I'm not wholly convinced this week's events will help the Prime Minister that much. John Major, among others, did marvellous work in Northern Ireland but gained little from it electorally in the rest of the UK. The truth is, however much it's boosted by Conservative supporters and pro-Conservative media, most people don't care that much about Northern Ireland.
I don't imagine in 2016 many contemplating a LEAVE vote considered the impact of such a vote on Northern Ireland and its politics - I could be wrong.
Sunak, to his credit, has delivered a deal and perhaps it's a sign unlike on here the emotions of the past seven years are being replaced by a pragmatic reality. It takes two to tango - arguably both the UK and the EU have "won" simply by removing the issue from the board. Naturally, some on here emphasise the positives for Britain but let's not forget it's probably a good deal for the EU inasmuch as it provides a sound economic and political relationship with the UK going forward.
Nobody will be talking about re-joining but the adversarial nature of the post-2016 relationship on both sides is finally being replaced by the necessity to make this work. Those who still want the fight will deny the deal but the truth is more now want to move on and in that regard Sunak was pushing at a door far more easy to open than was the case a few years go.
The Tories have infamously been pandering to the DUP for many years now -and allowing them to wreck Stormont's business as the NI parliament while keeping most of their salaries. So knowing a bit about NI isn't going to cause most folk to feel more positive. Mr Sunak is still very much in clearing up his lot's mess mode, I think.
There’s not much that can be done if either side wants to suspend Stormont.
When SF shut it down, were you upset?
When 70 odd party members of SF in good standing were all in the same 6 foot square toilet, when a man was slowly beaten to death in the bar… were you worried? When SF threatened to suspend the assembly, again, if the police enquiry wasn’t handled more “sensitively”…
Well, it turns out that people listened. And learned.
That’s the Peace Process.
Unless you are anti-agreement Man Of Violence?
That’s the problem.
Most critics of the DUP think it entirely fair and reasonable for Sinn Fein to shut down the Assembly, if they can’t get their way.
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Strange how any criticism of the DUP leads to assumptions that one is pro-SF, terrorists, etc.
Did I say that? No.
I’ve been horrified, personally, by quite how quickly we’ve allowed the DUP to be legitimised. I’m old enough to remember when me saying I held them in almost as much contempt as Sinn Fein/IRA, was not at all controversial.
Lots of us who wish NI well agree. Once they decided that SF and DUP would be the ones who get the votes and not SDLP and UUP then the message is, sadly clear.
Sinn Fein and the DUP are wankers, without question.
I’d far rather see an executive based upon UUP, SDLP, Alliance, with the rest sidelined.
But, the GFA makes it sensible to vote for wankers, to protect your community’s interests.
Revolut’s auditor warned that the design of the fintech’s IT systems meant there was a risk that the bulk of its 2021 revenues were materially misstated even as it turned a profit for the first time that year.
The crypto boom helped Revolut report on Wednesday a net profit of £26mn in 2021 compared with a £223mn loss the previous year. Revenues in 2021 almost tripled to £636mn.
But the group’s auditor, BDO, issued a qualified opinion on Revolut’s overdue accounts because it had been unable to fully verify £477mn of revenues — including its foreign exchange and wealth department, which includes crypto.
Auditors said in their report into the accounts that they had been “unable to satisfy ourselves as to the completeness” of these revenues, meaning that references to the company’s revenues “may be materially misstated”.
"It's OK to give the hospital keys to the national pervert because Tony Blair had him round for dinner once" is a great electoral slogan for the Tories?
I haven't noticed Edwina Currie on the Tory candidates list again?
I believe the former DPP who never prosecuted Savile might have something to do with the top of today's Labour Party though!
I’m surprised at you, that’s a little cheap.
Agree. What with the constant comments on Starmer being privately educated and this it is really a bit below HYUFD to make these misleading comments. It is not like they are errors. He knows they are misleading. I know he might come back with they are true statements, but they are incredibly disingenuous. I'm not a Starmer fan, but it wouldn't cross my mind to make these statements.
Though apparently earlier in the thread it is fine to trash the King or Thatcher government for having links with Savile. However mention Blair's links to Savile or SKS' record on Savile and that is a huge no no!
Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because someone else does something you don't like does not make it ok for you to make utterly misleading comments about someone else. SKS doesn't have a record re Saville and you know it, so why say it?
The original tweet against the King came from Labour for a Republic. If they can't take it they shouldn't dish it out, that's politics!!
What? Your not attacking them though are you? You are libeling Starmer instead. So it has nothing to do with dishing it out and not taking it has it? How would you like it if someone unjustifiably accused you of negligence which resulted in you protecting a sex offender?
Nothing libellous about it. It is unarguable Starmer was head of the DPP from 2008 to 2011 when Savile was still alive and the CPS did not prosecute him.
If leftists like Labour for a Republic can't take what they dish out, tough!
It is unarguable that mandrills have blue bollocks and red willies, at the same time as Edgar Degas painted flowers in ponds. And that makes Mr Starmer infallibly guilty*, on your logic.
PMQs: SKS draws on the impact of the cost of living...
"The average family in Britain will be poorer than the average family in Poland. We're going to see a generation of young people learning to say 'Auf Wiedersehen, Pet' in Polish", says SKS
What a tosser
What would you have him say?
No brainer today
"Hancock killing Granny's".
It is a shocking state of affairs, a leader of the supposed Labour Party arrogantly implying the average (pebbledashed house, toolmaker dad & nurse mum) British family should somehow be far superior to a Polish family.
Tosser with a capital T
I am going to try to ignore your perpetual, petty sniping at Starmer going forward. He's a long way from perfect but compared to anyone in the Tory leadership, and particularly compared to the fuckwit Johnson (who you were prepared to vote for let us remember), Starmer is just fine.
So, I'm going to try to ignore you, but it's hard because your focus on undermining Labour instead of attacking the true culprits is really bloody intensely irritating.
That feels better.
SKS is BJ but worse
Equal in the liar Department
Equal in the only in it for himself department
Equal in the warmonger Department
Worse in the Democracy Department
Any evidence to back any of that up..
I really do wonder if @bigjohnowls is just enjoying rubbing up Labour supporters for the sake of it
He definitely does, but that doesn’t stop me worrying about him. There is an obsessive level of bitterness that’s not healthy.
To be fair you can see that in other posters including @Scott_xP who is embittered by Brexit
Embittered is precisely the right word. The past few years have left me with my mouth agog, watching my country inflict massive damage on itself, damage that will last years, decades.
I have sympathy with people in Germany in 1933, watching on astonished as people then, too, fell for cynical, right-wing, unicorn-promising bullshit. Let’s be honest, if born in a different time and place, the lunatics who brought us Brexit would have been burning books and firebombing synagogues, collarbones shattering as they flung their right arms high into the air.
It’s been nauseating to see the Brexit Borg on here frotting themselves silly over Sunak’s newly discovered genius in slightly damping down one corner of the raging bin fire the right-wing of this country has cheerfully dragged us into. Sunak, the moron who has the temerity to tell us how fortunate NI is to be in the single market. And the Borg frot away, trotting out the same tired lies.
