But who could have foreseen denying the people their repeated wish for Indyref2 would have electoral consequences?
What electoral consequences? SNP had a majority of Scottish Westminster seats before and might have a slightly bigger majority of them on this poll.
Westminster though can still refuse indyref2 indefinitely post SC judgement
There’s a morality and democracy angle you miss.
You are the sort of person who would have dehors the suffragettes the vote.
You’re approach guarantees Scotland votes to leave eventually.
I don't think he cares. The line is always "As long as Boris Johnson is PM there will not be a second referendum". We've had two changes of PM since and even HY recognises the Tories are heading for the political cliff edge. And yet the same anti-democratic guff.
But - and its a big but - Labour are frit as well. Their Brownian package of reforms fails to address any of the big problems - lack of an English parliament, lack of clarity as to the shape of the UK vs the 3 devolved nations and the 4th non-devolved one, remaining married to FPTP etc etc.
An English parliament would certainly solve the problem of the SNP portraying Westminster as the English rather than UK Parliament
But it *is* the English parliament de facto for a number of functions, such as planning, and so on. You can't have a dual function parliament and complain when it is described as the English one for certain of its functions.
It is indeed an English parliament in a number of respects. Education is another biggie. But I struggle to see how a devolved English parliament is the answer to this. 5/6 of the the population and the economy of the UK is England. It is most of the country - so the national parliament de facto is the English parliament too. Proper devolution in England would grant more powers to regions - but there's no real appetite for that as far as the standard statistical government regions go (not least because they are arbitrary and lack cultural cohesion, on the whole).
LAs on the other hand are probably too small. So I don't know what the answer is. But I'm pretty sure it's not an English parliament.
The counties and metros are not too small. Or if they are, someone tell Luxembourg, Delaware, Canberra etc etc etc.
I think the counties (and county-sized metros) are an ideal size for further devolved government. Similar to Swiss cantons, which work very well.
Exactly. We need to be more Swiss.
And concede 6 to Portugal? Hardly.
We could be more like Portugal.
But then we'd risk having mardy-arse Ronaldo on the banknotes.
But who could have foreseen denying the people their repeated wish for Indyref2 would have electoral consequences?
What electoral consequences? SNP had a majority of Scottish Westminster seats before and might have a slightly bigger majority of them on this poll.
Westminster though can still refuse indyref2 indefinitely post SC judgement
There’s a morality and democracy angle you miss.
You are the sort of person who would have dehors the suffragettes the vote.
You’re approach guarantees Scotland votes to leave eventually.
I don't think he cares. The line is always "As long as Boris Johnson is PM there will not be a second referendum". We've had two changes of PM since and even HY recognises the Tories are heading for the political cliff edge. And yet the same anti-democratic guff.
But - and its a big but - Labour are frit as well. Their Brownian package of reforms fails to address any of the big problems - lack of an English parliament, lack of clarity as to the shape of the UK vs the 3 devolved nations and the 4th non-devolved one, remaining married to FPTP etc etc.
An English parliament would certainly solve the problem of the SNP portraying Westminster as the English rather than UK Parliament
But it *is* the English parliament de facto for a number of functions, such as planning, and so on. You can't have a dual function parliament and complain when it is described as the English one for certain of its functions.
It is indeed an English parliament in a number of respects. Education is another biggie. But I struggle to see how a devolved English parliament is the answer to this. 5/6 of the the population and the economy of the UK is England. It is most of the country - so the national parliament de facto is the English parliament too. Proper devolution in England would grant more powers to regions - but there's no real appetite for that as far as the standard statistical government regions go (not least because they are arbitrary and lack cultural cohesion, on the whole).
LAs on the other hand are probably too small. So I don't know what the answer is. But I'm pretty sure it's not an English parliament.
The counties and metros are not too small. Or if they are, someone tell Luxembourg, Delaware, Canberra etc etc etc.
I think the counties (and county-sized metros) are an ideal size for further devolved government. Similar to Swiss cantons, which work very well.
Exactly. We need to be more Swiss.
And concede 6 to Portugal? Hardly.
I just mean constitutionally and economically.
Very little interesting culture and no comedy ever has come from Switzerland.
Dada was probably a scream of boredom.
Roger Federer would Tell you otherwise.
great tennis player Terrible water colourist and sketch comedy writer.
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Border Force staff are going on strike for eight days over Christmas at Heathrow, Gatwick and several other airports, the PCS union has announced."
Universal surprise that they have actually been at work up to this point.
I've never had a problem with queues at border control - it's everywhere else in the airport that problems occur.
Not going to be a problem for my next journey as it's Teesside. Rolling in at 16:30 for the 17:15 should be more than enough time to get through security.
All very well as long as you are visiting places nobody else wants to.
But who could have foreseen denying the people their repeated wish for Indyref2 would have electoral consequences?
What electoral consequences? SNP had a majority of Scottish Westminster seats before and might have a slightly bigger majority of them on this poll.
Westminster though can still refuse indyref2 indefinitely post SC judgement
There’s a morality and democracy angle you miss.
You are the sort of person who would have dehors the suffragettes the vote.
You’re approach guarantees Scotland votes to leave eventually.
I don't think he cares. The line is always "As long as Boris Johnson is PM there will not be a second referendum". We've had two changes of PM since and even HY recognises the Tories are heading for the political cliff edge. And yet the same anti-democratic guff.
But - and its a big but - Labour are frit as well. Their Brownian package of reforms fails to address any of the big problems - lack of an English parliament, lack of clarity as to the shape of the UK vs the 3 devolved nations and the 4th non-devolved one, remaining married to FPTP etc etc.
An English parliament would certainly solve the problem of the SNP portraying Westminster as the English rather than UK Parliament
But it *is* the English parliament de facto for a number of functions, such as planning, and so on. You can't have a dual function parliament and complain when it is described as the English one for certain of its functions.
It is indeed an English parliament in a number of respects. Education is another biggie. But I struggle to see how a devolved English parliament is the answer to this. 5/6 of the the population and the economy of the UK is England. It is most of the country - so the national parliament de facto is the English parliament too. Proper devolution in England would grant more powers to regions - but there's no real appetite for that as far as the standard statistical government regions go (not least because they are arbitrary and lack cultural cohesion, on the whole).
LAs on the other hand are probably too small. So I don't know what the answer is. But I'm pretty sure it's not an English parliament.
The counties and metros are not too small. Or if they are, someone tell Luxembourg, Delaware, Canberra etc etc etc.
I think the counties (and county-sized metros) are an ideal size for further devolved government. Similar to Swiss cantons, which work very well.
Exactly. We need to be more Swiss.
And concede 6 to Portugal? Hardly.
I just mean constitutionally and economically.
Very little interesting culture and no comedy ever has come from Switzerland.
Frock and Frack? Even the name makes them sound feeble. Like Little and Large. On ice. In Swiss German.
Frick not Frock. Totally different vibe. Frock and Frack sounds serious and not at all funny but Frick and Frack - or Frack and Frick for that matter - sounds like an act that might raise a fair few titters.
Yes I did wonder what you were meaning there with "Dads".
But who could have foreseen denying the people their repeated wish for Indyref2 would have electoral consequences?
What electoral consequences? SNP had a majority of Scottish Westminster seats before and might have a slightly bigger majority of them on this poll.
Westminster though can still refuse indyref2 indefinitely post SC judgement
There’s a morality and democracy angle you miss.
You are the sort of person who would have dehors the suffragettes the vote.
You’re approach guarantees Scotland votes to leave eventually.
I don't think he cares. The line is always "As long as Boris Johnson is PM there will not be a second referendum". We've had two changes of PM since and even HY recognises the Tories are heading for the political cliff edge. And yet the same anti-democratic guff.
But - and its a big but - Labour are frit as well. Their Brownian package of reforms fails to address any of the big problems - lack of an English parliament, lack of clarity as to the shape of the UK vs the 3 devolved nations and the 4th non-devolved one, remaining married to FPTP etc etc.
An English parliament would certainly solve the problem of the SNP portraying Westminster as the English rather than UK Parliament
I don't know how many times I have to point this out but the UK is unlikely to survive an English parliament. So if your concern is preserving the Union, which it doesn't have to be, it's the worst idea imaginable.
It isn't surviving the lack of one.
But in any case, an English parliament isn't - or shouldn't be - about the Union. It's about simple fairness, plus of course, splitting the English government from the UK governmen allows the latter to do co-ordination between the four nations when necessary.
People who advocate for an English Parliament haven’t thought about it much.
The way to square the circle is to devolve as much as possible to English counties and metros.
That would be better than now but still would not stop the SNP portraying the UK Parliament as the English Parliament and still denies English identity unlike Scottish and Welsh and NI identity
Who is denying English identity? As for the SNP, nothing is going to stop them portraying Westminster as anything but am imposition.
England has no Parliament of its own, no unique anthem even for most of its sport teams
And?
Does an identity demand a Parliament? Interesting line of thought.
It's not as if the UK even has an Olympics team, given the way the NI people are dealt with, and the BOA's own insistence of branding it Team GB.
'Team GB is the Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic Team run by the British Olympic Association' https://twitter.com/teamgb
You're doubly missing the point. It's not the NI team by name or by law - anyone in NI can go and play for Ireland.
The Open AI Chatbot is actually really special, so long as you are very aware of its limitations.
I was working on a little programming project, using a library I'd never used before. Normally, this would mean I'd spend an awful lot of time in the documentation, looking through Google and Stack Overflow.
Now, I just ask the Chatbot. It isn't perfect, of course. But one of the things that's great is if you say, "that didn't work, I got the following error", it will usually tell you why you got it and help you on the way.
If I was teaching myself - say - Unity 3D, I think it would be a massively powerful tool to help me learn more quicky.
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
Even one thing that English representatives want to pass that gets vetoed by non-English representatives is one too many.
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
They are intereste in the symmetry rather than the actual instrumental effects of governance.
Forgive spelling mistakes. I am at an optometrist and they have put drops in to “open up my pupils”.
But who could have foreseen denying the people their repeated wish for Indyref2 would have electoral consequences?
What electoral consequences? SNP had a majority of Scottish Westminster seats before and might have a slightly bigger majority of them on this poll.
Westminster though can still refuse indyref2 indefinitely post SC judgement
There’s a morality and democracy angle you miss.
You are the sort of person who would have dehors the suffragettes the vote.
You’re approach guarantees Scotland votes to leave eventually.
I don't think he cares. The line is always "As long as Boris Johnson is PM there will not be a second referendum". We've had two changes of PM since and even HY recognises the Tories are heading for the political cliff edge. And yet the same anti-democratic guff.
But - and its a big but - Labour are frit as well. Their Brownian package of reforms fails to address any of the big problems - lack of an English parliament, lack of clarity as to the shape of the UK vs the 3 devolved nations and the 4th non-devolved one, remaining married to FPTP etc etc.
