Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
Not joking in the slightest, you're just not big enough to accept or admit that Rishi played this brilliantly and has got a scalp.
You'll be eating your words when you find out she left because the BBC are resurrecting Crackerjack and they offered the old cast big money to return.
You have my word that I will eat my words if that does indeed turn out to be the case.
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
He’s not joking. He’s desperate for Sunak to have a victory, however pyrrhic that victory might prove to be.
It is a victory, despite the fact partisans like you can't concede it is - even through gritted teeth.
Sad.
I do love it when you accuse me of being partisan, although I have to send my irony-o-meter back to the repair shop again after another overload. These things are expensive.
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
He’s not joking. He’s desperate for Sunak to have a victory, however pyrrhic that victory might prove to be.
It’s quite sad.
It's not entirely unwarranted. It's only a month ago that Sunak used section 35 to block the SNP's legislation, so if the outcome is Sturgeon's resignation it's clearly a political win for him, even if the electoral consequences aren't necessarily to his advantage.
I agree it’s not entirely unwarranted. However Casino - presumably mid-shit at Waterloo - is gilding the lily and then some.
Toilets at Waterloo are closed for "refurbishment".
Had to queue for a slash on the train this evening. Grim.
My problem with the Guardian article is that there's no evidence: the drop of Northwestern European TFP to near-Singaporean levels proceeded beginning in 2009, but there's no evidence that "man quality" dipped or "female empowerment" grew in that short period, never mind by enough to explain 0.45 TFP. There are bits of evidence around - above all - the scarring effect of the crisis on entrants to the job market, which regardless of objective prosperity inculcated fear of economic instability in its victims - like the debate on "relative poverty". But also habitual drug use, low work intensity, perhaps changes in social values, and perhaps dropping male sperm counts, though the accuracy of the historical data are debated on that topic and there are workarounds for many couples.
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
He’s not joking. He’s desperate for Sunak to have a victory, however pyrrhic that victory might prove to be.
It’s quite sad.
It's not entirely unwarranted. It's only a month ago that Sunak used section 35 to block the SNP's legislation, so if the outcome is Sturgeon's resignation it's clearly a political win for him, even if the electoral consequences aren't necessarily to his advantage.
I agree it’s not entirely unwarranted. However Casino - presumably mid-shit at Waterloo - is gilding the lily and then some.
Toilets at Waterloo are closed for "refurbishment".
Had to queue for a slash on the train this evening. Grim.
There used to be a pub on the mezzanine floor at Waterloo, with a well-hidden bog if one needed to ‘go’ before catching the train.
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
He’s not joking. He’s desperate for Sunak to have a victory, however pyrrhic that victory might prove to be.
It’s quite sad.
It's not entirely unwarranted. It's only a month ago that Sunak used section 35 to block the SNP's legislation, so if the outcome is Sturgeon's resignation it's clearly a political win for him, even if the electoral consequences aren't necessarily to his advantage.
I agree it’s not entirely unwarranted. However Casino - presumably mid-shit at Waterloo - is gilding the lily and then some.
Toilets at Waterloo are closed for "refurbishment".
Had to queue for a slash on the train this evening. Grim.
TMI. Hope you remembered to activate the lock thing that stops the door from just opening.
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
He’s not joking. He’s desperate for Sunak to have a victory, however pyrrhic that victory might prove to be.
Even calling it a pyrrhic victory is generous. Was it a victory for Cnut when the tide did go out several hours later?
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
He’s not joking. He’s desperate for Sunak to have a victory, however pyrrhic that victory might prove to be.
It’s quite sad.
It's not entirely unwarranted. It's only a month ago that Sunak used section 35 to block the SNP's legislation, so if the outcome is Sturgeon's resignation it's clearly a political win for him, even if the electoral consequences aren't necessarily to his advantage.
I agree it’s not entirely unwarranted. However Casino - presumably mid-shit at Waterloo - is gilding the lily and then some.
Toilets at Waterloo are closed for "refurbishment".
Had to queue for a slash on the train this evening. Grim.
My sympathies.
I am glad I have a bladder the size of my ego The Sahara.
Peeing on a train is like peeing in an earthquake.
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
He’s not joking. He’s desperate for Sunak to have a victory, however pyrrhic that victory might prove to be.
It’s quite sad.
It's not entirely unwarranted. It's only a month ago that Sunak used section 35 to block the SNP's legislation, so if the outcome is Sturgeon's resignation it's clearly a political win for him, even if the electoral consequences aren't necessarily to his advantage.
I agree it’s not entirely unwarranted. However Casino - presumably mid-shit at Waterloo - is gilding the lily and then some.
Toilets at Waterloo are closed for "refurbishment".
Had to queue for a slash on the train this evening. Grim.
There used to be a pub on the mezzanine floor
at Waterloo, with a well-hidden bog if one needed to ‘go’ before catching the train.
There’s one in the corner on the ground floor — as I keep telling Casino — unless it’s moved in the last year?
Thanks to AlistairM for that link to the Spectator graphs by Michael Simmons. I had been looking for data on Sturgeon's time in office and those covered all but one of the variables I was looking for.
The missing one? The total fertility rate in Scotland. " In 2020 the total fertility rate in Scotland was 1.29, the lowest it has been in this provided time period. From 2002 onwards the total fertility rate in Scotland increased from 1.47 to a peak of 1.76 in 2008. Since 2008 the total fertility rate in Scotland has fallen rapidly, with only a slight increase occurring between 2013 and 2014."
(I have come to the conclusion, in recent years, that the two most important measures of a government's performance, domestically, are changes in life expectancy, and the total fertility rate. This seems obvious to me now, but it did not, a decade or two ago.)
I'd bolden that bit in the middle if I knew how. A fall from 1.76 to 1.29 from 2008 to 2020 seems remarkable and bears further examination, I think.
Here's the longer view graph for England and Wales;
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.
2020 was year of covid so may not be representative.
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.
@Foxy This article relies on the assumption that men are queuing up to marry women and have children. But actually a lot of them don't want to do it. I've got a large group of friends who are heading in to their 40's and have good careers etc, and own properties in London, and they just aren't getting married and having children. I've had quite a few discussions about this, and they would just rather not bring children in to the world if the relationship isn't correct. In the end, it is probably something to do with an increasing proportion of people having impossibly high standards for relationships, and over a certain amount of time, you just see these relationships going badly, messy divorces etc, and just think... no thanks. I think that, had I not met my wife, I would be the same as them.
One thing I am sure of, is that this problem is not going to be resolved by resorting to the default feminist position of 'blame men/empower women'. This type of thinking is almost certainly going to just make the problem worse. Actually, it may be that the writer of this piece should look in to her example of Iceland a bit more. Not only did Iceland offer generous parental support, they did a huge amount to support single mothers for many decades, both on a practical level and on a cultural level, but they are still stuck with the same problem of declining infertility.
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
He’s not joking. He’s desperate for Sunak to have a victory, however pyrrhic that victory might prove to be.
It’s quite sad.
It's not entirely unwarranted. It's only a month ago that Sunak used section 35 to block the SNP's legislation, so if the outcome is Sturgeon's resignation it's clearly a political win for him, even if the electoral consequences aren't necessarily to his advantage.
I agree it’s not entirely unwarranted. However Casino - presumably mid-shit at Waterloo - is gilding the lily and then some.
Toilets at Waterloo are closed for "refurbishment".
Had to queue for a slash on the train this evening. Grim.
There used to be a pub on the mezzanine floor at Waterloo, with a well-hidden bog if one needed to ‘go’ before catching the train.
[deleted - just in case someone takes it seriously. It was meant entirely unseriously.]
My problem with the Guardian article is that there's no evidence: the drop of Northwestern European TFP to near-Singaporean levels proceeded beginning in 2009, but there's no evidence that "man quality" dipped or "female empowerment" grew in that short period, never mind by enough to explain 0.45 TFP. There are bits of evidence around - above all - the scarring effect of the crisis on entrants to the job market, which regardless of objective prosperity inculcated fear of economic instability in its victims - like the debate on "relative poverty". But also habitual drug use, low work intensity, perhaps changes in social values, and perhaps dropping male sperm counts, though the accuracy of the historical data are debated on that topic and there are workarounds for many couples.
Dating apps.
Have to say I doubt it - I don't think there is a vast cohort who would have married and sprogged in a world without apps.
Sturgeon (who I believe introduced the GRA for the best of intentions) also saw it as a way of driving another wedge between Scotland and the UK if the UK government issued a veto.
Except it helped end Sturgeon rather than the Union, that's a win for Sunak.
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
He’s not joking. He’s desperate for Sunak to have a victory, however pyrrhic that victory might prove to be.
It’s quite sad.
It's not entirely unwarranted. It's only a month ago that Sunak used section 35 to block the SNP's legislation, so if the outcome is Sturgeon's resignation it's clearly a political win for him, even if the electoral consequences aren't necessarily to his advantage.
I agree it’s not entirely unwarranted. However Casino - presumably mid-shit at Waterloo - is gilding the lily and then some.
Toilets at Waterloo are closed for "refurbishment".
Had to queue for a slash on the train this evening. Grim.