And supposedly intelligent, dispassionate, coolly analytical types gaze upon the Tory-delivered bin fire, as prices rise, the rivers fill with shit, the shelves empty, food rots in the fields, industries wither, we have to devise the atrocity that is warm spaces, and smugly tell us that we’re better off.
Cameron trying to control his ERG nutters, putting party before country and accidentally taking us out of the EU, is like Hindenberg and von Papen thinking they were smart in taking Hitler into the fold.
In 25 years time, once the next generation have delivered their own stunde null and cast off the poisonous legacy bequeathed on them by the Boomers and the misty-eyed nostalgics, the deluded swivel-eyed nationalists weeping at the death of the Queen whilst carelessly screwing the country, we’ll look back on the past few years with horror.
Yes, I am very bitter.
I added my like for a fine example of the empassioned rant.
Don't agree with all of it, but it's a good attack on many of the politicans that brought us Brexit, promising populist bullshit.
I hesitated only because it can be read as a broadside against all who voted Brexit - there are some who voted Brexit for sincerely held principled reasons and can be happy with what they have done. For the leaders of vote leave, I share your contempt (but also for the leaders of the remain cause, for losing to them and failing to make the positive case for EU membership).
"It's OK to give the hospital keys to the national pervert because Tony Blair had him round for dinner once" is a great electoral slogan for the Tories?
I haven't noticed Edwina Currie on the Tory candidates list again?
I believe the former DPP who never prosecuted Savile might have something to do with the top of today's Labour Party though!
I’m surprised at you, that’s a little cheap.
Agree. What with the constant comments on Starmer being privately educated and this it is really a bit below HYUFD to make these misleading comments. It is not like they are errors. He knows they are misleading. I know he might come back with they are true statements, but they are incredibly disingenuous. I'm not a Starmer fan, but it wouldn't cross my mind to make these statements.
Though apparently earlier in the thread it is fine to trash the King or Thatcher government for having links with Savile. However mention Blair's links to Savile or SKS' record on Savile and that is a huge no no!
What record?
His record of being DPP when absolutely not a shred of evidence about Savile came anywhere close to crossing his desk.
SO HYUFD is saying up front that Mr Starmer did not prosecute Savile, in a discussion of politicians and the great and the good sucking up to Savile? As I recall, fellow Tory MPs were horrified - and said so - when Mr Johnson came up with that sort of stuff in the HoC. Where statements are not actionable. Here, on the other hand ...
Starmer didn't prosecute Savile when Director of the DPP, that is a matter of public record.
Now he may argue he didn't have sufficient evidence at the time to do so but one could also ask why had they not obtained that evidence given what we now know?
Is that how the DPP works? I always thought the police investigated crimes and then brought their evidence to the DPP to ascertain whether there was a strong enough case to prosecute. I didn't imagine that the DPP would go to the police and say "Look here chaps, that Saville chap seems a bit of a paedo, something not quite right about the cut of his jib - yes I know he spends Christmas with the Thatchers and is a prominent supporter of the Conservative party, but even so I sense he's a bad egg - bring me some evidence and I'll throw the book at him." I'm not a legal expert so I don't know how the whole thing works, but I imagine that HYUFD probably understands the whole thing perfectly and can tell us how it works. On the subject of Saville - taking down his statue - good call or bad call?
Statue? Ooh, that's a tricky one. Great charity hero, member of the Tory Party, etc. And lots of slavers went in for rape and sexual abuse. I wonder what someome would say if the statues of slave-owners who went in for charitable works were, let's imagine, pulled down and chucked in a lake?
(No, quite right to pull it down. Yet the echoes are very uncomfortable.)
That corresponds with my surveyor friend who says his workload went from brisk to tumbleweed overnight following the Truss reign/interest rate rise.
Hopefully a long-overdue price correction is coming.
As someone who bought his home in December, I couldn't give less of a shit if I end up in negative equity and bought at the top of the market. I have a home, that's more than many other people, and if I was renting it'd be dead money anyway so who cares if a theoretical number goes negative.
If people who "invested" in property portfolios end up in negative equity on the other hand, then caveat emptor applies. If they lose everything, they deserve no more sympathy than those who invested in Woolworths or any other failed investment.
The correction in house prices since 2007 has come in fits and starts, but it's certainly there. Wages have risen faster than house prices over the past 15 years.
Do you mind me asking where you're getting your data from please? I'm not saying you're wrong, but that doesn't match with the data I've seen.
"It's OK to give the hospital keys to the national pervert because Tony Blair had him round for dinner once" is a great electoral slogan for the Tories?
I haven't noticed Edwina Currie on the Tory candidates list again?
I believe the former DPP who never prosecuted Savile might have something to do with the top of today's Labour Party though!
I’m surprised at you, that’s a little cheap.
Agree. What with the constant comments on Starmer being privately educated and this it is really a bit below HYUFD to make these misleading comments. It is not like they are errors. He knows they are misleading. I know he might come back with they are true statements, but they are incredibly disingenuous. I'm not a Starmer fan, but it wouldn't cross my mind to make these statements.
Though apparently earlier in the thread it is fine to trash the King or Thatcher government for having links with Savile. However mention Blair's links to Savile or SKS' record on Savile and that is a huge no no!
What record?
His record of being DPP when absolutely not a shred of evidence about Savile came anywhere close to crossing his desk.
SO HYUFD is saying up front that Mr Starmer did not prosecute Savile, in a discussion of politicians and the great and the good sucking up to Savile? As I recall, fellow Tory MPs were horrified - and said so - when Mr Johnson came up with that sort of stuff in the HoC. Where statements are not actionable. Here, on the other hand ...
Starmer didn't prosecute Savile when Director of the DPP, that is a matter of public record.
Now he may argue he didn't have sufficient evidence at the time to do so but one could also ask why had they not obtained that evidence given what we now know?
Is that how the DPP works? I always thought the police investigated crimes and then brought their evidence to the DPP to ascertain whether there was a strong enough case to prosecute. I didn't imagine that the DPP would go to the police and say "Look here chaps, that Saville chap seems a bit of a paedo, something not quite right about the cut of his jib - yes I know he spends Christmas with the Thatchers and is a prominent supporter of the Conservative party, but even so I sense he's a bad egg - bring me some evidence and I'll throw the book at him." I'm not a legal expert so I don't know how the whole thing works, but I imagine that HYUFD probably understands the whole thing perfectly and can tell us how it works. On the subject of Saville - taking down his statue - good call or bad call?
“On the subject of Saville - taking down his statue - good call or bad call?”
Got to be careful about it imo. At first he had quite a big headstone on his grave, and lots of flowers, but people came and smashed the headstone up and put it in a skip, and chucked all the flowers away. Now there’s just this little mound with nothing on it, which turns out exactly what Saville was really after all along.
Reportedly the king wants to move his brother Andrew into Frogmore, which he is kicking Harry and family out of, but Andrew wants to stay put in the Windsor Royal Lodge. This begs the question of who, if anybody, the king is planning to insert into the WRL. If I had to guess, I would guess somebody who is not a member of the royal family.