An English parliament would certainly solve the problem of the SNP portraying Westminster as the English rather than UK Parliament
I don't know how many times I have to point this out but the UK is unlikely to survive an English parliament. So if your concern is preserving the Union, which it doesn't have to be, it's the worst idea imaginable.
It isn't surviving the lack of one.
But in any case, an English parliament isn't - or shouldn't be - about the Union. It's about simple fairness, plus of course, splitting the English government from the UK governmen allows the latter to do co-ordination between the four nations when necessary.
People who advocate for an English Parliament haven’t thought about it much.
The way to square the circle is to devolve as much as possible to English counties and metros.
That would be better than now but still would not stop the SNP portraying the UK Parliament as the English Parliament and still denies English identity unlike Scottish and Welsh and NI identity
Who is denying English identity? As for the SNP, nothing is going to stop them portraying Westminster as anything but am imposition.
England has no Parliament of its own, no unique anthem even for most of its sport teams
And?
Does an identity demand a Parliament? Interesting line of thought.
It's not as if the UK even has an Olympics team, given the way the NI people are dealt with, and the BOA's own insistence of branding it Team GB.
'Team GB is the Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic Team run by the British Olympic Association' https://twitter.com/teamgb
You're doubly missing the point. It's not the NI team by name or by law - anyone in NI can go and play for Ireland.
Its full name is as I showed you and they can also play for the UK Olympics team too
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
If say the Tories had a majority in England but not in the UK and Welsh and Scottish Labour MPs voted on English laws, even if SNP MPs didn't, then that is a clear example of England being overruled at Westminster
Goodness me, whoever could have foreseen that telling Scots to STFU, that their votes don't matter, and that they can't control their own future democratically might have been counterproductive to the Union? 🤔
It isn't, as long as the UK government can refuse indyref2 as the Supreme Court confirmed there is a 100% chance it stays in the UK, see Spain and Catalonia.
As soon as indyref2 is allowed there is a 50% chance Scotland votes for independence even before this poll however.
So this Tory government should refuse indyref2 indefinitely. If Labour get in and grant one it is their problem to win it
Another independence referendum is inevitable given that the SNP keep winning Holyrood elections.
The ostrich-like mentality of the Tories to reject this reality only makes the Union losing the next referendum more likely.
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
Even one thing that English representatives want to pass that gets vetoed by non-English representatives is one too many.
Something clearly in the English national interest blocked by non English MPs.
But who could have foreseen denying the people their repeated wish for Indyref2 would have electoral consequences?
What electoral consequences? SNP had a majority of Scottish Westminster seats before and might have a slightly bigger majority of them on this poll.
Westminster though can still refuse indyref2 indefinitely post SC judgement
There’s a morality and democracy angle you miss.
You are the sort of person who would have dehors the suffragettes the vote.
You’re approach guarantees Scotland votes to leave eventually.
I don't think he cares. The line is always "As long as Boris Johnson is PM there will not be a second referendum". We've had two changes of PM since and even HY recognises the Tories are heading for the political cliff edge. And yet the same anti-democratic guff.
But - and its a big but - Labour are frit as well. Their Brownian package of reforms fails to address any of the big problems - lack of an English parliament, lack of clarity as to the shape of the UK vs the 3 devolved nations and the 4th non-devolved one, remaining married to FPTP etc etc.
An English parliament would certainly solve the problem of the SNP portraying Westminster as the English rather than UK Parliament
I don't know how many times I have to point this out but the UK is unlikely to survive an English parliament. So if your concern is preserving the Union, which it doesn't have to be, it's the worst idea imaginable.
It isn't surviving the lack of one.
But in any case, an English parliament isn't - or shouldn't be - about the Union. It's about simple fairness, plus of course, splitting the English government from the UK governmen allows the latter to do co-ordination between the four nations when necessary.
People who advocate for an English Parliament haven’t thought about it much.
The way to square the circle is to devolve as much as possible to English counties and metros.
That would be better than now but still would not stop the SNP portraying the UK Parliament as the English Parliament and still denies English identity unlike Scottish and Welsh and NI identity
Who is denying English identity? As for the SNP, nothing is going to stop them portraying Westminster as anything but am imposition.
England has no Parliament of its own, no unique anthem even for most of its sport teams
And?
Does an identity demand a Parliament? Interesting line of thought.
It's not as if the UK even has an Olympics team, given the way the NI people are dealt with, and the BOA's own insistence of branding it Team GB.
'Team GB is the Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic Team run by the British Olympic Association' https://twitter.com/teamgb
You're doubly missing the point. It's not the NI team by name or by law - anyone in NI can go and play for Ireland.
Its full name is as I showed you and they can also play for the UK Olympics team too
But the branding is much more important for something like this. It's *identity* marketing, and we were talking aboujt identity. Not about the very small print.
Goodness me, whoever could have foreseen that telling Scots to STFU, that their votes don't matter, and that they can't control their own future democratically might have been counterproductive to the Union? 🤔
It isn't, as long as the UK government can refuse indyref2 as the Supreme Court confirmed there is a 100% chance it stays in the UK, see Spain and Catalonia.
As soon as indyref2 is allowed there is a 50% chance Scotland votes for independence even before this poll however.
So this Tory government should refuse indyref2 indefinitely. If Labour get in and grant one it is their problem to win it
Another independence referendum is inevitable given that the SNP keep winning Holyrood elections.
The ostrich-like mentality of the Tories to reject this reality only makes the Union losing the next referendum more likely.
One of the dozen odd reasons I voted to are Aim was to protect the Union.
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
Even one thing that English representatives want to pass that gets vetoed by non-English representatives is one too many.
So you can’t think of any good examples then. OK, cool.
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
If say the Tories had a majority in England but not in the UK and Welsh and Scottish Labour MPs voted on English laws, even if SNP MPs didn't, then that is a clear example of England being overruled at Westminster
But we're looking for how an English Parliament would lead to England being governed better not to it being governed by the Tories.
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
Even one thing that English representatives want to pass that gets vetoed by non-English representatives is one too many.
So you can’t think of any good examples then. OK, cool.
Sunday Trading laws 2016, when SNP MPs voted on English legislation
“What these data show is that promoting lies about the 2020 election is profitable for both candidates and social media platforms themselves,” the article said. . . .
You can see why the election-denial train keeps chugging along. It has countless enablers. And countless more making bank.
So, sure, recount the votes. It won’t make a whit of difference in the outcome. But unfortunately, even proving the count was solid won’t snap many election doubters back to reality.
The only way to end this con? Stop giving the con artists money.
SSI - Grifters gotta grift.
You would have more credibility on this subject if you also criticised the cottage industry that sprung up with the aim of delegitimising the 2016 election result.
The Open AI Chatbot is actually really special, so long as you are very aware of its limitations.
I was working on a little programming project, using a library I'd never used before. Normally, this would mean I'd spend an awful lot of time in the documentation, looking through Google and Stack Overflow.
Now, I just ask the Chatbot. It isn't perfect, of course. But one of the things that's great is if you say, "that didn't work, I got the following error", it will usually tell you why you got it and help you on the way.
If I was teaching myself - say - Unity 3D, I think it would be a massively powerful tool to help me learn more quicky.
The progress in the last year or so of a lot of transformer models has been extremely impressive. I don't know whether or not we are on the cusp of AGI and the Singularity, my hunch is we are not, but I'm fairly certain there is going to be an ML arms race and I expect the tech giants to snap up a lot of new ML accelerator companies over the next year or so. If we are getting close to a breakthrough they are going to want the best tools available to develop the services that let them reap the potential riches. A lot of the tech giants have in-house accelerator programmes, but any loose IP is going to be attractive.
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
Even one thing that English representatives want to pass that gets vetoed by non-English representatives is one too many.
So you can’t think of any good examples then. OK, cool.
Sunday Trading laws 2016, when SNP MPs voted on English legislation
But with effects in Scotland, as that same article explains.
Any more?
I'll give you a clue - it's got Fees and Student in the title. And it was Unionist MPs in Scotland who pushed that through (damn stupid in my opinion).
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
Even one thing that English representatives want to pass that gets vetoed by non-English representatives is one too many.
So you can’t think of any good examples then. OK, cool.
"Top Up" Tuition Fees - rejected by a majority of English MPs, imposed by Scottish Labour MPs, while Scottish Labour were ensuring Scotland had no tuition fees.
Sunday Trading laws - SNP MPs voting to keep the insane restrictions on Sunday Trading in England, while Scotland has no such restrictions.
Egregious and unacceptable examples just off the top of my head - and such examples will become more likely if Scottish MPs hold the balance of power in Parliament rather than there being a party or coalition with an outright majority.
Goodness me, whoever could have foreseen that telling Scots to STFU, that their votes don't matter, and that they can't control their own future democratically might have been counterproductive to the Union? 🤔
It isn't, as long as the UK government can refuse indyref2 as the Supreme Court confirmed there is a 100% chance it stays in the UK, see Spain and Catalonia.
As soon as indyref2 is allowed there is a 50% chance Scotland votes for independence even before this poll however.
So this Tory government should refuse indyref2 indefinitely. If Labour get in and grant one it is their problem to win it
Another independence referendum is inevitable given that the SNP keep winning Holyrood elections.
The ostrich-like mentality of the Tories to reject this reality only makes the Union losing the next referendum more likely.
No it isn't, Catalan nationalists keeping winning Catalan elections, Madrid has still refused them even 1 independence referendum.
It is also more likely there is a Yes vote under a Tory UK government than a Labour UK government, so it is in Unionists interests for only a Labour government to ever grant indyref2
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
Even one thing that English representatives want to pass that gets vetoed by non-English representatives is one too many.
So you can’t think of any good examples then. OK, cool.
"Top Up" Tuition Fees - rejected by a majority of English MPs, imposed by Scottish Labour MPs, while Scottish Labour were ensuring Scotland had no tuition fees.
Sunday Trading laws - SNP MPs voting to keep the insane restrictions on Sunday Trading in England, while Scotland has no such restrictions.
Egregious and unacceptable examples just off the top of my head - and such examples will become more likely if Scottish MPs hold the balance of power in Parliament rather than there being a party or coalition with an outright majority.
Any more? Though I agree the first was damn stupid, and the second was arguable at best.
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
Even one thing that English representatives want to pass that gets vetoed by non-English representatives is one too many.
So you can’t think of any good examples then. OK, cool.
Sunday Trading laws 2016, when SNP MPs voted on English legislation
But with effects in Scotland, as that same article explains.
"Effects" doesn't justify voting.
Decisions made in Holyrood can have "effects" in England, but our MPs don't get a vote in Holyrood.
Actions America takes have major "effects" in Europe, but we don't get a vote in American elections.
Putin declaring was has had major "effects" here - but we don't get a vote in the Russian Duma.
Scottish MPs should have no standing to choose to vote on English only matter where Holyrood has the power in Scotland, whether there are "effects" or not.
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
Even one thing that English representatives want to pass that gets vetoed by non-English representatives is one too many.