TMI. Hope you remembered to activate the lock thing that stops the door from just opening.
Just about. Doors seem to take about 20 seconds to close though before the lock light comes on.
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
He’s not joking. He’s desperate for Sunak to have a victory, however pyrrhic that victory might prove to be.
It’s quite sad.
It's not entirely unwarranted. It's only a month ago that Sunak used section 35 to block the SNP's legislation, so if the outcome is Sturgeon's resignation it's clearly a political win for him, even if the electoral consequences aren't necessarily to his advantage.
I agree it’s not entirely unwarranted. However Casino - presumably mid-shit at Waterloo - is gilding the lily and then some.
Toilets at Waterloo are closed for "refurbishment".
Had to queue for a slash on the train this evening. Grim.
There used to be a pub on the mezzanine floor at Waterloo, with a well-hidden bog if one needed to ‘go’ before catching the train.
Thanks. Didn't have time.
Lots of shops and restaurants closed at Waterloo over Covid. Some reopened, some didn't.
My sense is there's a general drift back to normality. Far more people are coming in to work in 2023 than 2022, the difference is the train service is shitter and dirtier.
Sturgeon (who I believe introduced the GRA for the best of intentions) also saw it as a way of driving another wedge between Scotland and the UK if the UK government issued a veto.
Except it helped end Sturgeon rather than Union, that's a win for Sunak.
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
He’s not joking. He’s desperate for Sunak to have a victory, however pyrrhic that victory might prove to be.
It’s quite sad.
It's not entirely unwarranted. It's only a month ago that Sunak used section 35 to block the SNP's legislation, so if the outcome is Sturgeon's resignation it's clearly a political win for him, even if the electoral consequences aren't necessarily to his advantage.
I agree it’s not entirely unwarranted. However Casino - presumably mid-shit at Waterloo - is gilding the lily and then some.
Toilets at Waterloo are closed for "refurbishment".
Had to queue for a slash on the train this evening. Grim.
You have toilets on the train? Luxury. I travelled from Waterloo on occasion in the late 60s and they sure didnt' have toilets. Or corridors. At least they had roofs and windows and padding on the seats.
Sturgeon (who I believe introduced the GRA for the best of intentions) also saw it as a way of driving another wedge between Scotland and the UK if the UK government issued a veto.
Except it helped end Sturgeon rather than Union, that's a win for Sunak.
Yes, she thought it would be an example of the 'right side of history' being thwarted by Westminster and the Tories, and it blew up in her face.
You seem quite upset today. The end of Corbyn is definitely a big story. I wonder how it will play out. Will he do a George Galloway or maybe start a new party? Interesting times.
I'd say Corbyn could maybe do a Tony Benn if he decides not to fight the constituency if Mr Starmer's ruling sticks - "leaving Parliament to go into politics".
He's built his vehicle in his "Peace and Justice Project".
Not sure which emphases he would go for, but there are plenty out there.
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
He’s not joking. He’s desperate for Sunak to have a victory, however pyrrhic that victory might prove to be.
It’s quite sad.
It's not entirely unwarranted. It's only a month ago that Sunak used section 35 to block the SNP's legislation, so if the outcome is Sturgeon's resignation it's clearly a political win for him, even if the electoral consequences aren't necessarily to his advantage.
I agree it’s not entirely unwarranted. However Casino - presumably mid-shit at Waterloo - is gilding the lily and then some.
Toilets at Waterloo are closed for "refurbishment".
Had to queue for a slash on the train this evening. Grim.
There used to be a pub on the mezzanine floor at Waterloo, with a well-hidden bog if one needed to ‘go’ before catching the train.
Thanks. Didn't have time.
Lots of shops and restaurants closed at Waterloo over Covid. Some reopened, some didn't.
My sense is there's a general drift back to normality. Far more people are coming in to work in 2023 than 2022, the difference is the train service is shitter and dirtier.
I've said this before, many times, but the provision of public toilets is reducing rapidly.
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
Not joking in the slightest, you're just not big enough to accept or admit that Rishi played this brilliantly and has got a scalp.
The timeline is suggestive of that interpretation. Holyrood passes GRR Bill. Westminster blocks GRR Bill. Public backs Westminster. FM resigns.
Assuming that there's an agreement on the NI protocol soon, does Rishi have anything Wales-related we should look out for?
Sturgeon (who I believe introduced the GRA for the best of intentions) also saw it as a way of driving another wedge between Scotland and the UK if the UK government issued a veto.
Except it helped end Sturgeon rather than Union, that's a win for Sunak.
As I said , Sturgeon was all about Sturgeon. So delightful she pick a sort of modernist woke bullshit argument that skewers her. What's not to.like !!!
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
Not joking in the slightest, you're just not big enough to accept or admit that Rishi played this brilliantly and has got a scalp.
The timeline is suggestive of that interpretation. Holyrood passes GRR Bill. Westminster blocks GRR Bill. Public backs Westminster. FM resigns.
Assuming that there's an agreement on the NI protocol soon, does Rishi have anything Wales-related we should look out for?
GRR. No, seriously. The Senedd is moving towards that.
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.
Prices fell in January (as they do most years). So for this month at least that statement isn't correct.
Thanks to AlistairM for that link to the Spectator graphs by Michael Simmons. I had been looking for data on Sturgeon's time in office and those covered all but one of the variables I was looking for.
The missing one? The total fertility rate in Scotland. " In 2020 the total fertility rate in Scotland was 1.29, the lowest it has been in this provided time period. From 2002 onwards the total fertility rate in Scotland increased from 1.47 to a peak of 1.76 in 2008. Since 2008 the total fertility rate in Scotland has fallen rapidly, with only a slight increase occurring between 2013 and 2014."
(I have come to the conclusion, in recent years, that the two most important measures of a government's performance, domestically, are changes in life expectancy, and the total fertility rate. This seems obvious to me now, but it did not, a decade or two ago.)
I'd bolden that bit in the middle if I knew how. A fall from 1.76 to 1.29 from 2008 to 2020 seems remarkable and bears further examination, I think.
Here's the longer view graph for England and Wales;
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.
2020 was year of covid so may not be representative.
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.
@Foxy This article relies on the assumption that men are queuing up to marry women and have children. But actually a lot of them don't want to do it. I've got a large group of friends who are heading in to their 40's and have good careers etc, and own properties in London, and they just aren't getting married and having children. I've had quite a few discussions about this, and they would just rather not bring children in to the world if the relationship isn't correct. In the end, it is probably something to do with an increasing proportion of people having impossibly high standards for relationships, and over a certain amount of time, you just see these relationships going badly, messy divorces etc, and just think... no thanks. I think that, had I not met my wife, I would be the same as them.
One thing I am sure of, is that this problem is not going to be resolved by resorting to the default feminist position of 'blame men/empower women'. This type of thinking is almost certainly going to just make the problem worse. Actually, it may be that the writer of this piece should look in to her example of Iceland a bit more. Not only did Iceland offer generous parental support, they did a huge amount to support single mothers for many decades, both on a practical level and on a cultural level, but they are still stuck with the same problem of declining infertility.
No one explanation, but combining factors.
Education/training/career building/housing means massive delay to having first child. Time pressures mean 2 max.
Helicopter/hovering ultra cautious parenting is exhausting, so 2 max.
Especially in the private sector there is an unstated unwritten unknowable rule that 2 maternity leaves is OK as long as you minimise inconvenience to those who make money out of you but 3+ is a bit feckless/Roman Catholic/medieval/off.
Seat belt rules mean that larger families are fantastically tricky to move flexibly. So 2 max. (This matters more than many would realise who haven't been there.)
Life's options for women include cheerful guiltfree childfree singleness or partnered singleness. Lots are taking it. The world as we know it is ending. Don't land the next generation with it all to deal with. No kids.
I think we are stuck with fertility rates of 1.3-1.8 for a long time.
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
He’s not joking. He’s desperate for Sunak to have a victory, however pyrrhic that victory might prove to be.
It’s quite sad.
It's not entirely unwarranted. It's only a month ago that Sunak used section 35 to block the SNP's legislation, so if the outcome is Sturgeon's resignation it's clearly a political win for him, even if the electoral consequences aren't necessarily to his advantage.
I doubt that was the main reason. It's not impossible but it's highly unlikely. So let's say it's almost entirely unwarranted.
My problem with the Guardian article is that there's no evidence: the drop of Northwestern European TFP to near-Singaporean levels proceeded beginning in 2009, but there's no evidence that "man quality" dipped or "female empowerment" grew in that short period, never mind by enough to explain 0.45 TFP. There are bits of evidence around - above all - the scarring effect of the crisis on entrants to the job market, which regardless of objective prosperity inculcated fear of economic instability in its victims - like the debate on "relative poverty". But also habitual drug use, low work intensity, perhaps changes in social values, and perhaps dropping male sperm counts, though the accuracy of the historical data are debated on that topic and there are workarounds for many couples.
This is the link from the article that gives the second most common answer as "never met the right person" as a reason for childlessness.
It isn't that men have become more useless as life partners, as that has always been the case, but rather women becoming less willing to put up with it.
Any valid reason has to explain why the TFR is dropping worldwide, in both countries like ours but also in societies more sexist.