If I were the King I would move the Prince and Princess of Wales into WRL once Andrew is evicted and the Wessexes into Adelaide Cottage as their Windsor base
Bagshot Park is pretty much on the Windsor estate anyway so the Wessexes are already fine. I expect that the Crown could be looking to let the Royal Lodge for revenue. The King is said not to like Windsor so much, so possibly the Prince of Wales may be based more in the Castle.
If the king were to do it how HYUFD would do it, there would then be a question of who to move in to Bagshot Park. As well as the question of whether shuffling so many members of his family between residences as if they were Playmobil figures just because he's had a falling out with his second son might not be storing up trouble for the future.
If he were to let the WRL, how would the rent be set? Cheap to a friend wouldn't look good. Market rate to whichever Gulf oil sheikh slaps enough money on the table (money that's doubtless as clean as a whistle) and who perhaps keeps a fleet of gold-plated Rollers? Is that really the look the king wants? How much tax would he pay on the rental income? It would be far better not to change so much so fast. Win some respect, y'know? The monarchy's position is more precarious than he seems to think.
Similarly with telling the BBC to delay the Jimmy Savile documentary - if he did, and it sounds as though he did. Just accept that during his life this 74 year old has known a wrongun or two and nobody expects a man who was almost a lifelong Prince of Wales to have shown 100% good judgement across all those decades. Play it a bit Scandinavian too. Abolish curtseying and having men in tights grovel out of audience rooms backwards dressed like actors playing Richard III. Methinks his comms won't be run like that, though. He's a disaster waiting to happen.
Bagshot Park is in Surrey partly. Adelaide cottage is far closer to Windsor Castle itself for the Wessexes to also use if the Prince and Princess of Wales moved to Royal Lodge. Prince Anne could share Adelaide Cottage with the Wessexes as her main home is in Gloucestershire
There is probably an optimal solution in there somewhere, but what was the problem? "C'mon you idiots, can't you make sure I've got the right pen?" "And you say you're my family, but why can't you all reside where I want you to?" If he goes on like this, more people will walk out on him.
I'm not wholly convinced this week's events will help the Prime Minister that much. John Major, among others, did marvellous work in Northern Ireland but gained little from it electorally in the rest of the UK. The truth is, however much it's boosted by Conservative supporters and pro-Conservative media, most people don't care that much about Northern Ireland.
I don't imagine in 2016 many contemplating a LEAVE vote considered the impact of such a vote on Northern Ireland and its politics - I could be wrong.
Sunak, to his credit, has delivered a deal and perhaps it's a sign unlike on here the emotions of the past seven years are being replaced by a pragmatic reality. It takes two to tango - arguably both the UK and the EU have "won" simply by removing the issue from the board. Naturally, some on here emphasise the positives for Britain but let's not forget it's probably a good deal for the EU inasmuch as it provides a sound economic and political relationship with the UK going forward.
Nobody will be talking about re-joining but the adversarial nature of the post-2016 relationship on both sides is finally being replaced by the necessity to make this work. Those who still want the fight will deny the deal but the truth is more now want to move on and in that regard Sunak was pushing at a door far more easy to open than was the case a few years go.
The Tories have infamously been pandering to the DUP for many years now -and allowing them to wreck Stormont's business as the NI parliament while keeping most of their salaries. So knowing a bit about NI isn't going to cause most folk to feel more positive. Mr Sunak is still very much in clearing up his lot's mess mode, I think.
There’s not much that can be done if either side wants to suspend Stormont.
When SF shut it down, were you upset?
When 70 odd party members of SF in good standing were all in the same 6 foot square toilet, when a man was slowly beaten to death in the bar… were you worried? When SF threatened to suspend the assembly, again, if the police enquiry wasn’t handled more “sensitively”…
Well, it turns out that people listened. And learned.
That’s the Peace Process.
Unless you are anti-agreement Man Of Violence?
That’s the problem.
Most critics of the DUP think it entirely fair and reasonable for Sinn Fein to shut down the Assembly, if they can’t get their way.
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Strange how any criticism of the DUP leads to assumptions that one is pro-SF, terrorists, etc.
Did I say that? No.
People rightly tear the DUP to shreds all the time because they act like caricatures of Unionists, the proverbial William Ulsterman of Harry Enfield fame. The idea all those people are pro-SF is insanity.
When I am being punched in the face it's not unreasonable for me to criticise the person doing so, even if the bloke a few feet away had also punched me in the face awhile ago.
"It's OK to give the hospital keys to the national pervert because Tony Blair had him round for dinner once" is a great electoral slogan for the Tories?
I haven't noticed Edwina Currie on the Tory candidates list again?
I believe the former DPP who never prosecuted Savile might have something to do with the top of today's Labour Party though!
I’m surprised at you, that’s a little cheap.
Agree. What with the constant comments on Starmer being privately educated and this it is really a bit below HYUFD to make these misleading comments. It is not like they are errors. He knows they are misleading. I know he might come back with they are true statements, but they are incredibly disingenuous. I'm not a Starmer fan, but it wouldn't cross my mind to make these statements.
Though apparently earlier in the thread it is fine to trash the King or Thatcher government for having links with Savile. However mention Blair's links to Savile or SKS' record on Savile and that is a huge no no!
What record?
His record of being DPP when absolutely not a shred of evidence about Savile came anywhere close to crossing his desk.
SO HYUFD is saying up front that Mr Starmer did not prosecute Savile, in a discussion of politicians and the great and the good sucking up to Savile? As I recall, fellow Tory MPs were horrified - and said so - when Mr Johnson came up with that sort of stuff in the HoC. Where statements are not actionable. Here, on the other hand ...
Starmer didn't prosecute Savile when Director of the DPP, that is a matter of public record.
Now he may argue he didn't have sufficient evidence at the time to do so but one could also ask why had they not obtained that evidence given what we now know?
Is that how the DPP works? I always thought the police investigated crimes and then brought their evidence to the DPP to ascertain whether there was a strong enough case to prosecute. I didn't imagine that the DPP would go to the police and say "Look here chaps, that Saville chap seems a bit of a paedo, something not quite right about the cut of his jib - yes I know he spends Christmas with the Thatchers and is a prominent supporter of the Conservative party, but even so I sense he's a bad egg - bring me some evidence and I'll throw the book at him." I'm not a legal expert so I don't know how the whole thing works, but I imagine that HYUFD probably understands the whole thing perfectly and can tell us how it works. On the subject of Saville - taking down his statue - good call or bad call?
Perhaps Sir Keir should have done his own bit of sleuthing on the side and exposed the baddy where the police failed, like they did in all those US TV dramas from yesteryear: Perry Mason and so forth.
Interesting that the UK's formal accession to the CPTPP looks set to be announced in the next few weeks. So much for the theory that Rishi is backsliding on Brexit somehow. As @Casino_Royale and I have been saying, the WF closes the door on the single market and customs union version of Brexit, pushing ahead with the CPTPP shows that we're not going to be in either of those any time soon.
Closing the book on NI also closes the book on Brexit. It is, IMO, now complete and from this point the relationship with the EU will be defined by the TCA and changes to it to ease trade but there is no longer that hope in the EU that they can crowbar the UK into the single market or dynamic alignment using NI.
