me but then I just can't imagine Russia and USA actually going to war in the end.Big_G_NorthWales said:Bloomberg claiming the aluminium industry is facing an extinction event across production
It is just so scary now Russia has closed gas to Europe until Russian sanctions are removed
2 -
That'll be important, but the key moment will be whatever we get for a mini-budget following the change of chancellor. Her future in my view is entirely about the competancy of the next chancellor. Admittedly sticking Braverman in the Home Office could quickly be seen as a suicidal move too.Big_G_NorthWales said:
I rather disagree with you about today being her opportunity to win over doubtersMoonRabbit said:
Well no, it’s not about how awful as public speaking it was, it’s how the team around her wasted the set piece moment to get important points across winning hearts and minds - it was a free hit in terms of having attention laid on, winning hearts and minds now makes it easier for the battle ahead. They should have written two strong speeches for today and tomorrow, otherwise it makes no political sense. Not to me anyway.Stuartinromford said:
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...MoonRabbit said:
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment like that?Scott_xP said:
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...Leon said:On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
As a politician you need to get yourself across, build faith in your seriousness and professionalism. As leader of a nation you have to lead it. I know people say the delivery was stilted and naff, but more importantly her team didn’t write her a speech?
It just seems a wasted moment. 🤷♀️
Go on. Name a good speech she has given.
(Like a lot of politicians, she's arrived at the top badly undercooked. I'm remarkably OK as a public speaker. But that's after many years of doing it five times a day, five days a week.)
For me it is her speech to the country outside Downing Street tomorrow afternoon about 4.00pm as she speaks as Prime Minister for the first time1 -
We are actually breaking agreements with European countries with our tardiness in switching to two pipe solution, aren’t we?Stuartinromford said:
There was some talk about this on the Alistair Campell / Rory Stewart podcast recently. From memory, the problem is that the UK is unusual in having the same pipes taking rainwater and sewage. Most of the time, that's fine, and fixing it properly by separating the flows is really expensive to do now.Leon said:
We have multiple problems. And some of them do relate to the overuse of our landscape, due to population pressuresOnlyLivingBoy said:
The problem is caused by rainwater flooding the sewerage system during periods of heavy rain, not by the volume of human waste going into the system.Leon said:
This coast - the Costa Vicentina - actually reminds me a little of Devon and Cornwall. Emptier and sunnier, and not as charming inland as the nicer bits of Devon/Cornwall - but definitely echoes. The wild Atlantic battering west facing cliffsturbotubbs said:
Despite countless twunks on Twatter moaning about Tories and sewage, I spent a lovely week in North Devon last week and saw no sewage there either...Leon said:That’s…. quite a beach. Strong recommend. No sewage visible
We have an issue with heavy rain and a system that can't cope, but I can't believe that we are the only european country where that happens. We must do better, but idiots on twitter can do one, quite frankly.
I fear we probably do have some particular issues with sewage in the UK because parts of the UK are so crowded. We have increased Englands population by 10 million in a few decades. Have we improved our infrastructure accordingly? Not really
The effluent flooding into the Wye, for instance
The curse of doing things first.0 -
Tomorrow will set the groundwork for Thursday.eek said:
You lay the groundwork today for the more important speech tomorrow.MoonRabbit said:
I completely disagree with you, it was two big platforms offering opportunity to get points across and win people over - explain the difficult details to party workers today you can’t do with the sound bites tomorrow.Big_G_NorthWales said:
I rather disagree with you about today being her opportunity to win over doubtersMoonRabbit said:
Well no, it’s not about how awful as public speaking it was, it’s how the team around her wasted the set piece moment to get important points across winning hearts and minds - it was a free hit in terms of having attention laid on, winning hearts and minds now makes it easier for the battle ahead. They should have written two strong speeches for today and tomorrow, otherwise it makes no political sense. Not to me anyway.Stuartinromford said:
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...MoonRabbit said:
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment like that?Scott_xP said:
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...Leon said:On reflection, and having had a soothing pastel de nata, and a glass of cold white, staring at the mighty Atlantic, I am going to cut Liz T some slack and presume she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything when she won. Hence her awful speech
And to be fair it must be quite seismic for her. Prime minister of the United Kingdom. THE job she probably dreamed of as a young Lib Dem. Even as she laughed at her own silly fantasies
She needs to shape up tho. No more speeches like that
As a politician you need to get yourself across, build faith in your seriousness and professionalism. As leader of a nation you have to lead it. I know people say the delivery was stilted and naff, but more importantly her team didn’t write her a speech?
It just seems a wasted moment. 🤷♀️
Go on. Name a good speech she has given.
(Like a lot of politicians, she's arrived at the top badly undercooked. I'm remarkably OK as a public speaker. But that's after many years of doing it five times a day, five days a week.)
For me it is her speech to the country outside Downing Street tomorrow afternoon about 4.00pm as she speaks as Prime Minister for the first time
But we are both in agreement, she needs to be far better tomorrow than nothing to say and saying it badly today.
But she didn't do that so tomorrow becomes a bigger issue...1 -
Yes soaking up the lovely fat is a treat. But it doesn’t do much for what the neighbours get up to!Luckyguy1983 said:moonshine said:
Ugh this happened to me this year. Public sewer got a fatberg which meant all the effluent backed up to my rainwater drains all around the house.Stuartinromford said:
There was some talk about this on the Alistair Campell / Rory Stewart podcast recently. From memory, the problem is that the UK is unusual in having the same pipes taking rainwater andLeon said:
We have multiple problems. And some of them do relate to the overuse of our landscape, due to population pressuresOnlyLivingBoy said:
The problem is caused by rainwater flooding the sewerage system during periods of heavy rain, not by the volume of human waste going into the system.Leon said:
This coast - the Costa Vicentina - actually reminds me a little of Devon and Cornwall. Emptier and sunnier, and not as charming inland as the nicer bits of Devon/Cornwall - but definitely echoes. The wild Atlantic battering west facing cliffsturbotubbs said:
Despite countless twunks on Twatter moaning about Tories and sewage, I spent a lovely week in North Devon last week and saw no sewage there either...Leon said:That’s…. quite a beach. Strong recommend. No sewage visible
We have an issue with heavy rain and a system that can't cope, but I can't believe that we are the only european country where that happens. We must do better, but idiots on twitter can do one, quite frankly.
I fear we probably do have some particular issues with sewage in the UK because parts of the UK are so crowded. We have increased Englands population by 10 million in a few decades. Have we improved our infrastructure accordingly? Not really
The effluent flooding into the Wye, for instance
sewage. Most of the time, that's fine, and fixing it properly by separating the flows is really expensive to do now.
The curse of doing things first.
Put some bread under your bacon, and enjoy toast and dripping, a cleaner grill pan, and less sewerage issues. Win, win, win.0
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