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
He’s not joking. He’s desperate for Sunak to have a victory, however pyrrhic that victory might prove to be.
It’s quite sad.
It's not entirely unwarranted. It's only a month ago that Sunak used section 35 to block the SNP's legislation, so if the outcome is Sturgeon's resignation it's clearly a political win for him, even if the electoral consequences aren't necessarily to his advantage.
I agree it’s not entirely unwarranted. However Casino - presumably mid-shit at Waterloo - is gilding the lily and then some.
Toilets at Waterloo are closed for "refurbishment".
Had to queue for a slash on the train this evening. Grim.
There used to be a pub on the mezzanine floor at Waterloo, with a well-hidden bog if one needed to ‘go’ before catching the train.
Thanks. Didn't have time.
Lots of shops and restaurants closed at Waterloo over Covid. Some reopened, some didn't.
My sense is there's a general drift back to normality. Far more people are coming in to work in 2023 than 2022, the difference is the train service is shitter and dirtier.
I've said this before, many times, but the provision of public toilets is reducing rapidly.
Bit shit, so to speak, for women in particular. To think the Victorians fought to have the things, like public parks, swimming pools ...
Sturgeon (who I believe introduced the GRA for the best of intentions) also saw it as a way of driving another wedge between Scotland and the UK if the UK government issued a veto.
Except it helped end Sturgeon rather than Union, that's a win for Sunak.
As I said , Sturgeon was all about Sturgeon. So delightful she pick a sort of modernist woke bullshit argument that skewers her. What's not to.like !!!
What's not to like is that Sturgeon isn't in jail for being the leader of an administration that allowed puberty blockers to be given to mentally ill children.
Note on moral philosophy for Carnyx: I couldn't care less whether the Greens or Labour backed her. That's no defence. Ditto if the Welsh administration wants to do the same.
I seem to recall that the fall of the charismatic and popular (as he was then regarded) Alex Salmond was regarded as a body-blow to the SNP. Now the fall of Sturgeon is seen the same way. Well we will see I suppose.
Good news for Labour and the LDs I would say - since it is possible the new SNP leader will be less popular. Bad news for the Cons - rousing English fear of Salmond or Sturgeon was quite easy but against some basically unknown new SNP leader? Recall how important that Scottish question was to the Con victories of 1992 and 2015.
I suspect the SNP is now more a 'national movement' than a 'political party'. Which means the leader and policies are of marginal importance. Voting SNP is just becoming something you do if you are Scottish (to many living in Scotland). If that is true then today will have little or no impact.
Thanks to AlistairM for that link to the Spectator graphs by Michael Simmons. I had been looking for data on Sturgeon's time in office and those covered all but one of the variables I was looking for.
The missing one? The total fertility rate in Scotland. " In 2020 the total fertility rate in Scotland was 1.29, the lowest it has been in this provided time period. From 2002 onwards the total fertility rate in Scotland increased from 1.47 to a peak of 1.76 in 2008. Since 2008 the total fertility rate in Scotland has fallen rapidly, with only a slight increase occurring between 2013 and 2014."
(I have come to the conclusion, in recent years, that the two most important measures of a government's performance, domestically, are changes in life expectancy, and the total fertility rate. This seems obvious to me now, but it did not, a decade or two ago.)
I'd bolden that bit in the middle if I knew how. A fall from 1.76 to 1.29 from 2008 to 2020 seems remarkable and bears further examination, I think.
Here's the longer view graph for England and Wales;
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.
2020 was year of covid so may not be representative.
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.
@Foxy This article relies on the assumption that men are queuing up to marry women and have children. But actually a lot of them don't want to do it. I've got a large group of friends who are heading in to their 40's and have good careers etc, and own properties in London, and they just aren't getting married and having children. I've had quite a few discussions about this, and they would just rather not bring children in to the world if the relationship isn't correct. In the end, it is probably something to do with an increasing proportion of people having impossibly high standards for relationships, and over a certain amount of time, you just see these relationships going badly, messy divorces etc, and just think... no thanks. I think that, had I not met my wife, I would be the same as them.
One thing I am sure of, is that this problem is not going to be resolved by resorting to the default feminist position of 'blame men/empower women'. This type of thinking is almost certainly going to just make the problem worse. Actually, it may be that the writer of this piece should look in to her example of Iceland a bit more. Not only did Iceland offer generous parental support, they did a huge amount to support single mothers for many decades, both on a practical level and on a cultural level, but they are still stuck with the same problem of declining infertility.
Yes, there’s a whole pile of both economic and social factors that can feed into a declining birth rate:
High cost of housing High cost of childcare Divorce law Declining government support for large welfare-dependent families Female graduate rate and workforce participation rates rising Dating apps and casualisation of relationships Religious observance declining Generally increasing pace of life Role model women ‘celebrities’ having kids well into their ‘40s, but without saying how exactly.
I give you the example of a ‘friend’, they both earn £100k ish in good but busy jobs, but have a £500k mortgage on a £600k house, married in their late 30s and now have one child (thanks to the pandemic) in expensive pre-school daycare. They may not have another child, and they definitely don’t think they’re as rich as economists will tell them they are.
At the other end of the scale, there’s an increasing number of celibate young men, not always by choice. Graduate women will almost always not date ‘down’, which is difficult when women are 60% of graduates. This can eventually become something of a problem for governments, as a large number of frustrated men, often with no positive male role model themselves, can become a much wider social issue. This is already happening in the US.
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
He’s not joking. He’s desperate for Sunak to have a victory, however pyrrhic that victory might prove to be.
It’s quite sad.
It's not entirely unwarranted. It's only a month ago that Sunak used section 35 to block the SNP's legislation, so if the outcome is Sturgeon's resignation it's clearly a political win for him, even if the electoral consequences aren't necessarily to his advantage.
I agree it’s not entirely unwarranted. However Casino - presumably mid-shit at Waterloo - is gilding the lily and then some.
Toilets at Waterloo are closed for "refurbishment".
Had to queue for a slash on the train this evening. Grim.
You have toilets on the train? Luxury. I travelled from Waterloo on occasion in the late 60s and they sure didnt' have toilets. Or corridors. At least they had roofs and windows and padding on the seats.
Thanks to AlistairM for that link to the Spectator graphs by Michael Simmons. I had been looking for data on Sturgeon's time in office and those covered all but one of the variables I was looking for.
The missing one? The total fertility rate in Scotland. " In 2020 the total fertility rate in Scotland was 1.29, the lowest it has been in this provided time period. From 2002 onwards the total fertility rate in Scotland increased from 1.47 to a peak of 1.76 in 2008. Since 2008 the total fertility rate in Scotland has fallen rapidly, with only a slight increase occurring between 2013 and 2014."
(I have come to the conclusion, in recent years, that the two most important measures of a government's performance, domestically, are changes in life expectancy, and the total fertility rate. This seems obvious to me now, but it did not, a decade or two ago.)
I'd bolden that bit in the middle if I knew how. A fall from 1.76 to 1.29 from 2008 to 2020 seems remarkable and bears further examination, I think.
Here's the longer view graph for England and Wales;
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.
2020 was year of covid so may not be representative.
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.
@Foxy This article relies on the assumption that men are queuing up to marry women and have children. But actually a lot of them don't want to do it. I've got a large group of friends who are heading in to their 40's and have good careers etc, and own properties in London, and they just aren't getting married and having children. I've had quite a few discussions about this, and they would just rather not bring children in to the world if the relationship isn't correct. In the end, it is probably something to do with an increasing proportion of people having impossibly high standards for relationships, and over a certain amount of time, you just see these relationships going badly, messy divorces etc, and just think... no thanks. I think that, had I not met my wife, I would be the same as them.
One thing I am sure of, is that this problem is not going to be resolved by resorting to the default feminist position of 'blame men/empower women'. This type of thinking is almost certainly going to just make the problem worse. Actually, it may be that the writer of this piece should look in to her example of Iceland a bit more. Not only did Iceland offer generous parental support, they did a huge amount to support single mothers for many decades, both on a practical level and on a cultural level, but they are still stuck with the same problem of declining infertility.
Oh, I agree. It isn't just that many men are not cut out to be reliable life partners but many women too.
In many ways it is the extension of youth into adult life. We have generations of Peter Pans that refuse to grow up. Even older Gen X people like me still go to rock music festivals, and spend their time on Playstation etc. That refusal to grow up is both male and female, and an international phenomenon. People do not fancy the family life, at least not until too late.
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.
Prices fell in January (as they do most years). So for this month at least that statement isn't correct.
In truth "Inflation is falling and prices are rising" and "The deficit is falling and the debt is rising" are seen by many journalists and most people as impossible and counterintuitive. And this will never change.
I seem to recall that the fall of the charismatic and popular (as he was then regarded) Alex Salmond was regarded as a body-blow to the SNP. Now the fall of Sturgeon is seen the same way. Well we will see I suppose.
I don't recall that at all. Sturgeon was already stepping out of his shadow and it was perceived as a textbook example of good succession planning.
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
Not joking in the slightest, you're just not big enough to accept or admit that Rishi played this brilliantly and has got a scalp.