Once we join the CPTPP I think within 5 years the nature of the who we do business with will just change and UK PLC will have to adapt to compete with imports from significantly more dynamic and better invested Asian companies than what they're used to. I'm very interested to see which companies are able to compete and which just wither and die because they failed to invest over the last 10 years and instead paid huge dividends to shareholders and bonuses to executives.
You're forgetting something... Keir Starmer is probably going to be PM in less than two years.
But the whole first term is going to be pledged not to change anything wrt Brexit and by 2029 the economy is going to look very different than it does now, our balance of imports and exports will be much less dominated by the EU.
And then what? Think about the politics for a second.
A large chunk of the Brexit vote was from workers unhappy about being undercut by workers in Eastern Europe. You seem to be proposing that they will be undercut by workers in East Asia.
Shock therapy is one thing, but do you really think any politician of any party would dare let that happen on their watch?
I think we also need to bear in mind that a lot of hardcore remainers/rejoiners who are remaining quiet at the moment will be less so when we are mid-term through a Labour government. They'll be wanting some red meat for backing Labour.
Or indeed any Lib Dems, Greens, Plaids or Scot Nats needed to get Labour over the line in a hung parliament.
Conservatives fearful of a radical government might be better off with a solid Labour majority.
On which ... the SNP leaders' hustings just this minute, fxrom the National.
8:49pm The last question of the night: will Scotland ask for a similar arrangement that Northern Ireland has been granted with regards to membership of the EU single-market? #
Kate Forbes says "if Northern Ireland can do it, why can't Scotland?" [...]
Ash Regan says that while she would ask the UK Government for a similar arrangement she doesn't think it would be forthcoming.
She says that she thinks that the European Free Trade Association could be a good option for Scotland in the short-term because rejoining the EU may take "up to ten years"
Humza Yousaf says that the party should make sure the clip of Rishi Sunak preaching about the benefits of the EU single-market for Northern Ireland should "be in every living room"
"How dare they stop us from having what Northern Ireland has"
Sunak selling his Got Brexit Done deal as Northern Ireland being in the best place on Earth - in UK and EU single market - whilst denying that “best place on earth” to Scotland, England and Wales?
He’s certainly done the SNP and Scottish Independence homework for them, by defining what happens to their UK border once they are independent. Not only that but by telling separatists this will be the best place on earth, quite an advantage over England to be there, the Conservative Primeminister giving them a huge boost and incentive to go there has he not?
"It's OK to give the hospital keys to the national pervert because Tony Blair had him round for dinner once" is a great electoral slogan for the Tories?
I haven't noticed Edwina Currie on the Tory candidates list again?
I believe the former DPP who never prosecuted Savile might have something to do with the top of today's Labour Party though!
I’m surprised at you, that’s a little cheap.
Agree. What with the constant comments on Starmer being privately educated and this it is really a bit below HYUFD to make these misleading comments. It is not like they are errors. He knows they are misleading. I know he might come back with they are true statements, but they are incredibly disingenuous. I'm not a Starmer fan, but it wouldn't cross my mind to make these statements.
Though apparently earlier in the thread it is fine to trash the King or Thatcher government for having links with Savile. However mention Blair's links to Savile or SKS' record on Savile and that is a huge no no!
Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because someone else does something you don't like does not make it ok for you to make utterly misleading comments about someone else. SKS doesn't have a record re Saville and you know it, so why say it?
The original tweet against the King came from Labour for a Republic. If they can't take it they shouldn't dish it out, that's politics!!
What? Your not attacking them though are you? You are libeling Starmer instead. So it has nothing to do with dishing it out and not taking it has it? How would you like it if someone unjustifiably accused you of negligence which resulted in you protecting a sex offender?
Nothing libellous about it. It is unarguable Starmer was head of the DPP from 2008 to 2011 when Savile was still alive and the CPS did not prosecute him.
If leftists like Labour for a Republic can't take what they dish out, tough!
Repeating the same tosh does not make it right. As you haven't attacked Labour for Republic (whoever they are) how is there any issue of them not taking what they dish out. You seem to be confused about who you are attacking. You are attacking Starmer not them.
You have implied that Starmer was at least incompetent or negligent in not prosecuting Saville or worse deliberately didn't do so. That is libellous. Or are you saying you are not saying any of this. If so what is your point of mentioning Starmer and Saville in the same post then? Guilty by innuendo?
Interesting that the UK's formal accession to the CPTPP looks set to be announced in the next few weeks. So much for the theory that Rishi is backsliding on Brexit somehow. As @Casino_Royale and I have been saying, the WF closes the door on the single market and customs union version of Brexit, pushing ahead with the CPTPP shows that we're not going to be in either of those any time soon.
Closing the book on NI also closes the book on Brexit. It is, IMO, now complete and from this point the relationship with the EU will be defined by the TCA and changes to it to ease trade but there is no longer that hope in the EU that they can crowbar the UK into the single market or dynamic alignment using NI.
Once we join the CPTPP I think within 5 years the nature of the who we do business with will just change and UK PLC will have to adapt to compete with imports from significantly more dynamic and better invested Asian companies than what they're used to. I'm very interested to see which companies are able to compete and which just wither and die because they failed to invest over the last 10 years and instead paid huge dividends to shareholders and bonuses to executives.
You're forgetting something... Keir Starmer is probably going to be PM in less than two years.
But the whole first term is going to be pledged not to change anything wrt Brexit and by 2029 the economy is going to look very different than it does now, our balance of imports and exports will be much less dominated by the EU.
And then what? Think about the politics for a second.
A large chunk of the Brexit vote was from workers unhappy about being undercut by workers in Eastern Europe. You seem to be proposing that they will be undercut by workers in East Asia.
Shock therapy is one thing, but do you really think any politician of any party would dare let that happen on their watch?
I think we also need to bear in mind that a lot of hardcore remainers/rejoiners who are remaining quiet at the moment will be less so when we are mid-term through a Labour government. They'll be wanting some red meat for backing Labour.
Or indeed any Lib Dems, Greens, Plaids or Scot Nats needed to get Labour over the line in a hung parliament.
Conservatives fearful of a radical government might be better off with a solid Labour majority.
On which ... the SNP leaders' hustings just this minute, fxrom the National.
8:49pm The last question of the night: will Scotland ask for a similar arrangement that Northern Ireland has been granted with regards to membership of the EU single-market? #
Kate Forbes says "if Northern Ireland can do it, why can't Scotland?" [...]
Ash Regan says that while she would ask the UK Government for a similar arrangement she doesn't think it would be forthcoming.
She says that she thinks that the European Free Trade Association could be a good option for Scotland in the short-term because rejoining the EU may take "up to ten years"
Humza Yousaf says that the party should make sure the clip of Rishi Sunak preaching about the benefits of the EU single-market for Northern Ireland should "be in every living room"
"How dare they stop us from having what Northern Ireland has"
Sunak selling his Got Brexit Done deal as Northern Ireland being in the best place on Earth - in UK and EU single market - whilst denying that “best place on earth” to Scotland, England and Wales?
He’s certainly done the SNP and Scottish Independence homework for them, by defining what happens to their UK border once they are independent. Not only that but by telling separatists this will be the best place on earth, quite an advantage over England to be there, the Conservative Primeminister giving them a huge boost and incentive to go there has he not?
