Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(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.)
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. 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 think Keir actually is a very good politician in terms of Labour Party politics, he has basically changed the party completely.
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.
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.
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.
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).
Members also elected Cameron, Johnson and Blair and Starmer.
MPs alone gave us Michael Foot, Gordon Brown, William Hague and Theresa May so it is not as clear as that
And to give another example, the Drake.
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.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
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'.
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 law
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
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.
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.
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.
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 Parliament
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.
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?
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?
As Essex is now part of England and the UK.
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
Why not? The UK has already started breaking up, with the loss of most of Ireland, and the ongoing loss of the rest.
6 years after the Brexit vote the UK has not lost any territory compared to before the vote actually.
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
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?
Had a summing up conversation with @BorisJohnsonin 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?
How long until HFUYD transforms into Truss’ biggest supporter
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 about
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?
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.
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
Oh, was it a cringer? Won't watch then. As she says about Macron, I will judge her by deeds not words.
It was terrible. As bad as her first leadership debate where we all wrote her off
Had a summing up conversation with @BorisJohnsonin 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?
That's interesting.
Junior Press Release Writer at the UK embassy in Kyiv?
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/1
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
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'.
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 law
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
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.
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.
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.
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 Parliament
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.
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?
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?
As Essex is now part of England and the UK.
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
Why not? The UK has already started breaking up, with the loss of most of Ireland, and the ongoing loss of the rest.
6 years after the Brexit vote the UK has not lost any territory compared to before the vote actually.
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
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.
I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
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.
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?
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
Oh, was it a cringer? Won't watch then. As she says about Macron, I will judge her by deeds not words.
It was terrible. As bad as her first leadership debate where we all wrote her off
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.
However Truss has a lot of plans so let us see where we are in 6 to 12 months
Had a summing up conversation with @BorisJohnsonin 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?
That’s…. quite a beach. Strong recommend. No sewage visible
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...
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.
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
Oh, was it a cringer? Won't watch then. As she says about Macron, I will judge her by deeds not words.
It was terrible. As bad as her first leadership debate where we all wrote her off
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.
However Truss has a lot of plans so let us see where we are in 6 to 12 months
The key to this is not just Truss but Kwarteng selling the energy proposals at the dispatch box
Truss success or otherwise is tied in to Kwarteng providing help to consumers and businesses
I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
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.
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?
A friend says she’s getting subtle pressure to add her pronouns (same company)
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
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
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'.
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 law
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
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.
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.
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.
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 Parliament
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.
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?
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?
As Essex is now part of England and the UK.
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
Why not? The UK has already started breaking up, with the loss of most of Ireland, and the ongoing loss of the rest.
6 years after the Brexit vote the UK has not lost any territory compared to before the vote actually.
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
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.
Much more therapeutic than constantly trying to defend parliamentary democracy by denying it.
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 absurd
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
Oh, was it a cringer? Won't watch then. As she says about Macron, I will judge her by deeds not words.
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.
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.
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
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...
The currently more important speech will be later this week, I expect.
There are plenty of good proposals out there; she needs to filter out the self-interest by the lobbies who wrote the various documents.
Had a summing up conversation with @BorisJohnsonin 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?
That's interesting.
Junior Press Release Writer at the UK embassy in Kyiv?
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
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'.
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 law
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
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.
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.
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.
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 Parliament
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.
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?
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?
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.
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.
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?
I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
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.
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?
A friend says she’s getting subtle pressure to add her pronouns (same company)
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
Your friend should make a complaint about being pressured to potentially be outed against *** will
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
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'.
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 law
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
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.
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.
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.
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 Parliament
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.
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?
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?
As Essex is now part of England and the UK.
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
Why not? The UK has already started breaking up, with the loss of most of Ireland, and the ongoing loss of the rest.
6 years after the Brexit vote the UK has not lost any territory compared to before the vote actually.
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
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.
Much more therapeutic than constantly trying to defend parliamentary democracy by denying it.
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 absurd
I can't recall whether you were for or against Brexit.
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
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment 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?