The timeline is suggestive of that interpretation. Holyrood passes GRR Bill. Westminster blocks GRR Bill. Public backs Westminster. FM resigns.
Assuming that there's an agreement on the NI protocol soon, does Rishi have anything Wales-related we should look out for?
The Welsh government are trying to stop road-building, and the Welsh rugby team are looking to default their match against England next weekend.
I suspect the SNP is now more a 'national movement' than a 'political party'. Which means the leader and policies are of marginal importance. Voting SNP is just becoming something you do if you are Scottish (to many living in Scotland). If that is true then today will have little or no impact.
The same was true of Labour, right up until it wasn't...
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
He’s not joking. He’s desperate for Sunak to have a victory, however pyrrhic that victory might prove to be.
It’s quite sad.
It's not entirely unwarranted. It's only a month ago that Sunak used section 35 to block the SNP's legislation, so if the outcome is Sturgeon's resignation it's clearly a political win for him, even if the electoral consequences aren't necessarily to his advantage.
I agree it’s not entirely unwarranted. However Casino - presumably mid-shit at Waterloo - is gilding the lily and then some.
Toilets at Waterloo are closed for "refurbishment".
Had to queue for a slash on the train this evening. Grim.
You have toilets on the train? Luxury. I travelled from Waterloo on occasion in the late 60s and they sure didnt' have toilets. Or corridors. At least they had roofs and windows and padding on the seats.
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
Not joking in the slightest, you're just not big enough to accept or admit that Rishi played this brilliantly and has got a scalp.
The timeline is suggestive of that interpretation. Holyrood passes GRR Bill. Westminster blocks GRR Bill. Public backs Westminster. FM resigns.
Assuming that there's an agreement on the NI protocol soon, does Rishi have anything Wales-related we should look out for?
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.
Prices fell in January (as they do most years). So for this month at least that statement isn't correct.
In truth "Inflation is falling and prices are rising" and "The deficit is falling and the debt is rising" are seen by many journalists and most people as impossible and counterintuitive. And this will never change.
The difference being people can see prices are rising when they do their shopping. Since it is impossible that inflation is therefore falling, they will refuse to believe it is.
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
Not joking in the slightest, you're just not big enough to accept or admit that Rishi played this brilliantly and has got a scalp.
The timeline is suggestive of that interpretation. Holyrood passes GRR Bill. Westminster blocks GRR Bill. Public backs Westminster. FM resigns.
Assuming that there's an agreement on the NI protocol soon, does Rishi have anything Wales-related we should look out for?
There's the rugger in 10 days?
Persuading Sunak to play rugby is one way for those hoping to become PM to get him out of the way, but a rather more brutal method then usually chosen.
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.
Prices fell in January (as they do most years). So for this month at least that statement isn't correct.
In truth "Inflation is falling and prices are rising" and "The deficit is falling and the debt is rising" are seen by many journalists and most people as impossible and counterintuitive. And this will never change.
The difference being people can see prices are rising when they do their shopping. Since it is impossible that inflation is therefore falling, they will refuse to believe it is.
Petrol was nearly £2 a litre, nine months ago. Now it’s only £1.50 or so. Yet people won’t notice that at all.
Perhaps they might notice the £500/month energy bill becoming £200/month when the Ukraine war ends, but almost no-one is giving credit to the government for the drop in price.
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.
Prices fell in January (as they do most years). So for this month at least that statement isn't correct.
In truth "Inflation is falling and prices are rising" and "The deficit is falling and the debt is rising" are seen by many journalists and most people as impossible and counterintuitive. And this will never change.
The difference being people can see prices are rising when they do their shopping. Since it is impossible that inflation is therefore falling, they will refuse to believe it is.
Except prices did actually fall by an average of 0.6% in January when compared with December.
Sturgeon (who I believe introduced the GRA for the best of intentions) also saw it as a way of driving another wedge between Scotland and the UK if the UK government issued a veto.
Except it helped end Sturgeon rather than Union, that's a win for Sunak.
As I said , Sturgeon was all about Sturgeon. So delightful she pick a sort of modernist woke bullshit argument that skewers her. What's not to.like !!!
What's not to like is that Sturgeon isn't in jail for being the leader of an administration that allowed puberty blockers to be given to mentally ill children.
Note on moral philosophy for Carnyx: I couldn't care less whether the Greens or Labour backed her. That's no defence. Ditto if the Welsh administration wants to do the same.
AFAIC the bonus is that Surgeon is gone. The UK will be a better place without her ghastly rhetoric.
On the subject of Sturgeon going, I am not too surprised. After 8-10 years at the top most leaders run out of steam and ideas and the party needs a refresh. To debate direction and policy is an uncertain gamble, and can produce a Trussterfuck, but can also give fresh impetus as indeed Sturgeon taking over from Salmond did in the aftermath of the Sindyref.
Time will tell which way it goes, but I suspect that the most likely beneficiary is SLAB. It is hard to see the SCON getting a positive swing, but if the SNP choose poorly then SLAB are waiting in the wings to regain the Scottish anti Tory vote.
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.
Prices fell in January (as they do most years). So for this month at least that statement isn't correct.
In truth "Inflation is falling and prices are rising" and "The deficit is falling and the debt is rising" are seen by many journalists and most people as impossible and counterintuitive. And this will never change.
And Arsenal have equalised,
No wonder Rishi wanted to focus more on maths education.
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
He’s not joking. He’s desperate for Sunak to have a victory, however pyrrhic that victory might prove to be.
It’s quite sad.
It’s another sign that the coalition that check mated Labour for so long is starting to disintegrate.
Yes. You can hear the Tories ripping up their stockpile of Starmer-in-Sturgeon’s-pocket posters from New York.
Though to call Con and SNP a coalition seems to be stretching it a bit. They had a common enemy, sure. But that is true of almost any pair of political parties.
Even when, as always, wholly lacking in grace or kindness Mr Trump can occasionally by accident be partially correct. But just as so many people's faults are redeemed by the fact that they mean well, Mr Trump's virtues are blackened by the fact that he doesn't.
I don't agree with either NS or Mr T, but I know which one I would be honoured to meet.
On the subject of Sturgeon going, I am not too surprised. After 8-10 years at the top most leaders run out of steam and ideas and the party needs a refresh. To debate direction and policy is an uncertain gamble, and can produce a Trussterfuck, but can also give fresh impetus as indeed Sturgeon taking over from Salmond did in the aftermath of the Sindyref.
Time will tell which way it goes, but I suspect that the most likely beneficiary is SLAB. It is hard to see the SCON getting a positive swing, but if the SNP choose poorly then SLAB are waiting in the wings to regain the Scottish anti Tory vote.
The best gain is for the people of Scotland (excluding the SNP loons)
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
He’s not joking. He’s desperate for Sunak to have a victory, however pyrrhic that victory might prove to be.
It’s quite sad.
It's not entirely unwarranted. It's only a month ago that Sunak used section 35 to block the SNP's legislation, so if the outcome is Sturgeon's resignation it's clearly a political win for him, even if the electoral consequences aren't necessarily to his advantage.
I agree it’s not entirely unwarranted. However Casino - presumably mid-shit at Waterloo - is gilding the lily and then some.
Toilets at Waterloo are closed for "refurbishment".
Had to queue for a slash on the train this evening. Grim.
You have toilets on the train? Luxury. I travelled from Waterloo on occasion in the late 60s and they sure didnt' have toilets. Or corridors. At least they had roofs and windows and padding on the seats.
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
He’s not joking. He’s desperate for Sunak to have a victory, however pyrrhic that victory might prove to be.
It’s quite sad.
It's not entirely unwarranted. It's only a month ago that Sunak used section 35 to block the SNP's legislation, so if the outcome is Sturgeon's resignation it's clearly a political win for him, even if the electoral consequences aren't necessarily to his advantage.
I agree it’s not entirely unwarranted. However Casino - presumably mid-shit at Waterloo - is gilding the lily and then some.
Toilets at Waterloo are closed for "refurbishment".
Had to queue for a slash on the train this evening. Grim.
You have toilets on the train? Luxury. I travelled from Waterloo on occasion in the late 60s and they sure didnt' have toilets. Or corridors. At least they had roofs and windows and padding on the seats.
Absorbent padding one trusts?
Snort... I have coffee coming out of my nose
In Casino’s case, it’s not his nose he’s worried about.
On the subject of Sturgeon going, I am not too surprised. After 8-10 years at the top most leaders run out of steam and ideas and the party needs a refresh. To debate direction and policy is an uncertain gamble, and can produce a Trussterfuck, but can also give fresh impetus as indeed Sturgeon taking over from Salmond did in the aftermath of the Sindyref.
Time will tell which way it goes, but I suspect that the most likely beneficiary is SLAB. It is hard to see the SCON getting a positive swing, but if the SNP choose poorly then SLAB are waiting in the wings to regain the Scottish anti Tory vote.
Sarwar and Starmer are well known quantities in the dowsing heather fires stakes so SLab need to start improving their ratings in other areas. I mean really improve.
It leads to the old question: at what age is someone 'capable' of deciding for themselves the consequences of any action, from sex change, through abortion, to tattoos and drinking.16? 18? 21?
The problem is it varies from person to person; action to action.