So you can’t think of any good examples then. OK, cool.
"Top Up" Tuition Fees - rejected by a majority of English MPs, imposed by Scottish Labour MPs, while Scottish Labour were ensuring Scotland had no tuition fees.
Sunday Trading laws - SNP MPs voting to keep the insane restrictions on Sunday Trading in England, while Scotland has no such restrictions.
Egregious and unacceptable examples just off the top of my head - and such examples will become more likely if Scottish MPs hold the balance of power in Parliament rather than there being a party or coalition with an outright majority.
Any more? Though I agree the first was damn stupid, and the second was arguable at best.
PS I think it was LD MPs as well in the first case and possibly some Tories though other Tories did abstain on principle (was a long time ago).
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
Even one thing that English representatives want to pass that gets vetoed by non-English representatives is one too many.
So you can’t think of any good examples then. OK, cool.
Sunday Trading laws 2016, when SNP MPs voted on English legislation
But with effects in Scotland, as that same article explains.
Any more?
I'll give you a clue - it's got Fees and Student in the title. And it was Unionist MPs in Scotland who pushed that through (damn stupid in my opinion).
The law had no direct effect on Scotland, even if the SNP argued it would have indirect effect (the Western Isles of course still refuse Sunday trading even now anyway)
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
If say the Tories had a majority in England but not in the UK and Welsh and Scottish Labour MPs voted on English laws, even if SNP MPs didn't, then that is a clear example of England being overruled at Westminster
But we're looking for how an English Parliament would lead to England being governed better not to it being governed by the Tories.
So SNP home rule fine for Scotland but not Tory home rule for England?
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
If say the Tories had a majority in England but not in the UK and Welsh and Scottish Labour MPs voted on English laws, even if SNP MPs didn't, then that is a clear example of England being overruled at Westminster
But we're looking for how an English Parliament would lead to England being governed better not to it being governed by the Tories.
So SNP home rule fine for Scotland but not Tory home rule for England?
Not according to your party (latter point I mean). Don't ask me to explain.
Goodness me, whoever could have foreseen that telling Scots to STFU, that their votes don't matter, and that they can't control their own future democratically might have been counterproductive to the Union? 🤔
It isn't, as long as the UK government can refuse indyref2 as the Supreme Court confirmed there is a 100% chance it stays in the UK, see Spain and Catalonia.
As soon as indyref2 is allowed there is a 50% chance Scotland votes for independence even before this poll however.
So this Tory government should refuse indyref2 indefinitely. If Labour get in and grant one it is their problem to win it
Another independence referendum is inevitable given that the SNP keep winning Holyrood elections.
The ostrich-like mentality of the Tories to reject this reality only makes the Union losing the next referendum more likely.
No it isn't, Catalan nationalists keeping winning Catalan elections, Madrid has still refused them even 1 independence referendum.
It is also more likely there is a Yes vote under a Tory UK government than a Labour UK government, so it is in Unionists interests for only a Labour government to ever grant indyref2
You really do not have any idea how pathetic it is to claim it in Unionist interests to keep denying Scots indyref2 when such denial makes independence more likely
If the trend continues towards the SNP then those of us who value the union but also democracy need to grant the Scots their wish and win the argument
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
Even one thing that English representatives want to pass that gets vetoed by non-English representatives is one too many.
So you can’t think of any good examples then. OK, cool.
Apple now declares more of its profits in Ireland than in the US.
Ireland has created some kind of magic money making machine, siphoning massive amounts of tax from global corporates.
It’s called having low corporation tax. It's not rocket science, despite some Sunak supporting loons trying to portray otherwise.
No it's called having 0 corporation tax, or I think 0.065% or something ridiculous like that.
The Irish corporation tax rate is not 0.065%. It's 12.5%, with some pretty generous capital allowances, and (historically) some negotiated by the corporates rates.
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
Even one thing that English representatives want to pass that gets vetoed by non-English representatives is one too many.
So you can’t think of any good examples then. OK, cool.
Sunday Trading laws 2016, when SNP MPs voted on English legislation
But with effects in Scotland, as that same article explains.
"Effects" doesn't justify voting.
Decisions made in Holyrood can have "effects" in England, but our MPs don't get a vote in Holyrood.
Actions America takes have major "effects" in Europe, but we don't get a vote in American elections.
Putin declaring was has had major "effects" here - but we don't get a vote in the Russian Duma.
Scottish MPs should have no standing to choose to vote on English only matter where Holyrood has the power in Scotland, whether there are "effects" or not.
In which case, why did the Tories abolish EVEL which was supposed to regularise the situation? I;ve never seen an adequate explanation.
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
Even one thing that English representatives want to pass that gets vetoed by non-English representatives is one too many.
So you can’t think of any good examples then. OK, cool.
Sunday Trading laws 2016, when SNP MPs voted on English legislation
But with effects in Scotland, as that same article explains.
Any more?
I'll give you a clue - it's got Fees and Student in the title. And it was Unionist MPs in Scotland who pushed that through (damn stupid in my opinion).
Those alleged "effects" were bullshit made up by the SNP to give them an excuse to vote against.
Goodness me, whoever could have foreseen that telling Scots to STFU, that their votes don't matter, and that they can't control their own future democratically might have been counterproductive to the Union? 🤔
It isn't, as long as the UK government can refuse indyref2 as the Supreme Court confirmed there is a 100% chance it stays in the UK, see Spain and Catalonia.
As soon as indyref2 is allowed there is a 50% chance Scotland votes for independence even before this poll however.
So this Tory government should refuse indyref2 indefinitely. If Labour get in and grant one it is their problem to win it
Another independence referendum is inevitable given that the SNP keep winning Holyrood elections.
The ostrich-like mentality of the Tories to reject this reality only makes the Union losing the next referendum more likely.
No it isn't, Catalan nationalists keeping winning Catalan elections, Madrid has still refused them even 1 independence referendum.
It is also more likely there is a Yes vote under a Tory UK government than a Labour UK government, so it is in Unionists interests for only a Labour government to ever grant indyref2
You really do not have any idea how pathetic it is to claim it in Unionist interests to keep denying Scots indyref2 when such denial makes independence more likely
If the trend continues towards the SNP then those of us who value the union but also democracy need to grant the Scots their wish and win the argument
It is just reality. If there was an indyref2 tomorrow, it is more likely than not the Scots would narrowly vote Yes, especially with a Tory UK government as well as post Brexit.
If indyref2 is delayed until say 2026-29 under a Starmer led Labour government offering devomax it is probably more likely Scots would narrowly vote No.
If they still vote Yes then of course the Tories can switch overnight to become an English Nationalist Party taking as hard a line as possible with the SNP in Scexit talks. So the Tories have no interest in allowing an indyref2 now whether Unionists or English Nationalists, their interest is to leave it to Starmer and Gordon Brown to sort out.
After all Labour created Holyrood in the first place which enabled the SNP to gain their powerbase
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
Even one thing that English representatives want to pass that gets vetoed by non-English representatives is one too many.
So you can’t think of any good examples then. OK, cool.
Sunday Trading laws 2016, when SNP MPs voted on English legislation
But with effects in Scotland, as that same article explains.
Any more?
I'll give you a clue - it's got Fees and Student in the title. And it was Unionist MPs in Scotland who pushed that through (damn stupid in my opinion).
Those alleged "effects" were bullshit made up by the SNP to give them an excuse to vote against.
Read it. The unions deployed those effects. Unions affiliated to the Labour Party.
It's extremely unusual for this to happen - if it were common, you'd have a list as long as your forearm.
'If you’re shocked about the Michelle Mone story, wait till you find out that a firm owned by the finance manager of Michael Gove’s 2016 Tory leadership campaign won £170m in PPE deals.
After being referred to the PPE VIP lane by the office of… Michael Gove.'
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
Even one thing that English representatives want to pass that gets vetoed by non-English representatives is one too many.
So you can’t think of any good examples then. OK, cool.
Sunday Trading laws 2016, when SNP MPs voted on English legislation
But with effects in Scotland, as that same article explains.
"Effects" doesn't justify voting.
Decisions made in Holyrood can have "effects" in England, but our MPs don't get a vote in Holyrood.
Actions America takes have major "effects" in Europe, but we don't get a vote in American elections.
Putin declaring was has had major "effects" here - but we don't get a vote in the Russian Duma.
Scottish MPs should have no standing to choose to vote on English only matter where Holyrood has the power in Scotland, whether there are "effects" or not.
In which case, why did the Tories abolish EVEL which was supposed to regularise the situation? I;ve never seen an adequate explanation.
I don't know, but EVEL was a ridiculously poor "solution" to the problem anyway since Scottish MPs still had standing to vote on English only matters, EVEL required a double-majority of all MPs and English MPs to pass a law. So Scottish MPs could still block English only law changes like the Sunday Trading madness, despite EVEL.
What EVEL would have fixed is preventing Scotland imposing Top Up Tuition Fees on England since the English MPs could reject it.
So EVEL as implemented only half-fixed the problem, it didn't fix it properly. Personally I'd think half fixing is better than nothing, but it should be fixed properly. If Scottish MPs want to vote on English matters that effect them, then OK but then English MPs should be able to vote on Scottish matters that effect them, so abolish devolution. Having devolution and still voting on English matters due to "effects" is unjustifiable.
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
Even one thing that English representatives want to pass that gets vetoed by non-English representatives is one too many.
So you can’t think of any good examples then. OK, cool.
Sunday Trading laws 2016, when SNP MPs voted on English legislation
But with effects in Scotland, as that same article explains.
"Effects" doesn't justify voting.
Decisions made in Holyrood can have "effects" in England, but our MPs don't get a vote in Holyrood.
Actions America takes have major "effects" in Europe, but we don't get a vote in American elections.
Putin declaring was has had major "effects" here - but we don't get a vote in the Russian Duma.
Scottish MPs should have no standing to choose to vote on English only matter where Holyrood has the power in Scotland, whether there are "effects" or not.
In which case, why did the Tories abolish EVEL which was supposed to regularise the situation? I;ve never seen an adequate explanation.
Because it didn't do what was needed - it only gave English MPs a veto on things approved by the whole House, it didn't let English MPs pass things on their own.
So whilst it would have dealt with top up fees, it wouldn't have dealt with Sunday Trading. (Or is that "didn't deal with Sunday Trading"? Without looking it up I'm not sure if EVEL was even in force then).
'If you’re shocked about the Michelle Mone story, wait till you find out that a firm owned by the finance manager of Michael Gove’s 2016 Tory leadership campaign won £170m in PPE deals.
After being referred to the PPE VIP lane by the office of… Michael Gove.'
“What these data show is that promoting lies about the 2020 election is profitable for both candidates and social media platforms themselves,” the article said. . . .
You can see why the election-denial train keeps chugging along. It has countless enablers. And countless more making bank.
So, sure, recount the votes. It won’t make a whit of difference in the outcome. But unfortunately, even proving the count was solid won’t snap many election doubters back to reality.