I'm not wholly convinced this week's events will help the Prime Minister that much. John Major, among others, did marvellous work in Northern Ireland but gained little from it electorally in the rest of the UK. The truth is, however much it's boosted by Conservative supporters and pro-Conservative media, most people don't care that much about Northern Ireland.
I don't imagine in 2016 many contemplating a LEAVE vote considered the impact of such a vote on Northern Ireland and its politics - I could be wrong.
Sunak, to his credit, has delivered a deal and perhaps it's a sign unlike on here the emotions of the past seven years are being replaced by a pragmatic reality. It takes two to tango - arguably both the UK and the EU have "won" simply by removing the issue from the board. Naturally, some on here emphasise the positives for Britain but let's not forget it's probably a good deal for the EU inasmuch as it provides a sound economic and political relationship with the UK going forward.
Nobody will be talking about re-joining but the adversarial nature of the post-2016 relationship on both sides is finally being replaced by the necessity to make this work. Those who still want the fight will deny the deal but the truth is more now want to move on and in that regard Sunak was pushing at a door far more easy to open than was the case a few years go.
The Tories have infamously been pandering to the DUP for many years now -and allowing them to wreck Stormont's business as the NI parliament while keeping most of their salaries. So knowing a bit about NI isn't going to cause most folk to feel more positive. Mr Sunak is still very much in clearing up his lot's mess mode, I think.
There’s not much that can be done if either side wants to suspend Stormont.
When SF shut it down, were you upset?
When 70 odd party members of SF in good standing were all in the same 6 foot square toilet, when a man was slowly beaten to death in the bar… were you worried? When SF threatened to suspend the assembly, again, if the police enquiry wasn’t handled more “sensitively”…
Well, it turns out that people listened. And learned.
That’s the Peace Process.
Unless you are anti-agreement Man Of Violence?
That’s the problem.
Most critics of the DUP think it entirely fair and reasonable for Sinn Fein to shut down the Assembly, if they can’t get their way.
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Strange how any criticism of the DUP leads to assumptions that one is pro-SF, terrorists, etc.
Did I say that? No.
I’ve been horrified, personally, by quite how quickly we’ve allowed the DUP to be legitimised. I’m old enough to remember when me saying I held them in almost as much contempt as Sinn Fein/IRA, was not at all controversial.
Lots of us who wish NI well agree. Once they decided that SF and DUP would be the ones who get the votes and not SDLP and UUP then the message is, sadly clear.
Sinn Fein and the DUP are wankers, without question.
I’d far rather see an executive based upon UUP, SDLP, Alliance, with the rest sidelined.
But, the GFA makes it sensible to vote for wankers, to protect your community’s interests.
It's how Boris won a majority in 2019. He promised to stand up to the EU and after the nation watched Theresa May grub on her knees for three years begging for scraps they then refused to give her voting for the bastard seemed like the sensible option. So it has come to pass, the bastard got us the TCA and another bastard sticking A16 into the NIP has paved the way for this deal.
Interesting that the UK's formal accession to the CPTPP looks set to be announced in the next few weeks. So much for the theory that Rishi is backsliding on Brexit somehow. As @Casino_Royale and I have been saying, the WF closes the door on the single market and customs union version of Brexit, pushing ahead with the CPTPP shows that we're not going to be in either of those any time soon.
Closing the book on NI also closes the book on Brexit. It is, IMO, now complete and from this point the relationship with the EU will be defined by the TCA and changes to it to ease trade but there is no longer that hope in the EU that they can crowbar the UK into the single market or dynamic alignment using NI.
Once we join the CPTPP I think within 5 years the nature of the who we do business with will just change and UK PLC will have to adapt to compete with imports from significantly more dynamic and better invested Asian companies than what they're used to. I'm very interested to see which companies are able to compete and which just wither and die because they failed to invest over the last 10 years and instead paid huge dividends to shareholders and bonuses to executives.
You're forgetting something... Keir Starmer is probably going to be PM in less than two years.
But the whole first term is going to be pledged not to change anything wrt Brexit and by 2029 the economy is going to look very different than it does now, our balance of imports and exports will be much less dominated by the EU.
And then what? Think about the politics for a second.
A large chunk of the Brexit vote was from workers unhappy about being undercut by workers in Eastern Europe. You seem to be proposing that they will be undercut by workers in East Asia.
Shock therapy is one thing, but do you really think any politician of any party would dare let that happen on their watch?
I think we also need to bear in mind that a lot of hardcore remainers/rejoiners who are remaining quiet at the moment will be less so when we are mid-term through a Labour government. They'll be wanting some red meat for backing Labour.
Or indeed any Lib Dems, Greens, Plaids or Scot Nats needed to get Labour over the line in a hung parliament.
Conservatives fearful of a radical government might be better off with a solid Labour majority.
On which ... the SNP leaders' hustings just this minute, fxrom the National.
8:49pm The last question of the night: will Scotland ask for a similar arrangement that Northern Ireland has been granted with regards to membership of the EU single-market? #
Kate Forbes says "if Northern Ireland can do it, why can't Scotland?" [...]
Ash Regan says that while she would ask the UK Government for a similar arrangement she doesn't think it would be forthcoming.
She says that she thinks that the European Free Trade Association could be a good option for Scotland in the short-term because rejoining the EU may take "up to ten years"
Humza Yousaf says that the party should make sure the clip of Rishi Sunak preaching about the benefits of the EU single-market for Northern Ireland should "be in every living room"
"How dare they stop us from having what Northern Ireland has"
Sunak selling his Got Brexit Done deal as Northern Ireland being in the best place on Earth - in UK and EU single market - whilst denying that “best place on earth” to Scotland, England and Wales?
He’s certainly done the SNP and Scottish Independence homework for them, by defining what happens to their UK border once they are independent. Not only that but by telling separatists this will be the best place on earth, quite an advantage over England to be there, the Conservative Primeminister giving them a huge boost and incentive to go there has he not?
HY?
No he hasn't, Northern Ireland only got this deal as it was still in the UK.
Had it joined a United Ireland a hard border would have been put back in the Irish Sea tomorrow
It's almost funny how epically unselfaware some people are. He piles on 100% more work and becomes agitated when people object. Meanwhile, sucking up to those same people in public.
Nauseating hypocrite. As well as a liar, cheat and failure.
And yet still very popular in South Staffordshire.
"It's OK to give the hospital keys to the national pervert because Tony Blair had him round for dinner once" is a great electoral slogan for the Tories?
I haven't noticed Edwina Currie on the Tory candidates list again?
I believe the former DPP who never prosecuted Savile might have something to do with the top of today's Labour Party though!
I’m surprised at you, that’s a little cheap.
Agree. What with the constant comments on Starmer being privately educated and this it is really a bit below HYUFD to make these misleading comments. It is not like they are errors. He knows they are misleading. I know he might come back with they are true statements, but they are incredibly disingenuous. I'm not a Starmer fan, but it wouldn't cross my mind to make these statements.
Though apparently earlier in the thread it is fine to trash the King or Thatcher government for having links with Savile. However mention Blair's links to Savile or SKS' record on Savile and that is a huge no no!
Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because someone else does something you don't like does not make it ok for you to make utterly misleading comments about someone else. SKS doesn't have a record re Saville and you know it, so why say it?
The original tweet against the King came from Labour for a Republic. If they can't take it they shouldn't dish it out, that's politics!!
What? Your not attacking them though are you? You are libeling Starmer instead. So it has nothing to do with dishing it out and not taking it has it? How would you like it if someone unjustifiably accused you of negligence which resulted in you protecting a sex offender?
Nothing libellous about it. It is unarguable Starmer was head of the DPP from 2008 to 2011 when Savile was still alive and the CPS did not prosecute him.
If leftists like Labour for a Republic can't take what they dish out, tough!
Not wanting to get dragged into the details, but. He stood down in November 2013. So. A full 3 and a half years of a Conservative PM shielding his evil protection of perverts. Cameron should be strung up for that. As should all the government MP's who stood by and did nothing. They ought to all resign immediately on principle and stand for a by election if they have the front to even show their faces in public. It's a disgrace.
People moan and sound off about people they serve or interact with as part of their jobs, it's fairly normal. I'm sure politicians also moan about the public. I would. Of course, if you're silly or unfortunate enough to get caught, you know a defence of 'Was just expressing frustration' won't cut much ice.
I'm not wholly convinced this week's events will help the Prime Minister that much. John Major, among others, did marvellous work in Northern Ireland but gained little from it electorally in the rest of the UK. The truth is, however much it's boosted by Conservative supporters and pro-Conservative media, most people don't care that much about Northern Ireland.
I don't imagine in 2016 many contemplating a LEAVE vote considered the impact of such a vote on Northern Ireland and its politics - I could be wrong.
Sunak, to his credit, has delivered a deal and perhaps it's a sign unlike on here the emotions of the past seven years are being replaced by a pragmatic reality. It takes two to tango - arguably both the UK and the EU have "won" simply by removing the issue from the board. Naturally, some on here emphasise the positives for Britain but let's not forget it's probably a good deal for the EU inasmuch as it provides a sound economic and political relationship with the UK going forward.
Nobody will be talking about re-joining but the adversarial nature of the post-2016 relationship on both sides is finally being replaced by the necessity to make this work. Those who still want the fight will deny the deal but the truth is more now want to move on and in that regard Sunak was pushing at a door far more easy to open than was the case a few years go.
The Tories have infamously been pandering to the DUP for many years now -and allowing them to wreck Stormont's business as the NI parliament while keeping most of their salaries. So knowing a bit about NI isn't going to cause most folk to feel more positive. Mr Sunak is still very much in clearing up his lot's mess mode, I think.
There’s not much that can be done if either side wants to suspend Stormont.
When SF shut it down, were you upset?
When 70 odd party members of SF in good standing were all in the same 6 foot square toilet, when a man was slowly beaten to death in the bar… were you worried? When SF threatened to suspend the assembly, again, if the police enquiry wasn’t handled more “sensitively”…
Well, it turns out that people listened. And learned.
That’s the Peace Process.
Unless you are anti-agreement Man Of Violence?
That’s the problem.
Most critics of the DUP think it entirely fair and reasonable for Sinn Fein to shut down the Assembly, if they can’t get their way.
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Strange how any criticism of the DUP leads to assumptions that one is pro-SF, terrorists, etc.
Did I say that? No.
I’ve been horrified, personally, by quite how quickly we’ve allowed the DUP to be legitimised. I’m old enough to remember when me saying I held them in almost as much contempt as Sinn Fein/IRA, was not at all controversial.
Lots of us who wish NI well agree. Once they decided that SF and DUP would be the ones who get the votes and not SDLP and UUP then the message is, sadly clear.
Sinn Fein and the DUP are wankers, without question.
I’d far rather see an executive based upon UUP, SDLP, Alliance, with the rest sidelined.
But, the GFA makes it sensible to vote for wankers, to protect your community’s interests.
And someone gets it.
Having had a casting call for face eating leopards, employed a select group of face eating leopards, promoted the most face eating leopards etc.
We now have people going “Why the fuck are we up to our nuts in face eating leopards? Also they are the wrong kind of face eating leopards.”
"It's OK to give the hospital keys to the national pervert because Tony Blair had him round for dinner once" is a great electoral slogan for the Tories?
I haven't noticed Edwina Currie on the Tory candidates list again?
I believe the former DPP who never prosecuted Savile might have something to do with the top of today's Labour Party though!
I’m surprised at you, that’s a little cheap.
Agree. What with the constant comments on Starmer being privately educated and this it is really a bit below HYUFD to make these misleading comments. It is not like they are errors. He knows they are misleading. I know he might come back with they are true statements, but they are incredibly disingenuous. I'm not a Starmer fan, but it wouldn't cross my mind to make these statements.
Though apparently earlier in the thread it is fine to trash the King or Thatcher government for having links with Savile. However mention Blair's links to Savile or SKS' record on Savile and that is a huge no no!
Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because someone else does something you don't like does not make it ok for you to make utterly misleading comments about someone else. SKS doesn't have a record re Saville and you know it, so why say it?
The original tweet against the King came from Labour for a Republic. If they can't take it they shouldn't dish it out, that's politics!!
What? Your not attacking them though are you? You are libeling Starmer instead. So it has nothing to do with dishing it out and not taking it has it? How would you like it if someone unjustifiably accused you of negligence which resulted in you protecting a sex offender?
Nothing libellous about it. It is unarguable Starmer was head of the DPP from 2008 to 2011 when Savile was still alive and the CPS did not prosecute him.
If leftists like Labour for a Republic can't take what they dish out, tough!
Repeating the same tosh does not make it right. As you haven't attacked Labour for Republic (whoever they are) how is there any issue of them not taking what they dish out. You seem to be confused about who you are attacking. You are attacking Starmer not them.
You have implied that Starmer was at least incompetent or negligent in not prosecuting Saville or worse deliberately didn't do so. That is libellous. Or are you saying you are not saying any of this. If so what is your point of mentioning Starmer and Saville in the same post then? Guilty by innuendo?
Labour for Republic are a pressure group within the Labour Party which Starmer leads. Today they made an appalling attack on the King and his connection to Savile, posted on here by Stuart Dickson.
If Starmer doesn't then want his own record questioned by association he should expel Labour for a Republic from the Labour Party exactly as he has expelled Corbyn!
"It's OK to give the hospital keys to the national pervert because Tony Blair had him round for dinner once" is a great electoral slogan for the Tories?
I haven't noticed Edwina Currie on the Tory candidates list again?
I believe the former DPP who never prosecuted Savile might have something to do with the top of today's Labour Party though!
I’m surprised at you, that’s a little cheap.
Agree. What with the constant comments on Starmer being privately educated and this it is really a bit below HYUFD to make these misleading comments. It is not like they are errors. He knows they are misleading. I know he might come back with they are true statements, but they are incredibly disingenuous. I'm not a Starmer fan, but it wouldn't cross my mind to make these statements.
Though apparently earlier in the thread it is fine to trash the King or Thatcher government for having links with Savile. However mention Blair's links to Savile or SKS' record on Savile and that is a huge no no!
What record?
His record of being DPP when absolutely not a shred of evidence about Savile came anywhere close to crossing his desk.