On the subject of Sturgeon going, I am not too surprised. After 8-10 years at the top most leaders run out of steam and ideas and the party needs a refresh. To debate direction and policy is an uncertain gamble, and can produce a Trussterfuck, but can also give fresh impetus as indeed Sturgeon taking over from Salmond did in the aftermath of the Sindyref.
Time will tell which way it goes, but I suspect that the most likely beneficiary is SLAB. It is hard to see the SCON getting a positive swing, but if the SNP choose poorly then SLAB are waiting in the wings to regain the Scottish anti Tory vote.
The best gain is for the people of Scotland (excluding the SNP loons)
That is yet to be seen, when we find out who is next FM.
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.
Prices fell in January (as they do most years). So for this month at least that statement isn't correct.
In truth "Inflation is falling and prices are rising" and "The deficit is falling and the debt is rising" are seen by many journalists and most people as impossible and counterintuitive. And this will never change.
The difference being people can see prices are rising when they do their shopping. Since it is impossible that inflation is therefore falling, they will refuse to believe it is.
Petrol was nearly £2 a litre, nine months ago. Now it’s only £1.50 or so. Yet people won’t notice that at all.
Perhaps they might notice the £500/month energy bill becoming £200/month when the Ukraine war ends, but almost no-one is giving credit to the government for the drop in price.
If the government blame Ukraine for price increases, they should be surprised when the public give Ukraine the credit when prices fall.
On the subject of Sturgeon going, I am not too surprised. After 8-10 years at the top most leaders run out of steam and ideas and the party needs a refresh. To debate direction and policy is an uncertain gamble, and can produce a Trussterfuck, but can also give fresh impetus as indeed Sturgeon taking over from Salmond did in the aftermath of the Sindyref.
Time will tell which way it goes, but I suspect that the most likely beneficiary is SLAB. It is hard to see the SCON getting a positive swing, but if the SNP choose poorly then SLAB are waiting in the wings to regain the Scottish anti Tory vote.
The best gain is for the people of Scotland (excluding the SNP loons)
Thanks to AlistairM for that link to the Spectator graphs by Michael Simmons. I had been looking for data on Sturgeon's time in office and those covered all but one of the variables I was looking for.
The missing one? The total fertility rate in Scotland. " In 2020 the total fertility rate in Scotland was 1.29, the lowest it has been in this provided time period. From 2002 onwards the total fertility rate in Scotland increased from 1.47 to a peak of 1.76 in 2008. Since 2008 the total fertility rate in Scotland has fallen rapidly, with only a slight increase occurring between 2013 and 2014."
(I have come to the conclusion, in recent years, that the two most important measures of a government's performance, domestically, are changes in life expectancy, and the total fertility rate. This seems obvious to me now, but it did not, a decade or two ago.)
I'd bolden that bit in the middle if I knew how. A fall from 1.76 to 1.29 from 2008 to 2020 seems remarkable and bears further examination, I think.
Here's the longer view graph for England and Wales;
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.
2020 was year of covid so may not be representative.
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.
@Foxy This article relies on the assumption that men are queuing up to marry women and have children. But actually a lot of them don't want to do it. I've got a large group of friends who are heading in to their 40's and have good careers etc, and own properties in London, and they just aren't getting married and having children. I've had quite a few discussions about this, and they would just rather not bring children in to the world if the relationship isn't correct. In the end, it is probably something to do with an increasing proportion of people having impossibly high standards for relationships, and over a certain amount of time, you just see these relationships going badly, messy divorces etc, and just think... no thanks. I think that, had I not met my wife, I would be the same as them.
One thing I am sure of, is that this problem is not going to be resolved by resorting to the default feminist position of 'blame men/empower women'. This type of thinking is almost certainly going to just make the problem worse. Actually, it may be that the writer of this piece should look in to her example of Iceland a bit more. Not only did Iceland offer generous parental support, they did a huge amount to support single mothers for many decades, both on a practical level and on a cultural level, but they are still stuck with the same problem of declining infertility.
Yes, there’s a whole pile of both economic and social factors that can feed into a declining birth rate:
High cost of housing High cost of childcare Divorce law Declining government support for large welfare-dependent families Female graduate rate and workforce participation rates rising Dating apps and casualisation of relationships Religious observance declining Generally increasing pace of life Role model women ‘celebrities’ having kids well into their ‘40s, but without saying how exactly.
I give you the example of a ‘friend’, they both earn £100k ish in good but busy jobs, but have a £500k mortgage on a £600k house, married in their late 30s and now have one child (thanks to the pandemic) in expensive pre-school daycare. They may not have another child, and they definitely don’t think they’re as rich as economists will tell them they are.
At the other end of the scale, there’s an increasing number of celibate young men, not always by choice. Graduate women will almost always not date ‘down’, which is difficult when women are 60% of graduates. This can eventually become something of a problem for governments, as a large number of frustrated men, often with no positive male role model themselves, can become a much wider social issue. This is already happening in the US.
Yes there is also some element of this which is a problem with consumerism. I had a discussion with my friend who has 2 kids but lives in central London. I think him and his wife are both earning around £120k and they are somehow managing to blow it all every month. I told him that I just keep all our household spending to under £3k per month and pay the rest of the money in to a pension and he can't understand how that is possible. On the other hand I know lots of people who manage to bring up children on less then £2k income per month.
On the subject of Sturgeon going, I am not too surprised. After 8-10 years at the top most leaders run out of steam and ideas and the party needs a refresh. To debate direction and policy is an uncertain gamble, and can produce a Trussterfuck, but can also give fresh impetus as indeed Sturgeon taking over from Salmond did in the aftermath of the Sindyref.
Time will tell which way it goes, but I suspect that the most likely beneficiary is SLAB. It is hard to see the SCON getting a positive swing, but if the SNP choose poorly then SLAB are waiting in the wings to regain the Scottish anti Tory vote.
The best gain is for the people of Scotland (excluding the SNP loons)
That is yet to be seen, when we find out who is next FM.
Not at all, it's highly unlikely that any future leader could be as awful as Sturgeon. After all the SNP need to retain power. No loony policies going forward unless they want to go the completely bonkers route.
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
He’s not joking. He’s desperate for Sunak to have a victory, however pyrrhic that victory might prove to be.
It’s quite sad.
It’s another sign that the coalition that check mated Labour for so long is starting to disintegrate.
Yes. You can hear the Tories ripping up their stockpile of Starmer-in-Sturgeon’s-pocket posters from New York.
Though to call Con and SNP a coalition seems to be stretching it a bit. They had a common enemy, sure. But that is true of almost any pair of political parties.
More a symbiotic relationship than a coalition, in many ways.
Theresa May killed Scottish nationalism stone dead in 2017.
The thing is, if not now, when exactly will it be better for the SNP to hold a second referendum?
The magnificent Elizabeth Truss defenestrated that supremely impressive Independence Recruiting Sergeant, Boris Johnson. The Indy moment passed when she unceremoniously ejected him from Downing Street.
When Johnson returns as PM, Scottish Nationalism will take off again.
Today is a huge political victory for Rishi Sunak.
She played high-stakes poker with him, and she lost.
In what way is Rishi better off? Tories rely on the SNP. Two cheeks of the same arse if you will.
On electoral grounds, Rishi would indeed have preferred to have retained Sturgeon in post.
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.
He’s not joking. He’s desperate for Sunak to have a victory, however pyrrhic that victory might prove to be.
It’s quite sad.
It's not entirely unwarranted. It's only a month ago that Sunak used section 35 to block the SNP's legislation, so if the outcome is Sturgeon's resignation it's clearly a political win for him, even if the electoral consequences aren't necessarily to his advantage.
I agree it’s not entirely unwarranted. However Casino - presumably mid-shit at Waterloo - is gilding the lily and then some.
Toilets at Waterloo are closed for "refurbishment".
Had to queue for a slash on the train this evening. Grim.
Sturgeon (who I believe introduced the GRA for the best of intentions) also saw it as a way of driving another wedge between Scotland and the UK if the UK government issued a veto.
Except it helped end Sturgeon rather than the Union, that's a win for Sunak.
I really don't think that the GRA had all that much to do with Sturgeon resigning.
It was, as Andrew Neil remarked on Radio 4, because there was zero chance of IndyRef2 anytime soon, and that her recommended route, using the next GE as a proxy referendum, was a dead duck. She had led the SNP up a cul-de-sac. and had nowhere to go.
FWIW I think that ScotLab have an unprecendented opportunity to cut a swathe through the Central Belt. The SNP need Independence to be a dominating issue in an election to secure the 40 per cent or so voteshare that is enough to scoop up most of the seats. If Indy looks beside the point to voters - as it will sans Sturgeon - then the terms of trade move into SLAB's favour. Given the SNP's record on health and education - in particular on drugs deaths and educational attainment which resound in places like Glasgow - Labour could do very well in those parts of Scotland they need to perform in.
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.
Prices fell in January (as they do most years). So for this month at least that statement isn't correct.
In truth "Inflation is falling and prices are rising" and "The deficit is falling and the debt is rising" are seen by many journalists and most people as impossible and counterintuitive. And this will never change.