The only way to end this con? Stop giving the con artists money.
SSI - Grifters gotta grift.
You would have more credibility on this subject if you also criticised the cottage industry that sprung up with the aim of delegitimising the 2016 election result.
Ah yes, who can forget when Hillary refused to turn up at President Trump's inauguration, and declared it a "steal"?
'If you’re shocked about the Michelle Mone story, wait till you find out that a firm owned by the finance manager of Michael Gove’s 2016 Tory leadership campaign won £170m in PPE deals.
After being referred to the PPE VIP lane by the office of… Michael Gove.'
Goodness me, whoever could have foreseen that telling Scots to STFU, that their votes don't matter, and that they can't control their own future democratically might have been counterproductive to the Union? 🤔
It isn't, as long as the UK government can refuse indyref2 as the Supreme Court confirmed there is a 100% chance it stays in the UK, see Spain and Catalonia.
As soon as indyref2 is allowed there is a 50% chance Scotland votes for independence even before this poll however.
So this Tory government should refuse indyref2 indefinitely. If Labour get in and grant one it is their problem to win it
Another independence referendum is inevitable given that the SNP keep winning Holyrood elections.
The ostrich-like mentality of the Tories to reject this reality only makes the Union losing the next referendum more likely.
No it isn't, Catalan nationalists keeping winning Catalan elections, Madrid has still refused them even 1 independence referendum.
It is also more likely there is a Yes vote under a Tory UK government than a Labour UK government, so it is in Unionists interests for only a Labour government to ever grant indyref2
You really do not have any idea how pathetic it is to claim it in Unionist interests to keep denying Scots indyref2 when such denial makes independence more likely
If the trend continues towards the SNP then those of us who value the union but also democracy need to grant the Scots their wish and win the argument
It is just reality. If there was an indyref2 tomorrow, it is more likely than not the Scots would narrowly vote Yes, especially with a Tory UK government as well as post Brexit.
If indyref2 is delayed until say 2026-29 under a Starmer led Labour government offering devomax it is probably more likely Scots would narrowly vote No.
If they still vote Yes then of course the Tories can switch overnight to become an English Nationalist Party taking as hard a line as possible with the SNP in Scexit talks. So the Tories have no interest in allowing an indyref2 now whether Unionists or English Nationalists, their interest is to leave it to Starmer and Gordon Brown to sort out.
After all Labour created Holyrood in the first place which enabled the SNP to gain their powerbase
I reckon the Labour Party are likely to get two terms in office, given the size of their impending victory
And I further reckon Labour will grant indyref2 in that 2nd term, with a Devomax option, as you say. By then - the early 2030s - the generation argument will no longer apply. By then, if Scots still want a vote, it must be granted, and Labour will do so
The Open AI Chatbot is actually really special, so long as you are very aware of its limitations.
I was working on a little programming project, using a library I'd never used before. Normally, this would mean I'd spend an awful lot of time in the documentation, looking through Google and Stack Overflow.
Now, I just ask the Chatbot. It isn't perfect, of course. But one of the things that's great is if you say, "that didn't work, I got the following error", it will usually tell you why you got it and help you on the way.
If I was teaching myself - say - Unity 3D, I think it would be a massively powerful tool to help me learn more quicky.
The progress in the last year or so of a lot of transformer models has been extremely impressive. I don't know whether or not we are on the cusp of AGI and the Singularity, my hunch is we are not, but I'm fairly certain there is going to be an ML arms race and I expect the tech giants to snap up a lot of new ML accelerator companies over the next year or so. If we are getting close to a breakthrough they are going to want the best tools available to develop the services that let them reap the potential riches. A lot of the tech giants have in-house accelerator programmes, but any loose IP is going to be attractive.
We don't have to achieve AGI and reach the Singularity for plain old AI to transform societies and economies. And that is where we are, I think
The Open AI Chatbot is actually really special, so long as you are very aware of its limitations.
I was working on a little programming project, using a library I'd never used before. Normally, this would mean I'd spend an awful lot of time in the documentation, looking through Google and Stack Overflow.
Now, I just ask the Chatbot. It isn't perfect, of course. But one of the things that's great is if you say, "that didn't work, I got the following error", it will usually tell you why you got it and help you on the way.
If I was teaching myself - say - Unity 3D, I think it would be a massively powerful tool to help me learn more quicky.
That's been my experience with it on the programming front too. It's really quite impressive. I've been trying it out converting VueJS v2 code to v3 and it's really very good at it. Even if part of my developer-brain is scathingly thinking 'Jeez - I could have written a script to do this. Few regex's - bish, bash, bosh' I secretly know I'd have spend three weeks writing the script then giving up the first time it hit a weird edge-case.
Sunak: “Like everyone else I was absolutely shocked to read about the allegations. It’s absolutely right that she is no longer attending the House of Lords and therefore no longer has the Conservative Whip.” https://mobile.twitter.com/danbloom1/status/1600462541213368320
This one may come back to bite Sunak. The allegations have been around for over a year, so I can't see how he's suddenly 'absolutely shocked' just because there's now a better evidence trail.
£29m profit, allegedly, lodged in an account whose beneficiaries are the family in the case. Just think about that - £29m profit through using the VIP lane. And the lies (allegedly). It's a huge scandal, it really is.
Her husband got around £40M as well according to the papers, sure it was either £65 or £69 million in total and he punted £29M to her trust.
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
Even one thing that English representatives want to pass that gets vetoed by non-English representatives is one too many.
So you can’t think of any good examples then. OK, cool.
Sunday Trading laws 2016, when SNP MPs voted on English legislation
But with effects in Scotland, as that same article explains.
"Effects" doesn't justify voting.
Decisions made in Holyrood can have "effects" in England, but our MPs don't get a vote in Holyrood.
Actions America takes have major "effects" in Europe, but we don't get a vote in American elections.
Putin declaring was has had major "effects" here - but we don't get a vote in the Russian Duma.
Scottish MPs should have no standing to choose to vote on English only matter where Holyrood has the power in Scotland, whether there are "effects" or not.
In which case, why did the Tories abolish EVEL which was supposed to regularise the situation? I;ve never seen an adequate explanation.
I don't know, but EVEL was a ridiculously poor "solution" to the problem anyway since Scottish MPs still had standing to vote on English only matters, EVEL required a double-majority of all MPs and English MPs to pass a law. So Scottish MPs could still block English only law changes like the Sunday Trading madness, despite EVEL.
What EVEL would have fixed is preventing Scotland imposing Top Up Tuition Fees on England since the English MPs could reject it.
So EVEL as implemented only half-fixed the problem, it didn't fix it properly. Personally I'd think half fixing is better than nothing, but it should be fixed properly. If Scottish MPs want to vote on English matters that effect them, then OK but then English MPs should be able to vote on Scottish matters that effect them, so abolish devolution. Having devolution and still voting on English matters due to "effects" is unjustifiable.
Thanks. Wasn't Scotland imposing them so much as a few MPs from Scottish (and Welsh) constituencies and almost half of MPs for English constitiuencies, of course: but that is a detail.
I'm still puzzled about EVEL being abolished because even allowing fo the additional vote, it would only be triggered in problem cases, of which there are numerically very, very few , so the additional hassle isn't that much of a burden and minimal in terms of bneing able to revise serious problem areas. (Bear in mind there will always be argument at the boundary.)
I can only infer it is a deliberate trap to try and tempt Mr Starmer into trying to set up a coalition agreement.
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
Even one thing that English representatives want to pass that gets vetoed by non-English representatives is one too many.
So you can’t think of any good examples then. OK, cool.
Sunday Trading laws 2016, when SNP MPs voted on English legislation
But with effects in Scotland, as that same article explains.
"Effects" doesn't justify voting.
Decisions made in Holyrood can have "effects" in England, but our MPs don't get a vote in Holyrood.
Actions America takes have major "effects" in Europe, but we don't get a vote in American elections.
Putin declaring was has had major "effects" here - but we don't get a vote in the Russian Duma.
Scottish MPs should have no standing to choose to vote on English only matter where Holyrood has the power in Scotland, whether there are "effects" or not.
In which case, why did the Tories abolish EVEL which was supposed to regularise the situation? I;ve never seen an adequate explanation.
Because it didn't do what was needed - it only gave English MPs a veto on things approved by the whole House, it didn't let English MPs pass things on their own.
So whilst it would have dealt with top up fees, it wouldn't have dealt with Sunday Trading. (Or is that "didn't deal with Sunday Trading"? Without looking it up I'm not sure if EVEL was even in force then).
But who could have foreseen denying the people their repeated wish for Indyref2 would have electoral consequences?
The people? You mean the ruling Partei and the minority of the population who vote in support of its main aim.
Slab, Scon and SLD should all tell the SNP that it's time for an SGE. This makes perfect sense both for voters who want independence and for those who want to keep the Union.
Perhaps someone will start an online petition for one if the politicians won't step up. (Chortle.)
“What these data show is that promoting lies about the 2020 election is profitable for both candidates and social media platforms themselves,” the article said. . . .
You can see why the election-denial train keeps chugging along. It has countless enablers. And countless more making bank.
So, sure, recount the votes. It won’t make a whit of difference in the outcome. But unfortunately, even proving the count was solid won’t snap many election doubters back to reality.
The only way to end this con? Stop giving the con artists money.
SSI - Grifters gotta grift.
You would have more credibility on this subject if you also criticised the cottage industry that sprung up with the aim of delegitimising the 2016 election result.
Ah yes, who can forget when Hillary refused to turn up at President Trump's inauguration, and declared it a "steal"?
Nevertheless a lot of people made money pushing the idea that Trump wasn't a legitimate president and she didn't exactly discourage them.
Democrat Hillary Clinton refused to rule out challenging the legitimacy of last year’s presidential election in an interview released Monday afternoon, though she said such a move would be unprecedented and legally questionable.
So we need an English parliament to allow Sunday Trading in England?
Pretty thin gruel.
Sunday trading should be a decision made at county and metro level, anyway.
We need an English Parliament (or simply to ban Scottish MPs from voting on devolved matters) to ensure that English laws are determined in England.
Democracy trumps any gruel. Sunday Trading and Top Up Fees are simply examples of where it has already mattered, despite the Government typically* having a healthy majority post-devolution.
*2010-2015 was a very healthy Government majority as the Government included both parties of the Coalition. 2017-19 obviously was not.
So we need an English parliament to allow Sunday Trading in England?
Pretty thin gruel.
Sunday trading should be a decision made at county and metro level, anyway.
We need an English Parliament (or simply to ban Scottish MPs from voting on devolved matters) to ensure that English laws are determined in England.
Democracy trumps any gruel. Sunday Trading and Top Up Fees are simply examples of where it has already mattered, despite the Government typically* having a healthy majority post-devolution.
*2010-2015 was a very healthy Government majority as the Government included both parties of the Coalition. 2017-19 obviously was not.
Any more examples?