SO HYUFD is saying up front that Mr Starmer did not prosecute Savile, in a discussion of politicians and the great and the good sucking up to Savile? As I recall, fellow Tory MPs were horrified - and said so - when Mr Johnson came up with that sort of stuff in the HoC. Where statements are not actionable. Here, on the other hand ...
Starmer didn't prosecute Savile when Director of the DPP, that is a matter of public record.
Now he may argue he didn't have sufficient evidence at the time to do so but one could also ask why had they not obtained that evidence given what we now know?
Is that how the DPP works? I always thought the police investigated crimes and then brought their evidence to the DPP to ascertain whether there was a strong enough case to prosecute. I didn't imagine that the DPP would go to the police and say "Look here chaps, that Saville chap seems a bit of a paedo, something not quite right about the cut of his jib - yes I know he spends Christmas with the Thatchers and is a prominent supporter of the Conservative party, but even so I sense he's a bad egg - bring me some evidence and I'll throw the book at him." I'm not a legal expert so I don't know how the whole thing works, but I imagine that HYUFD probably understands the whole thing perfectly and can tell us how it works. On the subject of Saville - taking down his statue - good call or bad call?
Perhaps Sir Keir should have done his own bit of sleuthing on the side and exposed the baddy where the police failed, like they did in all those US TV dramas from yesteryear: Perry Mason and so forth.
On the same theme why didn't Starmer find Lord Lucan?
"It's OK to give the hospital keys to the national pervert because Tony Blair had him round for dinner once" is a great electoral slogan for the Tories?
I haven't noticed Edwina Currie on the Tory candidates list again?
I believe the former DPP who never prosecuted Savile might have something to do with the top of today's Labour Party though!
I’m surprised at you, that’s a little cheap.
Agree. What with the constant comments on Starmer being privately educated and this it is really a bit below HYUFD to make these misleading comments. It is not like they are errors. He knows they are misleading. I know he might come back with they are true statements, but they are incredibly disingenuous. I'm not a Starmer fan, but it wouldn't cross my mind to make these statements.
Though apparently earlier in the thread it is fine to trash the King or Thatcher government for having links with Savile. However mention Blair's links to Savile or SKS' record on Savile and that is a huge no no!
What record?
His record of being DPP when absolutely not a shred of evidence about Savile came anywhere close to crossing his desk.
SO HYUFD is saying up front that Mr Starmer did not prosecute Savile, in a discussion of politicians and the great and the good sucking up to Savile? As I recall, fellow Tory MPs were horrified - and said so - when Mr Johnson came up with that sort of stuff in the HoC. Where statements are not actionable. Here, on the other hand ...
Starmer didn't prosecute Savile when Director of the DPP, that is a matter of public record.
Now he may argue he didn't have sufficient evidence at the time to do so but one could also ask why had they not obtained that evidence given what we now know?
Is that how the DPP works? I always thought the police investigated crimes and then brought their evidence to the DPP to ascertain whether there was a strong enough case to prosecute. I didn't imagine that the DPP would go to the police and say "Look here chaps, that Saville chap seems a bit of a paedo, something not quite right about the cut of his jib - yes I know he spends Christmas with the Thatchers and is a prominent supporter of the Conservative party, but even so I sense he's a bad egg - bring me some evidence and I'll throw the book at him." I'm not a legal expert so I don't know how the whole thing works, but I imagine that HYUFD probably understands the whole thing perfectly and can tell us how it works. On the subject of Saville - taking down his statue - good call or bad call?
“On the subject of Saville - taking down his statue - good call or bad call?”
Got to be careful about it imo. At first he had quite a big headstone on his grave, and lots of flowers, but people came and smashed the headstone up and put it in a skip, and chucked all the flowers away. Now there’s just this little mound with nothing on it, which turns out exactly what Saville was really after all along.
Ha. Very darkly clever. Chapeau. Hasn't got the likes it deserves, but go on.
Interesting that the UK's formal accession to the CPTPP looks set to be announced in the next few weeks. So much for the theory that Rishi is backsliding on Brexit somehow. As @Casino_Royale and I have been saying, the WF closes the door on the single market and customs union version of Brexit, pushing ahead with the CPTPP shows that we're not going to be in either of those any time soon.
Closing the book on NI also closes the book on Brexit. It is, IMO, now complete and from this point the relationship with the EU will be defined by the TCA and changes to it to ease trade but there is no longer that hope in the EU that they can crowbar the UK into the single market or dynamic alignment using NI.
Once we join the CPTPP I think within 5 years the nature of the who we do business with will just change and UK PLC will have to adapt to compete with imports from significantly more dynamic and better invested Asian companies than what they're used to. I'm very interested to see which companies are able to compete and which just wither and die because they failed to invest over the last 10 years and instead paid huge dividends to shareholders and bonuses to executives.
You're forgetting something... Keir Starmer is probably going to be PM in less than two years.
But the whole first term is going to be pledged not to change anything wrt Brexit and by 2029 the economy is going to look very different than it does now, our balance of imports and exports will be much less dominated by the EU.
And then what? Think about the politics for a second.
A large chunk of the Brexit vote was from workers unhappy about being undercut by workers in Eastern Europe. You seem to be proposing that they will be undercut by workers in East Asia.
Shock therapy is one thing, but do you really think any politician of any party would dare let that happen on their watch?
I think we also need to bear in mind that a lot of hardcore remainers/rejoiners who are remaining quiet at the moment will be less so when we are mid-term through a Labour government. They'll be wanting some red meat for backing Labour.
Or indeed any Lib Dems, Greens, Plaids or Scot Nats needed to get Labour over the line in a hung parliament.
Conservatives fearful of a radical government might be better off with a solid Labour majority.
On which ... the SNP leaders' hustings just this minute, fxrom the National.
8:49pm The last question of the night: will Scotland ask for a similar arrangement that Northern Ireland has been granted with regards to membership of the EU single-market? #
Kate Forbes says "if Northern Ireland can do it, why can't Scotland?" [...]
Ash Regan says that while she would ask the UK Government for a similar arrangement she doesn't think it would be forthcoming.
She says that she thinks that the European Free Trade Association could be a good option for Scotland in the short-term because rejoining the EU may take "up to ten years"
Humza Yousaf says that the party should make sure the clip of Rishi Sunak preaching about the benefits of the EU single-market for Northern Ireland should "be in every living room"
"How dare they stop us from having what Northern Ireland has"
Sunak selling his Got Brexit Done deal as Northern Ireland being in the best place on Earth - in UK and EU single market - whilst denying that “best place on earth” to Scotland, England and Wales?
He’s certainly done the SNP and Scottish Independence homework for them, by defining what happens to their UK border once they are independent. Not only that but by telling separatists this will be the best place on earth, quite an advantage over England to be there, the Conservative Primeminister giving them a huge boost and incentive to go there has he not?
"It's OK to give the hospital keys to the national pervert because Tony Blair had him round for dinner once" is a great electoral slogan for the Tories?
I haven't noticed Edwina Currie on the Tory candidates list again?
I believe the former DPP who never prosecuted Savile might have something to do with the top of today's Labour Party though!
I’m surprised at you, that’s a little cheap.