The difference being people can see prices are rising when they do their shopping. Since it is impossible that inflation is therefore falling, they will refuse to believe it is.
Except prices did actually fall by an average of 0.6% in January when compared with December.
On the subject of Sturgeon going, I am not too surprised. After 8-10 years at the top most leaders run out of steam and ideas and the party needs a refresh. To debate direction and policy is an uncertain gamble, and can produce a Trussterfuck, but can also give fresh impetus as indeed Sturgeon taking over from Salmond did in the aftermath of the Sindyref.
Time will tell which way it goes, but I suspect that the most likely beneficiary is SLAB. It is hard to see the SCON getting a positive swing, but if the SNP choose poorly then SLAB are waiting in the wings to regain the Scottish anti Tory vote.
Sarwar and Starmer are well known quantities in the dowsing heather fires stakes so SLab need to start improving their ratings in other areas. I mean really improve.
Certainly many SNP voters won't move across to SLAB, but some will. I am sure those figures are favourable compared with SCON, and someone has to win.
If I were running SLAB I would run the GE 2024 campaign along the lines of "Vote Scottish Labour to have a strong Scottish voice at Westminster"
Thanks to AlistairM for that link to the Spectator graphs by Michael Simmons. I had been looking for data on Sturgeon's time in office and those covered all but one of the variables I was looking for.
The missing one? The total fertility rate in Scotland. " In 2020 the total fertility rate in Scotland was 1.29, the lowest it has been in this provided time period. From 2002 onwards the total fertility rate in Scotland increased from 1.47 to a peak of 1.76 in 2008. Since 2008 the total fertility rate in Scotland has fallen rapidly, with only a slight increase occurring between 2013 and 2014."
(I have come to the conclusion, in recent years, that the two most important measures of a government's performance, domestically, are changes in life expectancy, and the total fertility rate. This seems obvious to me now, but it did not, a decade or two ago.)
I'd bolden that bit in the middle if I knew how. A fall from 1.76 to 1.29 from 2008 to 2020 seems remarkable and bears further examination, I think.
Here's the longer view graph for England and Wales;
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.
2020 was year of covid so may not be representative.
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.
@Foxy This article relies on the assumption that men are queuing up to marry women and have children. But actually a lot of them don't want to do it. I've got a large group of friends who are heading in to their 40's and have good careers etc, and own properties in London, and they just aren't getting married and having children. I've had quite a few discussions about this, and they would just rather not bring children in to the world if the relationship isn't correct. In the end, it is probably something to do with an increasing proportion of people having impossibly high standards for relationships, and over a certain amount of time, you just see these relationships going badly, messy divorces etc, and just think... no thanks. I think that, had I not met my wife, I would be the same as them.
One thing I am sure of, is that this problem is not going to be resolved by resorting to the default feminist position of 'blame men/empower women'. This type of thinking is almost certainly going to just make the problem worse. Actually, it may be that the writer of this piece should look in to her example of Iceland a bit more. Not only did Iceland offer generous parental support, they did a huge amount to support single mothers for many decades, both on a practical level and on a cultural level, but they are still stuck with the same problem of declining infertility.
No one explanation, but combining factors.
Education/training/career building/housing means massive delay to having first child. Time pressures mean 2 max.
Helicopter/hovering ultra cautious parenting is exhausting, so 2 max.
Especially in the private sector there is an unstated unwritten unknowable rule that 2 maternity leaves is OK as long as you minimise inconvenience to those who make money out of you but 3+ is a bit feckless/Roman Catholic/medieval/off.
Seat belt rules mean that larger families are fantastically tricky to move flexibly. So 2 max. (This matters more than many would realise who haven't been there.)
Life's options for women include cheerful guiltfree childfree singleness or partnered singleness. Lots are taking it. The world as we know it is ending. Don't land the next generation with it all to deal with. No kids.
I think we are stuck with fertility rates of 1.3-1.8 for a long time.
Seat belt rules are a small but important point. Thanks to the efforts of German manufacturers lobbying the EU, we have a situation demanded by almost no consumers that children under 6 must have an expensive car seat to carry them about. This is costly enough by itself, but almost no cars can accommodate three child car seats. If you have a third small child, you then have to shell out £10k plus for an SMax or similar.
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.
Prices fell in January (as they do most years). So for this month at least that statement isn't correct.
In truth "Inflation is falling and prices are rising" and "The deficit is falling and the debt is rising" are seen by many journalists and most people as impossible and counterintuitive. And this will never change.
The difference being people can see prices are rising when they do their shopping. Since it is impossible that inflation is therefore falling, they will refuse to believe it is.
Petrol was nearly £2 a litre, nine months ago. Now it’s only £1.50 or so. Yet people won’t notice that at all.
Perhaps they might notice the £500/month energy bill becoming £200/month when the Ukraine war ends, but almost no-one is giving credit to the government for the drop in price.
If the government blame Ukraine for price increases, they should be surprised when the public give Ukraine the credit when prices fall.
Thanks to AlistairM for that link to the Spectator graphs by Michael Simmons. I had been looking for data on Sturgeon's time in office and those covered all but one of the variables I was looking for.
The missing one? The total fertility rate in Scotland. " In 2020 the total fertility rate in Scotland was 1.29, the lowest it has been in this provided time period. From 2002 onwards the total fertility rate in Scotland increased from 1.47 to a peak of 1.76 in 2008. Since 2008 the total fertility rate in Scotland has fallen rapidly, with only a slight increase occurring between 2013 and 2014."
(I have come to the conclusion, in recent years, that the two most important measures of a government's performance, domestically, are changes in life expectancy, and the total fertility rate. This seems obvious to me now, but it did not, a decade or two ago.)
I'd bolden that bit in the middle if I knew how. A fall from 1.76 to 1.29 from 2008 to 2020 seems remarkable and bears further examination, I think.
Here's the longer view graph for England and Wales;
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.
2020 was year of covid so may not be representative.
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.
@Foxy This article relies on the assumption that men are queuing up to marry women and have children. But actually a lot of them don't want to do it. I've got a large group of friends who are heading in to their 40's and have good careers etc, and own properties in London, and they just aren't getting married and having children. I've had quite a few discussions about this, and they would just rather not bring children in to the world if the relationship isn't correct. In the end, it is probably something to do with an increasing proportion of people having impossibly high standards for relationships, and over a certain amount of time, you just see these relationships going badly, messy divorces etc, and just think... no thanks. I think that, had I not met my wife, I would be the same as them.
One thing I am sure of, is that this problem is not going to be resolved by resorting to the default feminist position of 'blame men/empower women'. This type of thinking is almost certainly going to just make the problem worse. Actually, it may be that the writer of this piece should look in to her example of Iceland a bit more. Not only did Iceland offer generous parental support, they did a huge amount to support single mothers for many decades, both on a practical level and on a cultural level, but they are still stuck with the same problem of declining infertility.
Yes, there’s a whole pile of both economic and social factors that can feed into a declining birth rate:
High cost of housing High cost of childcare Divorce law Declining government support for large welfare-dependent families Female graduate rate and workforce participation rates rising Dating apps and casualisation of relationships Religious observance declining Generally increasing pace of life Role model women ‘celebrities’ having kids well into their ‘40s, but without saying how exactly.
I give you the example of a ‘friend’, they both earn £100k ish in good but busy jobs, but have a £500k mortgage on a £600k house, married in their late 30s and now have one child (thanks to the pandemic) in expensive pre-school daycare. They may not have another child, and they definitely don’t think they’re as rich as economists will tell them they are.
At the other end of the scale, there’s an increasing number of celibate young men, not always by choice. Graduate women will almost always not date ‘down’, which is difficult when women are 60% of graduates. This can eventually become something of a problem for governments, as a large number of frustrated men, often with no positive male role model themselves, can become a much wider social issue. This is already happening in the US.
Yes there is also some element of this which is a problem with consumerism. I had a discussion with my friend who has 2 kids but lives in central London. I think him and his wife are both earning around £120k and they are somehow managing to blow it all every month. I told him that I just keep all our household spending to under £3k per month and pay the rest of the money in to a pension and he can't understand how that is possible. On the other hand I know lots of people who manage to bring up children on less then £2k income per month.
The two big costs (especially in central London!) are housing and childcare/schooling.
So if he has a big mortgage, and kids in private school and/or a nanny, then yeah it doesn’t really matter how much he earns it’s going to be really tight.
On the subject of Sturgeon going, I am not too surprised. After 8-10 years at the top most leaders run out of steam and ideas and the party needs a refresh. To debate direction and policy is an uncertain gamble, and can produce a Trussterfuck, but can also give fresh impetus as indeed Sturgeon taking over from Salmond did in the aftermath of the Sindyref.
Time will tell which way it goes, but I suspect that the most likely beneficiary is SLAB. It is hard to see the SCON getting a positive swing, but if the SNP choose poorly then SLAB are waiting in the wings to regain the Scottish anti Tory vote.
The best gain is for the people of Scotland (excluding the SNP loons)
That is yet to be seen, when we find out who is next FM.
Not at all, it's highly unlikely that any future leader could be as awful as Sturgeon. After all the SNP need to retain power. No loony policies going forward unless they want to go the completely bonkers route.