And fees were when it was Labour and the LDs dominating in Scotland, in both parliaments, IIRC. So it's not a SNP versus the Rest issue.
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
If say the Tories had a majority in England but not in the UK and Welsh and Scottish Labour MPs voted on English laws, even if SNP MPs didn't, then that is a clear example of England being overruled at Westminster
But we're looking for how an English Parliament would lead to England being governed better not to it being governed by the Tories.
So SNP home rule fine for Scotland but not Tory home rule for England?
This isn't an apt comparison. It's not about parties. We need to look at the fundamentals. England dominates Westminster and Westminster is massively more powerful than Holyrood. Also Westminster has power over Scotland but Holyrood has no power over England. The imbalance still favours England - algebraic expansion says so - but not as much as it did before devolution. The impact of the so-called 'asymmetric devolution' was therefore not to disadvantage England in the Union but to mitigate its previous overwhelming advantage.
So we need an English parliament to allow Sunday Trading in England?
Pretty thin gruel.
Sunday trading should be a decision made at county and metro level, anyway.
We need an English Parliament (or simply to ban Scottish MPs from voting on devolved matters) to ensure that English laws are determined in England.
Democracy trumps any gruel. Sunday Trading and Top Up Fees are simply examples of where it has already mattered, despite the Government typically* having a healthy majority post-devolution.
*2010-2015 was a very healthy Government majority as the Government included both parties of the Coalition. 2017-19 obviously was not.
Any more examples?
And fees were when it was Labour and the LDs dominating in Scotland, in both parliaments, IIRC. So it's not a SNP versus the Rest issue.
Its not a matter of party politics, its a matter of democracy.
Scottish MPs voting on matters they weren't elected to deal with (because its a devolved matter) in a different country is fundamentally undemocratic.
If its a shared issue, so Scottish MPs vote on English matters and English MPs vote on Scottish ones, because its dealt with UK-nation-wide through Parliament then that is democratic. But if MPs can't vote because its devolved to Holyrood then it doesn't matter if the MPs are red, yellow, blue, green, orange or any other colour.
So we need an English parliament to allow Sunday Trading in England?
Pretty thin gruel.
Sunday trading should be a decision made at county and metro level, anyway.
We need an English Parliament (or simply to ban Scottish MPs from voting on devolved matters) to ensure that English laws are determined in England.
Democracy trumps any gruel. Sunday Trading and Top Up Fees are simply examples of where it has already mattered, despite the Government typically* having a healthy majority post-devolution.
*2010-2015 was a very healthy Government majority as the Government included both parties of the Coalition. 2017-19 obviously was not.
Any more examples?
And fees were when it was Labour and the LDs dominating in Scotland, in both parliaments, IIRC. So it's not a SNP versus the Rest issue.
I think that, if you could find one example of EnglandWestminster "imposing" something on Scotland, you wouldn't be asking for "more examples".
So we need an English parliament to allow Sunday Trading in England?
Pretty thin gruel.
Sunday trading should be a decision made at county and metro level, anyway.
We need an English Parliament (or simply to ban Scottish MPs from voting on devolved matters) to ensure that English laws are determined in England.
Democracy trumps any gruel. Sunday Trading and Top Up Fees are simply examples of where it has already mattered, despite the Government typically* having a healthy majority post-devolution.
*2010-2015 was a very healthy Government majority as the Government included both parties of the Coalition. 2017-19 obviously was not.
Any more examples?
And fees were when it was Labour and the LDs dominating in Scotland, in both parliaments, IIRC. So it's not a SNP versus the Rest issue.
Its not a matter of party politics, its a matter of democracy.
Scottish MPs voting on matters they weren't elected to deal with (because its a devolved matter) in a different country is fundamentally undemocratic.
If its a shared issue, so Scottish MPs vote on English matters and English MPs vote on Scottish ones, because its dealt with UK-nation-wide through Parliament then that is democratic. But if MPs can't vote because its devolved to Holyrood then it doesn't matter if the MPs are red, yellow, blue, green, orange or any other colour.
Democracy matters more than party politics.
Point taken. Yet it's basically because Westminster has that dual role. Always going to be debate at where the edge lies. I'm actually surprised it doesn't happen more often.
Anyone defending the current constitutional mess on the grounds of "its only Sunday Trading/Tuition Fees, who cares" is no better than Trumpists defending attempts to overthrow the election results because their guy is better than a "liberal" so democracy attempting to throw out election results is OK in their eyes.
Democracy matters. I'd rather a government implementing laws I oppose, elected democratically, that I can oppose and seek reform on at the next election than to get my own way undemocratically.
So we need an English parliament to allow Sunday Trading in England?
Pretty thin gruel.
Sunday trading should be a decision made at county and metro level, anyway.
We need an English Parliament (or simply to ban Scottish MPs from voting on devolved matters) to ensure that English laws are determined in England.
Democracy trumps any gruel. Sunday Trading and Top Up Fees are simply examples of where it has already mattered, despite the Government typically* having a healthy majority post-devolution.
*2010-2015 was a very healthy Government majority as the Government included both parties of the Coalition. 2017-19 obviously was not.
Any more examples?
And fees were when it was Labour and the LDs dominating in Scotland, in both parliaments, IIRC. So it's not a SNP versus the Rest issue.
Its not a matter of party politics, its a matter of democracy.
Scottish MPs voting on matters they weren't elected to deal with (because its a devolved matter) in a different country is fundamentally undemocratic.
If its a shared issue, so Scottish MPs vote on English matters and English MPs vote on Scottish ones, because its dealt with UK-nation-wide through Parliament then that is democratic. But if MPs can't vote because its devolved to Holyrood then it doesn't matter if the MPs are red, yellow, blue, green, orange or any other colour.
Democracy matters more than party politics.
Point taken. Yet it's basically because Westminster has that dual role. Always going to be debate at where the edge lies. I'm actually surprised it doesn't happen more often.
I think it doesn't happen more often because usually the government has enough of a majority in England to overcome non-English votes on English matters.
But "usually" is not "always".
And the dual role is exactly the problem, and it is resolved entirely by devolving English matters to an English Parliament. If that parliament then wants to devolve further to regions/counties/cities, that should be up to it to do so.
'If you’re shocked about the Michelle Mone story, wait till you find out that a firm owned by the finance manager of Michael Gove’s 2016 Tory leadership campaign won £170m in PPE deals.
After being referred to the PPE VIP lane by the office of… Michael Gove.'
Goodness me, whoever could have foreseen that telling Scots to STFU, that their votes don't matter, and that they can't control their own future democratically might have been counterproductive to the Union? 🤔
It isn't, as long as the UK government can refuse indyref2 as the Supreme Court confirmed there is a 100% chance it stays in the UK, see Spain and Catalonia.
As soon as indyref2 is allowed there is a 50% chance Scotland votes for independence even before this poll however.
So this Tory government should refuse indyref2 indefinitely. If Labour get in and grant one it is their problem to win it
Another independence referendum is inevitable given that the SNP keep winning Holyrood elections.
The ostrich-like mentality of the Tories to reject this reality only makes the Union losing the next referendum more likely.
No it isn't, Catalan nationalists keeping winning Catalan elections, Madrid has still refused them even 1 independence referendum.
It is also more likely there is a Yes vote under a Tory UK government than a Labour UK government, so it is in Unionists interests for only a Labour government to ever grant indyref2
You really do not have any idea how pathetic it is to claim it in Unionist interests to keep denying Scots indyref2 when such denial makes independence more likely
If the trend continues towards the SNP then those of us who value the union but also democracy need to grant the Scots their wish and win the argument
It is just reality. If there was an indyref2 tomorrow, it is more likely than not the Scots would narrowly vote Yes, especially with a Tory UK government as well as post Brexit.
If indyref2 is delayed until say 2026-29 under a Starmer led Labour government offering devomax it is probably more likely Scots would narrowly vote No.
If they still vote Yes then of course the Tories can switch overnight to become an English Nationalist Party taking as hard a line as possible with the SNP in Scexit talks. So the Tories have no interest in allowing an indyref2 now whether Unionists or English Nationalists, their interest is to leave it to Starmer and Gordon Brown to sort out.
After all Labour created Holyrood in the first place which enabled the SNP to gain their powerbase
I reckon the Labour Party are likely to get two terms in office, given the size of their impending victory
And I further reckon Labour will grant indyref2 in that 2nd term, with a Devomax option, as you say. By then - the early 2030s - the generation argument will no longer apply. By then, if Scots still want a vote, it must be granted, and Labour will do so
"the generation argument" ... no I can't even muster an "lol"
I've explained till I'm blue in the face why that's a complete nonsense but you guys still churn it out like robots. It reminds me of that scene in Spinal Tap where the gonzo lead guitarist is boasting about his superloud instrument.
"It goes up to eleven." "Yeah but that doesn't mean it's actually any louder than other guitars." "What?" "It depends on the scale. For example your eleven could equal somebody else's ten." (few seconds silence) "This one goes up to eleven."
Hmm: topically, the new interim report on the Welsh constitution is now out.
GRaun feed:
'In their foreward to the interim report, Williams and McAllister say the constitutional status quo is not sustainable. They say:
"Devolution was a major step forward for Welsh democracy, but the current settlement has been eroded by decisions of recent UK governments particularly in the context of Brexit. The status quo is not a reliable or sustainable basis for the governance of Wales in the future."
They say there are three options they will consider in more detail in their final report.
"Our work has led us to conclude that there are three viable future constitutional options for Wales: entrenched devolution, federal structures and independence."'
One current problem with the status quo being the attitude of UKG to cooperating with the other three administrations. But they list nine others.
'If you’re shocked about the Michelle Mone story, wait till you find out that a firm owned by the finance manager of Michael Gove’s 2016 Tory leadership campaign won £170m in PPE deals.
After being referred to the PPE VIP lane by the office of… Michael Gove.'
Goodness me, whoever could have foreseen that telling Scots to STFU, that their votes don't matter, and that they can't control their own future democratically might have been counterproductive to the Union? 🤔
It isn't, as long as the UK government can refuse indyref2 as the Supreme Court confirmed there is a 100% chance it stays in the UK, see Spain and Catalonia.
As soon as indyref2 is allowed there is a 50% chance Scotland votes for independence even before this poll however.
So this Tory government should refuse indyref2 indefinitely. If Labour get in and grant one it is their problem to win it
Another independence referendum is inevitable given that the SNP keep winning Holyrood elections.
The ostrich-like mentality of the Tories to reject this reality only makes the Union losing the next referendum more likely.
No it isn't, Catalan nationalists keeping winning Catalan elections, Madrid has still refused them even 1 independence referendum.
It is also more likely there is a Yes vote under a Tory UK government than a Labour UK government, so it is in Unionists interests for only a Labour government to ever grant indyref2
You really do not have any idea how pathetic it is to claim it in Unionist interests to keep denying Scots indyref2 when such denial makes independence more likely
If the trend continues towards the SNP then those of us who value the union but also democracy need to grant the Scots their wish and win the argument
It is just reality. If there was an indyref2 tomorrow, it is more likely than not the Scots would narrowly vote Yes, especially with a Tory UK government as well as post Brexit.
