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The betting chances of a pre-2025 IndyRef move to almost zero – politicalbetting.com
The betting chances of a pre-2025 IndyRef move to almost zero – politicalbetting.com
This morning’s shock news that Nicola Sturgeon is stepping down as the Scottish first minister and leader of the SNP inevitably reduces what chances there were of an early second independence referendum.
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Labour stand to gain from SNP situation, with the only downside being if Kate Forbes were the new leader. This would be like the Tories betting on Kemi - which of course they declined.
Both Kemi and Kate, if respectively leader of their party, FM/PM would definitely have an outcome and change things. The only problem being that the change would be unpredictable.
I’ve been saying it for ages. I’m right
Note that the TFR is a weird concept - it's the average number of children each woman will have over the course of their life based on current birth rates.
At the moment, it's inflated by the idea that lots women are delaying having children due to COVID or cultural change, and will have them when they are older. The problem is that they keep on just not having children, so the ONS have to keep revising the TFR downwards.
TLDR: could be worse than it looks!
http://closer.ac.uk/data/total-fertility-rate/
Presumably the big fall from '65 to '75 is the sexual revolution, the pill and all that. (Also, the big reason that children of boomers are going to struggle to pay the pensions of their parents.)
The smaller but significant fall from 2012 to 2020 is economy-related, isn't it? People not feeling that they can afford to have kids.
There was a good recent article in the Guardian on the subject. Income doesn't seem to be critical as TFR down includes even the wealthy, nor is it simply women putting careers first. In large part it is that there is a dearth of worthwhile partners to have children with.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/11/why-a-shortage-of-mr-rights-means-single-mothers-hold-the-key-to-the-falling-birthrate
- housing too expensive (how can we have kids if we don't have a room to put them in?)
- childcare too expensive (included in which is the impossibility of almost any family to live on just one salary).
A source close to the MSP said she would enter the race when nominations opened.
The Edinburgh Eastern MSP dramatically quit the government last October over plans to reform Scotland's gender recognition law.
Her candidacy means the legislation will likely be a key part of the contest, with all but one of the other potential candidates having voted for the Bill last year.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/23324927.ash-regan-expected-enter-snp-leadership-race/
Jim is a Boris enthusiast ?
It otherwise seems a pretty odd stat to judge any given government by.
What a lot of facile windbaggery from SKS He's simply an authoritarian who is servile to power, privilege & wealth who lied his way to the Labour leadership and subsequently de-democratised the party.
Anyone who expects good from a liar like SKS is a fool. His Dad certainly made Tools
Read the article that I linked to. It may be simply that empowered women are not willing to put up with what their mothers did.
Dr. Foxy - You might be interested in Nicholas Eberstadt's latest. (It will dismay those who wish the US well, and delight those who don't.)
NigelB - So you don't think "demography is destiny"?
Gone before i could find my brick
Actually I am involved in trying to get enough signatures on a petition to get my local Parish Council abolished
Because any new SNP leader has to get his or her feet well under the table before risking a 2023/4 indy referendum. Not doing so really risks failure. Unless her replacement has strong public (positive) recognition already.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
I do wonder how the climb from WW2 to 1950, and then after a dip to 1970, is due to the post-WW2 generation, which witnessed lots of people (mostly men) killed in the war.
As may have been discussed recently, a referendum on Scottish independence is very much a reserved matter, and not in the gift of a new First Minister.
I'm fairly sure there's a serious "Housing Theory Of Everything " point here, but given a choice between that and mocking The Telegraph, a man must do his duty.
"[Labour] will never again be a party captured by narrow interests... if you don't like that, the door is open, and you can leave"
So we can become narrower
It wasn't a surprise to the Scotch Experts.
That’s not a stable equilibrium.
It is not very hard at all to imagine the SNP holding the balance of power in 2029, even if 2024 now looks less likely.
Constitutional reform is a strategic imperative for the British state.
If they have any other news like that, send me a message.
Plus under 45s less religious, Evangelicals, Roman Catholics and Muslims and Orthodox Jews in particular have more children than average .