Yes, but there is a long and ignoble tradition of parties going completely bonkers when choosing leaders. Truss, Corbyn, IDS, Swinson, Foot, the list is a long one.
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.
Prices fell in January (as they do most years). So for this month at least that statement isn't correct.
In truth "Inflation is falling and prices are rising" and "The deficit is falling and the debt is rising" are seen by many journalists and most people as impossible and counterintuitive. And this will never change.
The difference being people can see prices are rising when they do their shopping. Since it is impossible that inflation is therefore falling, they will refuse to believe it is.
Petrol was nearly £2 a litre, nine months ago. Now it’s only £1.50 or so. Yet people won’t notice that at all.
Perhaps they might notice the £500/month energy bill becoming £200/month when the Ukraine war ends, but almost no-one is giving credit to the government for the drop in price.
I don't think that war is ending any time soon. Bakhmut is taking months to play out, both sides are well entrenched - this is Syria mk II
Thanks to AlistairM for that link to the Spectator graphs by Michael Simmons. I had been looking for data on Sturgeon's time in office and those covered all but one of the variables I was looking for.
The missing one? The total fertility rate in Scotland. " In 2020 the total fertility rate in Scotland was 1.29, the lowest it has been in this provided time period. From 2002 onwards the total fertility rate in Scotland increased from 1.47 to a peak of 1.76 in 2008. Since 2008 the total fertility rate in Scotland has fallen rapidly, with only a slight increase occurring between 2013 and 2014."
(I have come to the conclusion, in recent years, that the two most important measures of a government's performance, domestically, are changes in life expectancy, and the total fertility rate. This seems obvious to me now, but it did not, a decade or two ago.)
I'd bolden that bit in the middle if I knew how. A fall from 1.76 to 1.29 from 2008 to 2020 seems remarkable and bears further examination, I think.
Here's the longer view graph for England and Wales;
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.
2020 was year of covid so may not be representative.
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.
@Foxy This article relies on the assumption that men are queuing up to marry women and have children. But actually a lot of them don't want to do it. I've got a large group of friends who are heading in to their 40's and have good careers etc, and own properties in London, and they just aren't getting married and having children. I've had quite a few discussions about this, and they would just rather not bring children in to the world if the relationship isn't correct. In the end, it is probably something to do with an increasing proportion of people having impossibly high standards for relationships, and over a certain amount of time, you just see these relationships going badly, messy divorces etc, and just think... no thanks. I think that, had I not met my wife, I would be the same as them.
One thing I am sure of, is that this problem is not going to be resolved by resorting to the default feminist position of 'blame men/empower women'. This type of thinking is almost certainly going to just make the problem worse. Actually, it may be that the writer of this piece should look in to her example of Iceland a bit more. Not only did Iceland offer generous parental support, they did a huge amount to support single mothers for many decades, both on a practical level and on a cultural level, but they are still stuck with the same problem of declining infertility.
Oh, I agree. It isn't just that many men are not cut out to be reliable life partners but many women too.
In many ways it is the extension of youth into adult life. We have generations of Peter Pans that refuse to grow up. Even older Gen X people like me still go to rock music festivals, and spend their time on Playstation etc. That refusal to grow up is both male and female, and an international phenomenon. People do not fancy the family life, at least not until too late.
Maybe you don't really need to grow up. There are lots of outdated stereotypes associated with family life. Men often have this need to fulfill a role as 'head of the household' and boss everyone around. Often women don't want that. You have to figure something out that works. It doesn't make you bad parents if you don't conform to traditional notions of family.
Certainly it is tragic when people want to have a family and it is too late, but I think this could also drive them in to having children with the wrong partner.
Thing about TFR is that it bobbled along until 2009-10 and then tanked across a wide range of European countries. Long-lasting social trends in preferences can't quite explain that. I don't think "female empowerment" or "higher education" was constant during the 2000s and then rocketed upwards. I think they were rising persistently, and if anything the groundwork was done in the 90s. Much as I doubt it, "apps" at least comes around close to the right time to matter (too late, though), and so does the global financial crisis, and that seems to explain a ton.
I also doubt that women's majority among graduates is the answer. Graduates aren't just higher professionals any more; they also cover professions like nursing where socioeconomic status isn't far from a plumber or a farmer.
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.
Prices fell in January (as they do most years). So for this month at least that statement isn't correct.
In truth "Inflation is falling and prices are rising" and "The deficit is falling and the debt is rising" are seen by many journalists and most people as impossible and counterintuitive. And this will never change.
The difference being people can see prices are rising when they do their shopping. Since it is impossible that inflation is therefore falling, they will refuse to believe it is.
Petrol was nearly £2 a litre, nine months ago. Now it’s only £1.50 or so. Yet people won’t notice that at all.
Perhaps they might notice the £500/month energy bill becoming £200/month when the Ukraine war ends, but almost no-one is giving credit to the government for the drop in price.
I don't think that war is ending any time soon. Bakhmut is taking months to play out, both sides are well entrenched - this is Syria mk II
I don't think Scotland or the UK will be better off with Scottish independence; it's not a zero-sum game, and IMO both will be diminished. But I also say think that as an Englishman, I get a say, but not a vote on that. If Scotland want to be independent, so be it.
If the GRR has brough Sturgeon down (aside from the other allegations...), then it is a case of a well-intentioned, but ill-written, and ill-sold, piece of legislation, causing damage to her and others. And that is a tragedy, not for Sturgeon, but for the others.
In an otherwise very credible analysis of Sturgeon's departure, Blair McDougall (former director of Better Together and Scottish Labour bigwig), seems to think SNP may opt for Keith Brown as the new leader. Not sure I buy it, but interesting. Not seen him tipped elsewhere.
Thanks to AlistairM for that link to the Spectator graphs by Michael Simmons. I had been looking for data on Sturgeon's time in office and those covered all but one of the variables I was looking for.
The missing one? The total fertility rate in Scotland. " In 2020 the total fertility rate in Scotland was 1.29, the lowest it has been in this provided time period. From 2002 onwards the total fertility rate in Scotland increased from 1.47 to a peak of 1.76 in 2008. Since 2008 the total fertility rate in Scotland has fallen rapidly, with only a slight increase occurring between 2013 and 2014."
(I have come to the conclusion, in recent years, that the two most important measures of a government's performance, domestically, are changes in life expectancy, and the total fertility rate. This seems obvious to me now, but it did not, a decade or two ago.)
I'd bolden that bit in the middle if I knew how. A fall from 1.76 to 1.29 from 2008 to 2020 seems remarkable and bears further examination, I think.
Here's the longer view graph for England and Wales;
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.
2020 was year of covid so may not be representative.
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.
@Foxy This article relies on the assumption that men are queuing up to marry women and have children. But actually a lot of them don't want to do it. I've got a large group of friends who are heading in to their 40's and have good careers etc, and own properties in London, and they just aren't getting married and having children. I've had quite a few discussions about this, and they would just rather not bring children in to the world if the relationship isn't correct. In the end, it is probably something to do with an increasing proportion of people having impossibly high standards for relationships, and over a certain amount of time, you just see these relationships going badly, messy divorces etc, and just think... no thanks. I think that, had I not met my wife, I would be the same as them.
One thing I am sure of, is that this problem is not going to be resolved by resorting to the default feminist position of 'blame men/empower women'. This type of thinking is almost certainly going to just make the problem worse. Actually, it may be that the writer of this piece should look in to her example of Iceland a bit more. Not only did Iceland offer generous parental support, they did a huge amount to support single mothers for many decades, both on a practical level and on a cultural level, but they are still stuck with the same problem of declining infertility.
Oh, I agree. It isn't just that many men are not cut out to be reliable life partners but many women too.
In many ways it is the extension of youth into adult life. We have generations of Peter Pans that refuse to grow up. Even older Gen X people like me still go to rock music festivals, and spend their time on Playstation etc. That refusal to grow up is both male and female, and an international phenomenon. People do not fancy the family life, at least not until too late.
Maybe you don't really need to grow up. There are lots of outdated stereotypes associated with family life. Men often have this need to fulfill a role as 'head of the household' and boss everyone around. Often women don't want that. You have to figure something out that works. It doesn't make you bad parents if you don't conform to traditional notions of family.
Certainly it is tragic when people want to have a family and it is too late, but I think this could also drive them in to having children with the wrong partner.
I find the racks of Father's Day cards particularly depressing. Presumably they sell so the companies making them do so, but they are an awful vision of fathers. Gardening, football, golf, motor cars and beer, it's like we have never left the 1950s.
Similarly greetings cards make out husbands to be useless about the house, unable to understand their spouses, and women feckless shoppers only interested in shopping, cakes and prosecco.
There is a grain of truth in all clichés, but it is all part of a general running down of relationships.
Perhaps we need to have a more positive image of men as fathers, like the classic Athena poster in the Eighties.
On financial incentives for having children: I have been reading Carl Sandburg's biography of Abraham Lincoln (with much enjoyment), and learned that Lincoln worked for his father until he was 21. So, for example, when Lincoln returned from a long and hazardous trip taking a flatboat full of goods down the Missisippi to New Orleans, he turned his pay for the trip over to his father.