If indyref2 is delayed until say 2026-29 under a Starmer led Labour government offering devomax it is probably more likely Scots would narrowly vote No.
If they still vote Yes then of course the Tories can switch overnight to become an English Nationalist Party taking as hard a line as possible with the SNP in Scexit talks. So the Tories have no interest in allowing an indyref2 now whether Unionists or English Nationalists, their interest is to leave it to Starmer and Gordon Brown to sort out.
After all Labour created Holyrood in the first place which enabled the SNP to gain their powerbase
I reckon the Labour Party are likely to get two terms in office, given the size of their impending victory
And I further reckon Labour will grant indyref2 in that 2nd term, with a Devomax option, as you say. By then - the early 2030s - the generation argument will no longer apply. By then, if Scots still want a vote, it must be granted, and Labour will do so
The other reason for thinking that the Conservatives are facing a decade out is their likely response to defeat.
Given a choice between making peace with the swing electorate and doubling down on their current approach, which do you think they will choose?
So we need an English parliament to allow Sunday Trading in England?
Pretty thin gruel.
Sunday trading should be a decision made at county and metro level, anyway.
We need an English Parliament (or simply to ban Scottish MPs from voting on devolved matters) to ensure that English laws are determined in England.
Democracy trumps any gruel. Sunday Trading and Top Up Fees are simply examples of where it has already mattered, despite the Government typically* having a healthy majority post-devolution.
*2010-2015 was a very healthy Government majority as the Government included both parties of the Coalition. 2017-19 obviously was not.
Any more examples?
And fees were when it was Labour and the LDs dominating in Scotland, in both parliaments, IIRC. So it's not a SNP versus the Rest issue.
Its not a matter of party politics, its a matter of democracy.
Scottish MPs voting on matters they weren't elected to deal with (because its a devolved matter) in a different country is fundamentally undemocratic.
If its a shared issue, so Scottish MPs vote on English matters and English MPs vote on Scottish ones, because its dealt with UK-nation-wide through Parliament then that is democratic. But if MPs can't vote because its devolved to Holyrood then it doesn't matter if the MPs are red, yellow, blue, green, orange or any other colour.
Democracy matters more than party politics.
Point taken. Yet it's basically because Westminster has that dual role. Always going to be debate at where the edge lies. I'm actually surprised it doesn't happen more often.
I think it doesn't happen more often because usually the government has enough of a majority in England to overcome non-English votes on English matters.
But "usually" is not "always".
And the dual role is exactly the problem, and it is resolved entirely by devolving English matters to an English Parliament. If that parliament then wants to devolve further to regions/counties/cities, that should be up to it to do so.
Beg to differ: we'd hear a *lot* about non-English votes on English matters these days, even if they lost.
Just wondering: did the DUP ever vote on English-only matters? They were really opposed to EVEL as they saw it as destroying the unity of the UK.
Anyone defending the current constitutional mess on the grounds of "its only Sunday Trading/Tuition Fees, who cares" is no better than Trumpists defending attempts to overthrow the election results because their guy is better than a "liberal" so democracy attempting to throw out election results is OK in their eyes.
Democracy matters. I'd rather a government implementing laws I oppose, elected democratically, that I can oppose and seek reform on at the next election than to get my own way undemocratically.
You're sounding like a bot. Not one of these new GPT4 ones either. One of the rusty old school variety.
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
If say the Tories had a majority in England but not in the UK and Welsh and Scottish Labour MPs voted on English laws, even if SNP MPs didn't, then that is a clear example of England being overruled at Westminster
But we're looking for how an English Parliament would lead to England being governed better not to it being governed by the Tories.
So SNP home rule fine for Scotland but not Tory home rule for England?
This isn't an apt comparison. It's not about parties. We need to look at the fundamentals. England dominates Westminster and Westminster is massively more powerful than Holyrood. Also Westminster has power over Scotland but Holyrood has no power over England. The imbalance still favours England - algebraic expansion says so - but not as much as it did before devolution. The impact of the so-called 'asymmetric devolution' was therefore not to disadvantage England in the Union but to mitigate its previous overwhelming advantage.
For now, the moment England votes Tory but gets a UK Labour government as in February 1974 or 1964 that will change
Here’s letter from @MattHancock association to chief whip (dated Dec 1) - Officers group on Nov 30 ruled they have no confidence in MH - Requested that whip not restored to him - Vote brought about following feedback from constituents who considered him unfit to represent them https://twitter.com/BethRigby/status/1600547933572702208/photo/1
'If you’re shocked about the Michelle Mone story, wait till you find out that a firm owned by the finance manager of Michael Gove’s 2016 Tory leadership campaign won £170m in PPE deals.
After being referred to the PPE VIP lane by the office of… Michael Gove.'
Goodness me, whoever could have foreseen that telling Scots to STFU, that their votes don't matter, and that they can't control their own future democratically might have been counterproductive to the Union? 🤔
It isn't, as long as the UK government can refuse indyref2 as the Supreme Court confirmed there is a 100% chance it stays in the UK, see Spain and Catalonia.
As soon as indyref2 is allowed there is a 50% chance Scotland votes for independence even before this poll however.
So this Tory government should refuse indyref2 indefinitely. If Labour get in and grant one it is their problem to win it
Another independence referendum is inevitable given that the SNP keep winning Holyrood elections.
The ostrich-like mentality of the Tories to reject this reality only makes the Union losing the next referendum more likely.
No it isn't, Catalan nationalists keeping winning Catalan elections, Madrid has still refused them even 1 independence referendum.
It is also more likely there is a Yes vote under a Tory UK government than a Labour UK government, so it is in Unionists interests for only a Labour government to ever grant indyref2
You really do not have any idea how pathetic it is to claim it in Unionist interests to keep denying Scots indyref2 when such denial makes independence more likely
If the trend continues towards the SNP then those of us who value the union but also democracy need to grant the Scots their wish and win the argument
It is just reality. If there was an indyref2 tomorrow, it is more likely than not the Scots would narrowly vote Yes, especially with a Tory UK government as well as post Brexit.
If indyref2 is delayed until say 2026-29 under a Starmer led Labour government offering devomax it is probably more likely Scots would narrowly vote No.
If they still vote Yes then of course the Tories can switch overnight to become an English Nationalist Party taking as hard a line as possible with the SNP in Scexit talks. So the Tories have no interest in allowing an indyref2 now whether Unionists or English Nationalists, their interest is to leave it to Starmer and Gordon Brown to sort out.
After all Labour created Holyrood in the first place which enabled the SNP to gain their powerbase
I reckon the Labour Party are likely to get two terms in office, given the size of their impending victory
And I further reckon Labour will grant indyref2 in that 2nd term, with a Devomax option, as you say. By then - the early 2030s - the generation argument will no longer apply. By then, if Scots still want a vote, it must be granted, and Labour will do so
The other reason for thinking that the Conservatives are facing a decade out is their likely response to defeat.
Given a choice between making peace with the swing electorate and doubling down on their current approach, which do you think they will choose?
Provided Labour runs the economy effectively like New Labour post 1997.
If Labour in government run the economy poorly the Tories could quickly recover even if with a hard right leadership
'If you’re shocked about the Michelle Mone story, wait till you find out that a firm owned by the finance manager of Michael Gove’s 2016 Tory leadership campaign won £170m in PPE deals.
After being referred to the PPE VIP lane by the office of… Michael Gove.'
Goodness me, whoever could have foreseen that telling Scots to STFU, that their votes don't matter, and that they can't control their own future democratically might have been counterproductive to the Union? 🤔
It isn't, as long as the UK government can refuse indyref2 as the Supreme Court confirmed there is a 100% chance it stays in the UK, see Spain and Catalonia.
As soon as indyref2 is allowed there is a 50% chance Scotland votes for independence even before this poll however.
So this Tory government should refuse indyref2 indefinitely. If Labour get in and grant one it is their problem to win it
Another independence referendum is inevitable given that the SNP keep winning Holyrood elections.
The ostrich-like mentality of the Tories to reject this reality only makes the Union losing the next referendum more likely.
No it isn't, Catalan nationalists keeping winning Catalan elections, Madrid has still refused them even 1 independence referendum.
It is also more likely there is a Yes vote under a Tory UK government than a Labour UK government, so it is in Unionists interests for only a Labour government to ever grant indyref2
You really do not have any idea how pathetic it is to claim it in Unionist interests to keep denying Scots indyref2 when such denial makes independence more likely
If the trend continues towards the SNP then those of us who value the union but also democracy need to grant the Scots their wish and win the argument
It is just reality. If there was an indyref2 tomorrow, it is more likely than not the Scots would narrowly vote Yes, especially with a Tory UK government as well as post Brexit.
If indyref2 is delayed until say 2026-29 under a Starmer led Labour government offering devomax it is probably more likely Scots would narrowly vote No.
If they still vote Yes then of course the Tories can switch overnight to become an English Nationalist Party taking as hard a line as possible with the SNP in Scexit talks. So the Tories have no interest in allowing an indyref2 now whether Unionists or English Nationalists, their interest is to leave it to Starmer and Gordon Brown to sort out.
After all Labour created Holyrood in the first place which enabled the SNP to gain their powerbase
I reckon the Labour Party are likely to get two terms in office, given the size of their impending victory
And I further reckon Labour will grant indyref2 in that 2nd term, with a Devomax option, as you say. By then - the early 2030s - the generation argument will no longer apply. By then, if Scots still want a vote, it must be granted, and Labour will do so
And so Johnson will have broken up our country, but be well away from the scene of the crime when the investigators arrive.
It's interesting to think through how an English parliament would work. Assuming it has similar powers to the Scottish government, it would draw up a spending budget based on an overall spending envelope set by the UK parliament, which would also set taxes. So say you had a Labour/SNP UK government and a Conservative English government (which I suppose is the interesting case here). You might have the UK government taxing more and giving the English more money for public services than the English government would want. What would happen then? On foreign policy, say the UK government was elected on a platform of rejoining the EU. What does the English government do if it opposes that? Just goes along with it? What if the English parliament wanted much tougher immigration rules than the UK parliament. Are English politicians going to sit back and accept the UK policy, or are they going to agitate to tske control and set their own rules? In Scotland the leading politicians are in Holyrood. Would Westminster become the second tier chamber in England too, while the leading English politicians focus on English politics at the new parliament in Hartlepool? Are we okay with UK foreign policy and fiscal policy and immigration policy being set by second tier politicians? (or third tier given the existing lot aren't top notch). I think that English public opinion might find this kind of setup quite difficult as the idea of a UK government and the English government being in opposition to each other is not something they've ever had to confront before. I'm not saying it can't work, simply that I can envisage loads of problems.
So we need an English parliament to allow Sunday Trading in England?
Pretty thin gruel.