It appears to have been an increasingly open secret in sindy circles and today’s hasty press conference may have been in response to a leak to press.
Is that to do with immigration volumes to different places, given that immigrant populations have higher fertility than native usually?
Or is there an aspect of post-Brexit returns to the EU?
I'm interested to hear any data-based analysis of those points.
One stat to look for would perhaps be foreign born % of the population.
A win in 2024 with a small majority. Then Keir goes for a more secure mandate after say two years?
(But that just makes us Zulu Zula males according to SeanT's criteria. Which is exactly the problem with dinosaurs.)
I can imagine him doing a term and a half and then leaving.
Ultimately there needs to be a fiscal framework that enables Scotland to pay for its own expenditure, without the moral hazard of relying on (and therefore blaming) Westminster.
But there ALSO needs to be a role for direct Westminster spending, chiefly in social security, which enables the UK to demonstrate the “Union dividend”.
The current status quo, including the Sewel convention, is a mechanism to ratchet up independence sentiment. And don’t get me started on the gerrymandered Scottish electoral system.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
You can't defer the question forever (and the Catalans may have reached that point with Spain), but there's plenty the SNP can aim for in the meantime.
Following the "go on then, send me some" request, it seems that the Lib Dems dropped off 48,000 leaflets for Lee Anderson today. Allegedly at the wrong address.
Never a dull moment; if one appears, I'll let you know.
https://twitter.com/LeeAndersonMP_/status/1625909988681035801
In fact, the tendency has been to accumulate power within Scotland to an increasing SNP-sympathetic elite in the central belt.
if I was Labour I would be trying to outmanoeuvre the SNP via a strongly devolutionary settlement WITHIN Scotland. (Although I confess this is alien to Labour’s and indeed Scottish Labour’s tradition).
Nicola Sturgeon explaining how she’s given everything for too long, it’s the right time for her go, and is nothing to do with current “short term pressures.”
What good fortune then, that short term pressures should just happen to dovetail so perfectly with her personal choices.
https://twitter.com/tompeck/status/1625818522432462848?cxt=HHwWgICzraHViJAtAAAA
Or, can Anderson deliver them and complain that the LDs exceeded their own spending limit?
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
Round here it's AIs and Tories who tend currently to deliver most leaflets; ran across a number for the AIs having around 800 members the other day, which I would guess has shrunk more recently with the various controversies.
Essentially the entirety of her time since that rebuff was spent trying to look like she had an answer and ultimately it's turned out she couldn't construct one.
Hey, if it's a huge win for him, far be it for me to deny him the win.
Rishi has nothing to say on Scotland, and to the extent he spoke out about GRR it was in the hope of reaching grumpy tabloid reading votes in England.
I can’t tell whether Casino Royale is joking or not. I assume he is.
I had visions of robots delivering leaflets and @Leon getting all excited watching them.
Massive win.
Nicola Sturgeon's resignation reminds us again all political careers end in failure. Strangely, it wasn't a big issue or an election defeat which brought her down but a much more niche issue which she simply couldn't manage.
Somebody has no doubt pointed out her departure means almost every leader who fought the 2019 General Election (whether victorious or otherwise) has now fallen. Her successor has three years before he or she next faces the Scottish electorate.
The unimpressive Deltapoll has a 20-point Labour lead (48-28) and it's undoubtedly been a quieter, if not necessarily better week for the Government with attention more on dreadful natural disasters abroad.
Today's inflation numbers are a cause for some relief but it simply means prices are rising more slowly, not falling, and 10% inflation (especially if you get a 4-5% wage increase) is still a big drop in your living standards.
However:
1. At the very least, a whole constituency drop is a faff, and Team Anderson have better things to do.
2. Overall, I suspect that, even in Ashfield, Anderson's comments aren't a net vote winner.
Basically, Anderson was a Muppet to say "give me the leaflets, I'll deliver them". Because it was blooming obvious that the Lib Dem Stunt Machine would call him on that one. And if he doesn't do the deliveries, they'll call him on that one too- and loudly.
I guess he’s busy.
Sad.
However Casino - presumably mid-shit at Waterloo - is gilding the lily and then some.