Had a summing up conversation with @BorisJohnsonin 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?
I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
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.
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?
A friend says she’s getting subtle pressure to add her pronouns (same company)
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
How was that done, just inserted at top of email - 'my pronouns are'? That's a little odd.
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
I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
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.
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?
A company i worked for mail merged out a sales letter to all on our spreadsheet databases (financial services), forgetting entirely the (deceased) cells. Cue some very pissed off grieving widows and widowers.
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
Oh, was it a cringer? Won't watch then. As she says about Macron, I will judge her by deeds not words.
It was terrible. As bad as her first leadership debate where we all wrote her off
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.
However Truss has a lot of plans so let us see where we are in 6 to 12 months
The key to this is not just Truss but Kwarteng selling the energy proposals at the dispatch box
Truss success or otherwise is tied in to Kwarteng providing help to consumers and businesses
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.
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
Oh, was it a cringer? Won't watch then. As she says about Macron, I will judge her by deeds not words.
It was terrible. As bad as her first leadership debate where we all wrote her off
Wasn't valuing the ability to entertain the audience how we ended up where we were?
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.
I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
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.
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?
A friend says she’s getting subtle pressure to add her pronouns (same company)
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
How was that done, just inserted at top of email - 'my pronouns are'? That's a little odd.
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
Eccentric formatting to be sure
It’s just a slightly annoying barnacle. Which sits on a mighty rock of madness
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 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.
The posh boys are back in charge of Labour though, Starmer the first secondary school privately educated Labour leader since Blair
I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
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.
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?
A friend says she’s getting subtle pressure to add her pronouns (same company)
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
I like to confuse people by mixing them up: he/her usually does it.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
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'.
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 law
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
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.
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.
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.
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 Parliament
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.
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?
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?
As Essex is now part of England and the UK.
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
Why not? The UK has already started breaking up, with the loss of most of Ireland, and the ongoing loss of the rest.
6 years after the Brexit vote the UK has not lost any territory compared to before the vote actually.
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
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.
Much more therapeutic than constantly trying to defend parliamentary democracy by denying it.
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 absurd
I can't recall whether you were for or against Brexit.
I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
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.
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?
A friend says she’s getting subtle pressure to add her pronouns (same company)
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
I like to confuse people by mixing them up: he/her usually does it.
I would be tempted to use they/them and then try to outsource the boring bits of work to someone else
I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
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.
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?
A friend says she’s getting subtle pressure to add her pronouns (same company)
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
How was that done, just inserted at top of email - 'my pronouns are'? That's a little odd.
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
Eccentric formatting to be sure
It’s just a slightly annoying barnacle. Which sits on a mighty rock of madness
Negative lateral flow tests, face masks and pronoun badges will be de rigeur at Californian thanksgiving this year
I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
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.
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?
A friend says she’s getting subtle pressure to add her pronouns (same company)
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
I like to confuse people by mixing them up: he/her usually does it.
That’s…. quite a beach. Strong recommend. No sewage visible
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...
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.
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 cliffs
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
I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
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.
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?
A friend says she’s getting subtle pressure to add her pronouns (same company)
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
I like to confuse people by mixing them up: he/her usually does it.
I would be tempted to use they/them and then try to outsource the boring bits of work to someone else
I’ve had my first email from someone who announces their pronouns from the get go
😮
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.
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?
A friend says she’s getting subtle pressure to add her pronouns (same company)
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
I like to confuse people by mixing them up: he/her usually does it.
I would be tempted to use they/them and then try to outsource the boring bits of work to someone else
"My pronouns are obvious".
My pronouns are in a state of flux. Good luck and may your God guide you
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 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.
The posh boys are back in charge of Labour though, Starmer the first secondary school privately educated Labour leader since Blair
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.
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
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment 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. 🤷♀️
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...
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.)
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
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.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
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'.
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 law
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
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.
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.
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.
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 Parliament
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.
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?
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?
As Essex is now part of England and the UK.
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
Why not? The UK has already started breaking up, with the loss of most of Ireland, and the ongoing loss of the rest.