Sunday trading should be a decision made at county and metro level, anyway.
We need an English Parliament (or simply to ban Scottish MPs from voting on devolved matters) to ensure that English laws are determined in England.
Democracy trumps any gruel. Sunday Trading and Top Up Fees are simply examples of where it has already mattered, despite the Government typically* having a healthy majority post-devolution.
*2010-2015 was a very healthy Government majority as the Government included both parties of the Coalition. 2017-19 obviously was not.
Any more examples?
And fees were when it was Labour and the LDs dominating in Scotland, in both parliaments, IIRC. So it's not a SNP versus the Rest issue.
Its not a matter of party politics, its a matter of democracy.
Scottish MPs voting on matters they weren't elected to deal with (because its a devolved matter) in a different country is fundamentally undemocratic.
If its a shared issue, so Scottish MPs vote on English matters and English MPs vote on Scottish ones, because its dealt with UK-nation-wide through Parliament then that is democratic. But if MPs can't vote because its devolved to Holyrood then it doesn't matter if the MPs are red, yellow, blue, green, orange or any other colour.
Democracy matters more than party politics.
Point taken. Yet it's basically because Westminster has that dual role. Always going to be debate at where the edge lies. I'm actually surprised it doesn't happen more often.
I think it doesn't happen more often because usually the government has enough of a majority in England to overcome non-English votes on English matters.
But "usually" is not "always".
And the dual role is exactly the problem, and it is resolved entirely by devolving English matters to an English Parliament. If that parliament then wants to devolve further to regions/counties/cities, that should be up to it to do so.
Beg to differ: we'd hear a *lot* about non-English votes on English matters these days, even if they lost.
Just wondering: did the DUP ever vote on English-only matters? They were really opposed to EVEL as they saw it as destroying the unity of the UK.
I'm not sure that's true in the current parliament, because there would need to be a big English Tory rebellion on an issue for the non-English vote to matter. The assumption is that the non-English MPs are voting against the government by a large majority.
Would it be wrong to say I've now changed my view on Michelle Mone and her questionable dealings? Anyone who calls their ship 'the taxpayer' deserves clemency.*
*This is not a serious post and please do not cancel me.
Well researched, great sources, highly relevant to their audience, accessible language.
My only criticism would be that it doesn't critique the role of the police/security services enough. They simply haven't been doing their job properly, for the last decade or so.
Signs of improvement, there, recently, but still a lot more to do.
“What these data show is that promoting lies about the 2020 election is profitable for both candidates and social media platforms themselves,” the article said. . . .
You can see why the election-denial train keeps chugging along. It has countless enablers. And countless more making bank.
So, sure, recount the votes. It won’t make a whit of difference in the outcome. But unfortunately, even proving the count was solid won’t snap many election doubters back to reality.
The only way to end this con? Stop giving the con artists money.
SSI - Grifters gotta grift.
You would have more credibility on this subject if you also criticised the cottage industry that sprung up with the aim of delegitimising the 2016 election result.
Ah yes, who can forget when Hillary refused to turn up at President Trump's inauguration, and declared it a "steal"?
Nevertheless a lot of people made money pushing the idea that Trump wasn't a legitimate president and she didn't exactly discourage them.
Democrat Hillary Clinton refused to rule out challenging the legitimacy of last year’s presidential election in an interview released Monday afternoon, though she said such a move would be unprecedented and legally questionable.
That's it?
That's the equivalent of Trump and the MAGA lot.
That's the difference between me saying "gosh, those Crown Jewels look lovely, sometimes I fantasise about stealing them."
And someone actually breaking into the Tower of London.
Are you really not seeing the quantitive and qualititive differences?
Pretty clear slant in the reporting of it, but I am actually surprised the decision was taken. I assume an attempted legal challenge is already on its way.
The UK government has approved the first new coal mine in 30 years despite concern about its climate impacts among Conservative MPs and experts.
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
If say the Tories had a majority in England but not in the UK and Welsh and Scottish Labour MPs voted on English laws, even if SNP MPs didn't, then that is a clear example of England being overruled at Westminster
But we're looking for how an English Parliament would lead to England being governed better not to it being governed by the Tories.
So SNP home rule fine for Scotland but not Tory home rule for England?
This isn't an apt comparison. It's not about parties. We need to look at the fundamentals. England dominates Westminster and Westminster is massively more powerful than Holyrood. Also Westminster has power over Scotland but Holyrood has no power over England. The imbalance still favours England - algebraic expansion says so - but not as much as it did before devolution. The impact of the so-called 'asymmetric devolution' was therefore not to disadvantage England in the Union but to mitigate its previous overwhelming advantage.
For now, the moment England votes Tory but gets a UK Labour government as in February 1974 or 1964 that will change
So you're comparing something that might theoretically happen to England but hasn't for 50 years to something that happens to Scotland pretty much all the time. Plus you don't want to give them a vote on doing something about it. That, H, truly is "asymmetric".
“What these data show is that promoting lies about the 2020 election is profitable for both candidates and social media platforms themselves,” the article said. . . .
You can see why the election-denial train keeps chugging along. It has countless enablers. And countless more making bank.
So, sure, recount the votes. It won’t make a whit of difference in the outcome. But unfortunately, even proving the count was solid won’t snap many election doubters back to reality.
The only way to end this con? Stop giving the con artists money.
SSI - Grifters gotta grift.
You would have more credibility on this subject if you also criticised the cottage industry that sprung up with the aim of delegitimising the 2016 election result.
Ah yes, who can forget when Hillary refused to turn up at President Trump's inauguration, and declared it a "steal"?
Nevertheless a lot of people made money pushing the idea that Trump wasn't a legitimate president and she didn't exactly discourage them.
Democrat Hillary Clinton refused to rule out challenging the legitimacy of last year’s presidential election in an interview released Monday afternoon, though she said such a move would be unprecedented and legally questionable.
That's it?
That's the equivalent of Trump and the MAGA lot.
That's the difference between me saying "gosh, those Crown Jewels look lovely, sometimes I fantasise about stealing them."
And someone actually breaking into the Tower of London.
Are you really not seeing the quantitive and qualititive differences?
I find it pretty incredible that years and years after the event people are still attempting to equate people have sour grapes and possibly thinking about legal challenges, with launching dozens of spurious challenges which were rejected, inciting a riot, and spending years getting officials to deny the outcome of the certified election.
Is that all people have got when making comparisons? They should be better than that, it's just pathetic.
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
If say the Tories had a majority in England but not in the UK and Welsh and Scottish Labour MPs voted on English laws, even if SNP MPs didn't, then that is a clear example of England being overruled at Westminster
But we're looking for how an English Parliament would lead to England being governed better not to it being governed by the Tories.
So SNP home rule fine for Scotland but not Tory home rule for England?
This isn't an apt comparison. It's not about parties. We need to look at the fundamentals. England dominates Westminster and Westminster is massively more powerful than Holyrood. Also Westminster has power over Scotland but Holyrood has no power over England. The imbalance still favours England - algebraic expansion says so - but not as much as it did before devolution. The impact of the so-called 'asymmetric devolution' was therefore not to disadvantage England in the Union but to mitigate its previous overwhelming advantage.
For now, the moment England votes Tory but gets a UK Labour government as in February 1974 or 1964 that will change
So you're comparing something that might theoretically happen to England but hasn't for 50 years to something that happens to Scotland pretty much all the time. Plus you don't want to give them a vote on doing something about it. That, H, truly is "asymmetric".
Scotland already has its own Parliament, tough, England doesn't. They voted 55% to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum, those are the rules. If you stay in the UK then all non devolved matters are decided at Westminster.
Judicial review has joined death and taxes as one of the unavoidable circumstances of life. Cumbria, like England, if full of people who want to heat homes, travel by air and train and drive cars (all made with lots of steel) but are opposed to each and every way in which these can be brought about.
It's interesting to think through how an English parliament would work. Assuming it has similar powers to the Scottish government, it would draw up a spending budget based on an overall spending envelope set by the UK parliament, which would also set taxes. So say you had a Labour/SNP UK government and a Conservative English government (which I suppose is the interesting case here). You might have the UK government taxing more and giving the English more money for public services than the English government would want. What would happen then? On foreign policy, say the UK government was elected on a platform of rejoining the EU. What does the English government do if it opposes that? Just goes along with it? What if the English parliament wanted much tougher immigration rules than the UK parliament. Are English politicians going to sit back and accept the UK policy, or are they going to agitate to tske control and set their own rules? In Scotland the leading politicians are in Holyrood. Would Westminster become the second tier chamber in England too, while the leading English politicians focus on English politics at the new parliament in Hartlepool? Are we okay with UK foreign policy and fiscal policy and immigration policy being set by second tier politicians? (or third tier given the existing lot aren't top notch). I think that English public opinion might find this kind of setup quite difficult as the idea of a UK government and the English government being in opposition to each other is not something they've ever had to confront before. I'm not saying it can't work, simply that I can envisage loads of problems.
If England were outvoted by the UK overall there would be tensions English Parliament or not but at least an English Parliament ensures England has no complaints unlike now that is not treated as a second class country in the UK unlike Scotland, Wales and NI which already have their own Parliaments
Pretty clear slant in the reporting of it, but I am actually surprised the decision was taken. I assume an attempted legal challenge is already on its way.
The UK government has approved the first new coal mine in 30 years despite concern about its climate impacts among Conservative MPs and experts.
It would be far too dominant an entity. Where is there a successful example of devolution to such a majority demographic with a state?
I don't think you're wrong about England dominating. I had thought that the problem with the current setup is that it isn't fair on England to have no representation.
I thought a solution might be to have each nation have its own Parliament, with Westminster only being (at most) 200 MPs responsible for foreign affairs, defence and maybe broad overview of some other departments.
But as you say, the issue would come in the first GE when England voted for a Conservative government, but the UK voted Labour. You'd have a UK Labour PM trying to deal with a English Conservative FM (or whatever they'd call themselves). I don't know how that would work at all.
A possible solution I've seen proposed is to have London have its own devolved assembly too, not in England, so there are five (not four) which would weaken England though whether it would weaken England enough, and quite what people living in London would think about being told they could be Londoners or British but not English (at least not politically) I'm not sure (who would they support in the FIFA World Cup?).
The lopsided constitutional set up, where the smaller nations have their own parliaments but the dominant nation doesn't, is I think probably the norm where you have these kind of unequal federations. I belive for instance that Tobago has its own parliament but Trinidad doesn't, similarly with Nevis vs St Kitts. It certainly complicates things, it would be far easier if England wasn't 90% of the UK's population. I think in practical terms, if there were an English FM and a British PM, the first time the two disagreed fundamentally on a really important issue where the UK PM was on paper the decision maker the UK would break up.
No it wouldn't because the position would be no different to before in terms of the UK PM's powers for the non English home nations, just England would finally have its own First Minister for the same domestic policy the other home nations do
Supporters of an English Parliament never explain how it would improve the governance of England.