Among other things, this practice (law?) made blended families more likely. Suppose, for example, a man comes home from the sea and decides to marry, and meets a widow with three children, two boys 14 and 16, and a girl, 12. The former seaman does not worry, as he might today, about how he was going to support the three, if he marries the widow, but realizes that, if he does marry her, he will get two field hands and a maid, in the bargain.
(Lincoln's own father married a widow with 3 children, shortly after Lincoln's mother died of "milk sickness".)
I'm glad my own father didn't know about that old rule. (Though I will not claim that I might not have been better off, in the long run, if I had done something like what Lincoln did.)
Comments
Had to queue for a slash on the train this evening. Grim.
I am glad I have a bladder the size of my ego The Sahara.
Peeing on a train is like peeing in an earthquake.
This article relies on the assumption that men are queuing up to marry women and have children. But actually a lot of them don't want to do it. I've got a large group of friends who are heading in to their 40's and have good careers etc, and own properties in London, and they just aren't getting married and having children. I've had quite a few discussions about this, and they would just rather not bring children in to the world if the relationship isn't correct. In the end, it is probably something to do with an increasing proportion of people having impossibly high standards for relationships, and over a certain amount of time, you just see these relationships going badly, messy divorces etc, and just think... no thanks. I think that, had I not met my wife, I would be the same as them.
One thing I am sure of, is that this problem is not going to be resolved by resorting to the default feminist position of 'blame men/empower women'. This type of thinking is almost certainly going to just make the problem worse. Actually, it may be that the writer of this piece should look in to her example of Iceland a bit more. Not only did Iceland offer generous parental support, they did a huge amount to support single mothers for many decades, both on a practical level and on a cultural level, but they are still stuck with the same problem of declining infertility.
Sturgeon (who I believe introduced the GRA for the best of intentions) also saw it as a way of driving another wedge between Scotland and the UK if the UK government issued a veto.
Except it helped end Sturgeon rather than the Union, that's a win for Sunak.
A painful wait.
Lots of shops and restaurants closed at Waterloo over Covid. Some reopened, some didn't.
My sense is there's a general drift back to normality. Far more people are coming in to work in 2023 than 2022, the difference is the train service is shitter and dirtier.
He's built his vehicle in his "Peace and Justice Project".
Not sure which emphases he would go for, but there are plenty out there.
Assuming that there's an agreement on the NI protocol soon, does Rishi have anything Wales-related we should look out for?
Education/training/career building/housing means massive delay to having first child. Time pressures mean 2 max.
Helicopter/hovering ultra cautious parenting is exhausting, so 2 max.
Especially in the private sector there is an unstated unwritten unknowable rule that 2 maternity leaves is OK as long as you minimise inconvenience to those who make money out of you but 3+ is a bit feckless/Roman Catholic/medieval/off.
Seat belt rules mean that larger families are fantastically tricky to move flexibly. So 2 max. (This matters more than many would realise who haven't been there.)
Life's options for women include cheerful guiltfree childfree singleness or partnered singleness. Lots are taking it. The world as we know it is ending. Don't land the next generation with it all to deal with. No kids.
I think we are stuck with fertility rates of 1.3-1.8 for a long time.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-44667-7_3/tables/3
It isn't that men have become more useless as life partners, as that has always been the case, but rather women becoming less willing to put up with it.
Any valid reason has to explain why the TFR is dropping worldwide, in both countries like ours but also in societies more sexist.
Official Monster Raving Loony party state that conspiracy theories about LTNs put forward by Tottenham Tories are too loony for them:
https://twitter.com/peterwalker99/status/1625537925390778392
Note on moral philosophy for Carnyx: I couldn't care less whether the Greens or Labour backed her. That's no defence. Ditto if the Welsh administration wants to do the same.
Good news for Labour and the LDs I would say - since it is possible the new SNP leader will be less popular. Bad news for the Cons - rousing English fear of Salmond or Sturgeon was quite easy but against some basically unknown new SNP leader? Recall how important that Scottish question was to the Con victories of 1992 and 2015.
I suspect the SNP is now more a 'national movement' than a 'political party'. Which means the leader and policies are of marginal importance. Voting SNP is just becoming something you do if you are Scottish (to many living in Scotland). If that is true then today will have little or no impact.
High cost of housing
High cost of childcare
Divorce law
Declining government support for large welfare-dependent families
Female graduate rate and workforce participation rates rising
Dating apps and casualisation of relationships
Religious observance declining
Generally increasing pace of life
Role model women ‘celebrities’ having kids well into their ‘40s, but without saying how exactly.
I give you the example of a ‘friend’, they both earn £100k ish in good but busy jobs, but have a £500k mortgage on a £600k house, married in their late 30s and now have one child (thanks to the pandemic) in expensive pre-school daycare. They may not have another child, and they definitely don’t think they’re as rich as economists will tell them they are.
At the other end of the scale, there’s an increasing number of celibate young men, not always by choice. Graduate women will almost always not date ‘down’, which is difficult when women are 60% of graduates. This can eventually become something of a problem for governments, as a large number of frustrated men, often with no positive male role model themselves, can become a much wider social issue. This is already happening in the US.
In many ways it is the extension of youth into adult life. We have generations of Peter Pans that refuse to grow up. Even older Gen X people like me still go to rock music festivals, and spend their time on Playstation etc. That refusal to grow up is both male and female, and an international phenomenon. People do not fancy the family life, at least not until too late.
And Arsenal have equalised,
Since it is impossible that inflation is therefore falling, they will refuse to believe it is.
Perhaps they might notice the £500/month energy bill becoming £200/month when the Ukraine war ends, but almost no-one is giving credit to the government for the drop in price.
#womenandTrumpwontwheesht
Time will tell which way it goes, but I suspect that the most likely beneficiary is SLAB. It is hard to see the SCON getting a positive swing, but if the SNP choose poorly then SLAB are waiting in the wings to regain the Scottish anti Tory vote.
https://twitter.com/svdate/status/1625950867688984576
Here's a similar statement on Truth Social.
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/109870359730788440
I don't agree with either NS or Mr T, but I know which one I would be honoured to meet.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=DrhnXeEG7jk
The gender stuff, especially as it relates to children, has already featured in their elections, and is expected to be a big issue in 2024.
The problem is it varies from person to person; action to action.
It was, as Andrew Neil remarked on Radio 4, because there was zero chance of IndyRef2 anytime soon, and that her recommended route, using the next GE as a proxy referendum, was a dead duck. She had led the SNP up a cul-de-sac. and had nowhere to go.
FWIW I think that ScotLab have an unprecendented opportunity to cut a swathe through the Central Belt. The SNP need Independence to be a dominating issue in an election to secure the 40 per cent or so voteshare that is enough to scoop up most of the seats. If Indy looks beside the point to voters - as it will sans Sturgeon - then the terms of trade move into SLAB's favour. Given the SNP's record on health and education - in particular on drugs deaths and educational attainment which resound in places like Glasgow - Labour could do very well in those parts of Scotland they need to perform in.
If I were running SLAB I would run the GE 2024 campaign along the lines of "Vote Scottish Labour to have a strong Scottish voice at Westminster"
https://twitter.com/MorningConsult/status/1625956865787002906?s=20
https://morningconsult.com/2023/02/15/global-perceptions-united-states-gun-violence/
So if he has a big mortgage, and kids in private school and/or a nanny, then yeah it doesn’t really matter how much he earns it’s going to be really tight.
Certainly it is tragic when people want to have a family and it is too late, but I think this could also drive them in to having children with the wrong partner.
I also doubt that women's majority among graduates is the answer. Graduates aren't just higher professionals any more; they also cover professions like nursing where socioeconomic status isn't far from a plumber or a farmer.
I don't think Scotland or the UK will be better off with Scottish independence; it's not a zero-sum game, and IMO both will be diminished. But I also say think that as an Englishman, I get a say, but not a vote on that. If Scotland want to be independent, so be it.
If the GRR has brough Sturgeon down (aside from the other allegations...), then it is a case of a well-intentioned, but ill-written, and ill-sold, piece of legislation, causing damage to her and others. And that is a tragedy, not for Sturgeon, but for the others.
https://www.notesonnationalism.com/p/nicola-sturgeons-legacy
Similarly greetings cards make out husbands to be useless about the house, unable to understand their spouses, and women feckless shoppers only interested in shopping, cakes and prosecco.
There is a grain of truth in all clichés, but it is all part of a general running down of relationships.
Perhaps we need to have a more positive image of men as fathers, like the classic Athena poster in the Eighties.
Wasn’t there someone on here today deploring flag shaggers?
Among other things, this practice (law?) made blended families more likely. Suppose, for example, a man comes home from the sea and decides to marry, and meets a widow with three children, two boys 14 and 16, and a girl, 12. The former seaman does not worry, as he might today, about how he was going to support the three, if he marries the widow, but realizes that, if he does marry her, he will get two field hands and a maid, in the bargain.
(Lincoln's own father married a widow with 3 children, shortly after Lincoln's mother died of "milk sickness".)
I'm glad my own father didn't know about that old rule. (Though I will not claim that I might not have been better off, in the long run, if I had done something like what Lincoln did.)