6 years after the Brexit vote the UK has not lost any territory compared to before the vote actually.
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
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.
Much more therapeutic than constantly trying to defend parliamentary democracy by denying it.
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 absurd
You mean, like the Tories have safeguarded UK military power? Look at what DA was saying about the Royal Artillery yesterday.
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).
That’s…. quite a beach. Strong recommend. No sewage visible
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...
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.
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 cliffs
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 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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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 oil
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
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.
I think there is zero chance of us using WMD first.
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.
That’s…. quite a beach. Strong recommend. No sewage visible
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...
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.
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 cliffs
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 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.
We have multiple problems. And some of them do relate to the overuse of our landscape, due to population pressures
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
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'.
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 law
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
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.
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.
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.
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 Parliament
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.
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?
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?
As Essex is now part of England and the UK.
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
Why not? The UK has already started breaking up, with the loss of most of Ireland, and the ongoing loss of the rest.
6 years after the Brexit vote the UK has not lost any territory compared to before the vote actually.
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
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.
Much more therapeutic than constantly trying to defend parliamentary democracy by denying it.
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 absurd
You mean, like the Tories have safeguarded UK military power? Look at what DA was saying about the Royal Artillery yesterday.
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).
The UK still has the 2nd strongest military in Western Europe after France and nuclear weapons.
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 Scotland
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
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment 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. 🤷♀️
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...
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.)
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.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
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'.
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 law
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
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.
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.
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.
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 Parliament
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.
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?
Just imagine the Brexiteer prolapsing if some EUrophile compared a sovereign England..sorry..UK to a council, either before or after 2016.
In any case, Essex used to be an independent state, of course. So why not an Essindyref?
As Essex is now part of England and the UK.
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
Why not? The UK has already started breaking up, with the loss of most of Ireland, and the ongoing loss of the rest.
6 years after the Brexit vote the UK has not lost any territory compared to before the vote actually.
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
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.
Much more therapeutic than constantly trying to defend parliamentary democracy by denying it.
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 absurd
You mean, like the Tories have safeguarded UK military power? Look at what DA was saying about the Royal Artillery yesterday.
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).
TBF, it wasn't me saying it, it was a (presumably stone deaf) officer in the RA saying it.
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
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment 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. 🤷♀️
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...
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.)
When in business I had no problem with public speaking and did so for many years
Even so, many very capable people simply could not do public speaking no matter how much they wanted to
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
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment 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. 🤷♀️
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...
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.)
When in business I had no problem with public speaking and did so for many years
Even so, many very capable people simply could not do public speaking no matter how much they wanted to
If you find public speaking tricky, I would venture that Prime Minister might not be the job for you.
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.
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
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.
I think there is zero chance of us using WMD first.
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.
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.
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.
That’s…. quite a beach. Strong recommend. No sewage visible
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...
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.
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 cliffs
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 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.
We have multiple problems. And some of them do relate to the overuse of our landscape, due to population pressures
The effluent flooding into the Wye, for instance
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.
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 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.
The posh boys are back in charge of Labour though, Starmer the first secondary school privately educated Labour leader since Blair
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 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.
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
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment 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. 🤷♀️
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...
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.)
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.
I rather disagree with you about today being her opportunity to win over doubters
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
@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.
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.
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.
That’s…. quite a beach. Strong recommend. No sewage visible
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...
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.
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 cliffs
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 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.
We have multiple problems. And some of them do relate to the overuse of our landscape, due to population pressures
The effluent flooding into the Wye, for instance
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.
The curse of doing things first.
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.
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
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment 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. 🤷♀️
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...
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.)
When in business I had no problem with public speaking and did so for many years
Even so, many very capable people simply could not do public speaking no matter how much they wanted to
If you find public speaking tricky, I would venture that Prime Minister might not be the job for you.
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
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment 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. 🤷♀️
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...
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.)
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.
I rather disagree with you about today being her opportunity to win over doubters
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
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.
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.
It's a really shit Christmas.
Tomorrow's the day, but we already opened the present.