Well, for a start it would be governed by English representatives in the interests of England.
Few things are unequivocally in the interests of England (as opposed to just some in England) and of those that are, I struggle to think of many that Westminster can't happily pass.
If say the Tories had a majority in England but not in the UK and Welsh and Scottish Labour MPs voted on English laws, even if SNP MPs didn't, then that is a clear example of England being overruled at Westminster
But we're looking for how an English Parliament would lead to England being governed better not to it being governed by the Tories.
So SNP home rule fine for Scotland but not Tory home rule for England?
This isn't an apt comparison. It's not about parties. We need to look at the fundamentals. England dominates Westminster and Westminster is massively more powerful than Holyrood. Also Westminster has power over Scotland but Holyrood has no power over England. The imbalance still favours England - algebraic expansion says so - but not as much as it did before devolution. The impact of the so-called 'asymmetric devolution' was therefore not to disadvantage England in the Union but to mitigate its previous overwhelming advantage.
For now, the moment England votes Tory but gets a UK Labour government as in February 1974 or 1964 that will change
So you're comparing something that might theoretically happen to England but hasn't for 50 years to something that happens to Scotland pretty much all the time. Plus you don't want to give them a vote on doing something about it. That, H, truly is "asymmetric".
Scotland already has its own Parliament, tough, England doesn't. They voted 55% to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum, those are the rules. If you stay in the UK then all non devolved matters are decided at Westminster.
Yawn.
It’s probably worth looking at the polling at a time that’s quite .. turbulent. Government overall seems to have lost control, strikes, country seemingly unable to function properly..
Comments
But then we'd risk having mardy-arse Ronaldo on the banknotes.
Terrible water colourist and sketch comedy writer.
Yes I did wonder what you were meaning there with "Dads".
Has he ever heard of Ted Heath?
I'm going to agree with @Leon.
The Open AI Chatbot is actually really special, so long as you are very aware of its limitations.
I was working on a little programming project, using a library I'd never used before. Normally, this would mean I'd spend an awful lot of time in the documentation, looking through Google and Stack Overflow.
Now, I just ask the Chatbot. It isn't perfect, of course. But one of the things that's great is if you say, "that didn't work, I got the following error", it will usually tell you why you got it and help you on the way.
If I was teaching myself - say - Unity 3D, I think it would be a massively powerful tool to help me learn more quicky.
The ostrich-like mentality of the Tories to reject this reality only makes the Union losing the next referendum more likely.
Such as what?
He is lost in the wilderness without a map.
Aim was to protect the Union.
OK, cool.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35756258
Any more?
I'll give you a clue - it's got Fees and Student in the title. And it was Unionist MPs in Scotland who pushed that through (damn stupid in my opinion).
Sunday Trading laws - SNP MPs voting to keep the insane restrictions on Sunday Trading in England, while Scotland has no such restrictions.
Egregious and unacceptable examples just off the top of my head - and such examples will become more likely if Scottish MPs hold the balance of power in Parliament rather than there being a party or coalition with an outright majority.
It is also more likely there is a Yes vote under a Tory UK government than a Labour UK government, so it is in Unionists interests for only a Labour government to ever grant indyref2
Decisions made in Holyrood can have "effects" in England, but our MPs don't get a vote in Holyrood.
Actions America takes have major "effects" in Europe, but we don't get a vote in American elections.
Putin declaring was has had major "effects" here - but we don't get a vote in the Russian Duma.
Scottish MPs should have no standing to choose to vote on English only matter where Holyrood has the power in Scotland, whether there are "effects" or not.
I ask you avert your eyes from her figure, and to instead look to the name of the vessel.
(This could, of course, be a photoshop. But irrespective, it was too good not to share.)
If the trend continues towards the SNP then those of us who value the union but also democracy need to grant the Scots their wish and win the argument
https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/ireland/corporate/taxes-on-corporate-income
If indyref2 is delayed until say 2026-29 under a Starmer led Labour government offering devomax it is probably more likely Scots would narrowly vote No.
If they still vote Yes then of course the Tories can switch overnight to become an English Nationalist Party taking as hard a line as possible with the SNP in Scexit talks. So the Tories have no interest in allowing an indyref2 now whether Unionists or English Nationalists, their interest is to leave it to Starmer and Gordon Brown to sort out.
After all Labour created Holyrood in the first place which enabled the SNP to gain their powerbase
It's extremely unusual for this to happen - if it were common, you'd have a list as long as your forearm.
After being referred to the PPE VIP lane by the office of… Michael Gove.'
https://twitter.com/WritesBright/status/1600218809540890624
What EVEL would have fixed is preventing Scotland imposing Top Up Tuition Fees on England since the English MPs could reject it.
So EVEL as implemented only half-fixed the problem, it didn't fix it properly. Personally I'd think half fixing is better than nothing, but it should be fixed properly. If Scottish MPs want to vote on English matters that effect them, then OK but then English MPs should be able to vote on Scottish matters that effect them, so abolish devolution. Having devolution and still voting on English matters due to "effects" is unjustifiable.
Such lovely lines.
So whilst it would have dealt with top up fees, it wouldn't have dealt with Sunday Trading. (Or is that "didn't deal with Sunday Trading"? Without looking it up I'm not sure if EVEL was even in force then).
And I further reckon Labour will grant indyref2 in that 2nd term, with a Devomax option, as you say. By then - the early 2030s - the generation argument will no longer apply. By then, if Scots still want a vote, it must be granted, and Labour will do so
Pretty thin gruel.
Sunday trading should be a decision made at county and metro level, anyway.
I'm still puzzled about EVEL being abolished because even allowing fo the additional vote, it would only be triggered in problem cases, of which there are numerically very, very few , so the additional hassle isn't that much of a burden and minimal in terms of bneing able to revise serious problem areas. (Bear in mind there will always be argument at the boundary.)
I can only infer it is a deliberate trap to try and tempt Mr Starmer into trying to set up a coalition agreement.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/18/hillary-clinton-trump-challenge-2016-election-legitimacy-242848
Democrat Hillary Clinton refused to rule out challenging the legitimacy of last year’s presidential election in an interview released Monday afternoon, though she said such a move would be unprecedented and legally questionable.
Democracy trumps any gruel. Sunday Trading and Top Up Fees are simply examples of where it has already mattered, despite the Government typically* having a healthy majority post-devolution.
*2010-2015 was a very healthy Government majority as the Government included both parties of the Coalition. 2017-19 obviously was not.
And fees were when it was Labour and the LDs dominating in Scotland, in both parliaments, IIRC. So it's not a SNP versus the Rest issue.
Scottish MPs voting on matters they weren't elected to deal with (because its a devolved matter) in a different country is fundamentally undemocratic.
If its a shared issue, so Scottish MPs vote on English matters and English MPs vote on Scottish ones, because its dealt with UK-nation-wide through Parliament then that is democratic. But if MPs can't vote because its devolved to Holyrood then it doesn't matter if the MPs are red, yellow, blue, green, orange or any other colour.
Democracy matters more than party politics.
EnglandWestminster "imposing" something on Scotland, you wouldn't be asking for "more examples".Democracy matters. I'd rather a government implementing laws I oppose, elected democratically, that I can oppose and seek reform on at the next election than to get my own way undemocratically.
But "usually" is not "always".
And the dual role is exactly the problem, and it is resolved entirely by devolving English matters to an English Parliament. If that parliament then wants to devolve further to regions/counties/cities, that should be up to it to do so.
I've explained till I'm blue in the face why that's a complete nonsense but you guys still churn it out like robots. It reminds me of that scene in Spinal Tap where the gonzo lead guitarist is boasting about his superloud instrument.
"It goes up to eleven."
"Yeah but that doesn't mean it's actually any louder than other guitars."
"What?"
"It depends on the scale. For example your eleven could equal somebody else's ten."
(few seconds silence)
"This one goes up to eleven."
The ones where she tamed the unions by sheer force of will.
Not the ones where she ensured masses of coal was stockpiled before the 84/5 strike.
Let alone the ones where a 1981 strike was averted by conceding quite a bit to the miners.
There's no point picking a fight unless you have prepared to win.
GRaun feed:
'In their foreward to the interim report, Williams and McAllister say the constitutional status quo is not sustainable. They say:
"Devolution was a major step forward for Welsh democracy, but the current settlement has been eroded by decisions of recent UK governments particularly in the context of Brexit. The status quo is not a reliable or sustainable basis for the governance of Wales in the future."
They say there are three options they will consider in more detail in their final report.
"Our work has led us to conclude that there are three viable future constitutional options for Wales: entrenched devolution, federal structures and independence."'
One current problem with the status quo being the attitude of UKG to cooperating with the other three administrations. But they list nine others.
Given a choice between making peace with the swing electorate and doubling down on their current approach, which do you think they will choose?
Just wondering: did the DUP ever vote on English-only matters? They were really opposed to EVEL as they saw it as destroying the unity of the UK.
- Officers group on Nov 30 ruled they have no confidence in MH
- Requested that whip not restored to him
- Vote brought about following feedback from constituents who considered him unfit to represent them https://twitter.com/BethRigby/status/1600547933572702208/photo/1
If Labour in government run the economy poorly the Tories could quickly recover even if with a hard right leadership
On foreign policy, say the UK government was elected on a platform of rejoining the EU. What does the English government do if it opposes that? Just goes along with it?
What if the English parliament wanted much tougher immigration rules than the UK parliament. Are English politicians going to sit back and accept the UK policy, or are they going to agitate to tske control and set their own rules?
In Scotland the leading politicians are in Holyrood. Would Westminster become the second tier chamber in England too, while the leading English politicians focus on English politics at the new parliament in Hartlepool? Are we okay with UK foreign policy and fiscal policy and immigration policy being set by second tier politicians? (or third tier given the existing lot aren't top notch).
I think that English public opinion might find this kind of setup quite difficult as the idea of a UK government and the English government being in opposition to each other is not something they've ever had to confront before. I'm not saying it can't work, simply that I can envisage loads of problems.
*This is not a serious post and please do not cancel me.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63075729
Well researched, great sources, highly relevant to their audience, accessible language.
My only criticism would be that it doesn't critique the role of the police/security services enough. They simply haven't been doing their job properly, for the last decade or so.
Signs of improvement, there, recently, but still a lot more to do.
Labour should go big on this.
It's an open goal.
That's the equivalent of Trump and the MAGA lot.
That's the difference between me saying "gosh, those Crown Jewels look lovely, sometimes I fantasise about stealing them."
And someone actually breaking into the Tower of London.
Are you really not seeing the quantitive and qualititive differences?
The UK government has approved the first new coal mine in 30 years despite concern about its climate impacts among Conservative MPs and experts.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63892381
Is that all people have got when making comparisons? They should be better than that, it's just pathetic.
It’s probably worth looking at the polling at a time that’s quite .. turbulent. Government overall seems to have lost control, strikes, country seemingly unable to function properly..
And bloody cold