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
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.
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.
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
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment 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. 🤷♀️
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...
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.)
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.
I rather disagree with you about today being her opportunity to win over doubters
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
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.
But we are both in agreement, she needs to be far better tomorrow than nothing to say and saying it badly today.
That’s…. quite a beach. Strong recommend. No sewage visible
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...
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.
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 cliffs
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 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.
We have multiple problems. And some of them do relate to the overuse of our landscape, due to population pressures
The effluent flooding into the Wye, for instance
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.
The curse of doing things first.
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.
Put some bread under your bacon, and enjoy toast and dripping, a cleaner grill pan, and less sewerage issues. Win, win, win.
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
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment 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. 🤷♀️
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...
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.)
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.
I rather disagree with you about today being her opportunity to win over doubters
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
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.
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 4.00pm
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
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment 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. 🤷♀️
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...
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.)
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.
I rather disagree with you about today being her opportunity to win over doubters
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
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.
But we are both in agreement, she needs to be far better tomorrow than nothing to say and saying it badly today.
You lay the groundwork today for the more important speech tomorrow.
But she didn't do that so tomorrow becomes a bigger issue...
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment 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. 🤷♀️
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...
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.)
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.
I rather disagree with you about today being her opportunity to win over doubters
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
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.
That’s…. quite a beach. Strong recommend. No sewage visible
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...
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.
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 cliffs
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 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.
We have multiple problems. And some of them do relate to the overuse of our landscape, due to population pressures
The effluent flooding into the Wye, for instance
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.
The curse of doing things first.
We are actually breaking agreements with European countries with our tardiness in switching to two pipe solution, aren’t we?
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
She has only had 12 weeks to write that speech and prepare for this moment...
Everyone was there to hear her, she had the nations and worlds attention not just her party, why spurn that moment 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. 🤷♀️
Worse than that... maybe she did prepare for this moment, and this is Truss on a good day...
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.)
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.
I rather disagree with you about today being her opportunity to win over doubters
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
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.
But we are both in agreement, she needs to be far better tomorrow than nothing to say and saying it badly today.
You lay the groundwork today for the more important speech tomorrow.
But she didn't do that so tomorrow becomes a bigger issue...
That’s…. quite a beach. Strong recommend. No sewage visible
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...
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.
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 cliffs
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 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.
We have multiple problems. And some of them do relate to the overuse of our landscape, due to population pressures
The effluent flooding into the Wye, for instance
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.
The curse of doing things first.
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.
Put some bread under your bacon, and enjoy toast and dripping, a cleaner grill pan, and less sewerage issues. Win, win, win.
Yes soaking up the lovely fat is a treat. But it doesn’t do much for what the neighbours get up to!
Comments
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
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
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?
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.
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?
However Truss has a lot of plans so let us see where we are in 6 to 12 months
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.
Truss success or otherwise is tied in to Kwarteng providing help to consumers and businesses
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
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.
There are plenty of good proposals out there; she needs to filter out the self-interest by the lobbies who wrote the various documents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj8ThOmPTuM
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. 🤷♀️
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
Cue some very pissed off grieving widows and widowers.
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.
It’s just a slightly annoying barnacle. Which sits on a mighty rock of madness
The posh boys are back in charge of Labour though, Starmer the first secondary school privately educated Labour leader since Blair
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.
What is the fix for photos being displayed upside down?
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
It is just so scary now Russia has closed gas to Europe until Russian sanctions are removed
There’s a touch of the Cummings there for me. Giggidy.
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.)
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).
Hard to beat the UK when the weather is this good.
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.
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.
The effluent flooding into the Wye, for instance
Let's hope she does as little harm as possible before she leads the Tories to defeat.
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 Scotland
Even so, many very capable people simply could not do public speaking no matter how much they wanted to
Will I still escape the dreaded virus? Still a covid virgin.
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.
The curse of doing things first.
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
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/1566761081024004097
It seemed that the Tory party wanted to swing to the right.
Tomorrow's the day, but we already opened the present.
And it's Liz Truss...
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...