Agree. What with the constant comments on Starmer being privately educated and this it is really a bit below HYUFD to make these misleading comments. It is not like they are errors. He knows they are misleading. I know he might come back with they are true statements, but they are incredibly disingenuous. I'm not a Starmer fan, but it wouldn't cross my mind to make these statements.
Though apparently earlier in the thread it is fine to trash the King or Thatcher government for having links with Savile. However mention Blair's links to Savile or SKS' record on Savile and that is a huge no no!
Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because someone else does something you don't like does not make it ok for you to make utterly misleading comments about someone else. SKS doesn't have a record re Saville and you know it, so why say it?
The original tweet against the King came from Labour for a Republic. If they can't take it they shouldn't dish it out, that's politics!!
What? Your not attacking them though are you? You are libeling Starmer instead. So it has nothing to do with dishing it out and not taking it has it? How would you like it if someone unjustifiably accused you of negligence which resulted in you protecting a sex offender?
Nothing libellous about it. It is unarguable Starmer was head of the DPP from 2008 to 2011 when Savile was still alive and the CPS did not prosecute him.
If leftists like Labour for a Republic can't take what they dish out, tough!
Repeating the same tosh does not make it right. As you haven't attacked Labour for Republic (whoever they are) how is there any issue of them not taking what they dish out. You seem to be confused about who you are attacking. You are attacking Starmer not them.
You have implied that Starmer was at least incompetent or negligent in not prosecuting Saville or worse deliberately didn't do so. That is libellous. Or are you saying you are not saying any of this. If so what is your point of mentioning Starmer and Saville in the same post then? Guilty by innuendo?
Labour for Republic are a pressure group within the Labour Party which Starmer leads. Today they made an appalling attack on the King and his connection to Savile, posted on here by Stuart Dickson.
If Starmer doesn't then want his own record questioned by association he should expel Labour for a Republic from the Labour Party exactly as he has expelled Corbyn!
What, precisely, did they do that was so appalling? Remind us, again, will you?
You are *always* criticising and attacking members of the Royal Family, so it can't be that.
The government has announced that Gavin Williamson was looking for an excuse to do work during the pandemic.
'The problem is, as a security risk he wasn't allowed to do anything important, as an idiot he wasn't allowed to do anything difficult and as a complete wanker he wasn't allowed to do anything useful,' said a spokesman. 'This didn't leave many options, so he was put at Education where he made lots of pointless announcements and bunged £15 million to his mates at Ark Academies to produce a load of very shitty online lessons.'
Williamson himself disputed this. 'I was trying my hardest to keep schools open, which is why I issued three different sets of advice every day on how they should do it and ordered everyone else to do twice as much work,' he said. 'I don't know why people working sixty hour weeks felt this wasn't fair. They must be lazy twats who all vote Labour. Besides, the DfE's staff agreed with me on those days when they were drunk, so I had their full backing all the time. And since they must all be brilliant because all of them have been in the civil service since getting their thirds at Russell Group Unis, I don't know what the fuckers are complaining about.'
Teaching unions said nothing, because they are incapable of speech, but one teacher near Williamson's constituency asked whether anyone had checked Williamson's penis was actual the one millimetre long that his latest girlfriend said it is.
There was an executive based around UUP-SDLP. It endured the exact same dynamics, just different labels: e.g. the UUP bringing down the Assembly over SF. People don't necessarily think "working Stormont" is a price worth paying to change their political stances. Actually, Westminster abstentionism seemed to hurt SF more in 2019 than any hard line negotiation at Stormont hurt any party at any time.
"It's OK to give the hospital keys to the national pervert because Tony Blair had him round for dinner once" is a great electoral slogan for the Tories?
I haven't noticed Edwina Currie on the Tory candidates list again?
I believe the former DPP who never prosecuted Savile might have something to do with the top of today's Labour Party though!
I’m surprised at you, that’s a little cheap.
Agree. What with the constant comments on Starmer being privately educated and this it is really a bit below HYUFD to make these misleading comments. It is not like they are errors. He knows they are misleading. I know he might come back with they are true statements, but they are incredibly disingenuous. I'm not a Starmer fan, but it wouldn't cross my mind to make these statements.
Though apparently earlier in the thread it is fine to trash the King or Thatcher government for having links with Savile. However mention Blair's links to Savile or SKS' record on Savile and that is a huge no no!
Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because someone else does something you don't like does not make it ok for you to make utterly misleading comments about someone else. SKS doesn't have a record re Saville and you know it, so why say it?
The original tweet against the King came from Labour for a Republic. If they can't take it they shouldn't dish it out, that's politics!!
What? Your not attacking them though are you? You are libeling Starmer instead. So it has nothing to do with dishing it out and not taking it has it? How would you like it if someone unjustifiably accused you of negligence which resulted in you protecting a sex offender?
Nothing libellous about it. It is unarguable Starmer was head of the DPP from 2008 to 2011 when Savile was still alive and the CPS did not prosecute him.
If leftists like Labour for a Republic can't take what they dish out, tough!
Repeating the same tosh does not make it right. As you haven't attacked Labour for Republic (whoever they are) how is there any issue of them not taking what they dish out. You seem to be confused about who you are attacking. You are attacking Starmer not them.
You have implied that Starmer was at least incompetent or negligent in not prosecuting Saville or worse deliberately didn't do so. That is libellous. Or are you saying you are not saying any of this. If so what is your point of mentioning Starmer and Saville in the same post then? Guilty by innuendo?
Labour for Republic are a pressure group within the Labour Party which Starmer leads. Today they made an appalling attack on the King and his connection to Savile, posted on here by Stuart Dickson.
If Starmer doesn't then want his own record questioned by association he should expel Labour for a Republic from the Labour Party exactly as he has expelled Corbyn!
What, precisely, did they do that was so appalling? Remind us, again, will you?
You are *always* criticising and attacking members of the Royal Family, so it can't be that.
You know full well they were alluding to the King knowing what Savile was up to and colluding with him.
It was appalling and if Starmer had any guts he would expel Labour for a Republic from the Labour Party tomorrow
Interesting that the UK's formal accession to the CPTPP looks set to be announced in the next few weeks. So much for the theory that Rishi is backsliding on Brexit somehow. As @Casino_Royale and I have been saying, the WF closes the door on the single market and customs union version of Brexit, pushing ahead with the CPTPP shows that we're not going to be in either of those any time soon.
Closing the book on NI also closes the book on Brexit. It is, IMO, now complete and from this point the relationship with the EU will be defined by the TCA and changes to it to ease trade but there is no longer that hope in the EU that they can crowbar the UK into the single market or dynamic alignment using NI.
Once we join the CPTPP I think within 5 years the nature of the who we do business with will just change and UK PLC will have to adapt to compete with imports from significantly more dynamic and better invested Asian companies than what they're used to. I'm very interested to see which companies are able to compete and which just wither and die because they failed to invest over the last 10 years and instead paid huge dividends to shareholders and bonuses to executives.
You're forgetting something... Keir Starmer is probably going to be PM in less than two years.
But the whole first term is going to be pledged not to change anything wrt Brexit and by 2029 the economy is going to look very different than it does now, our balance of imports and exports will be much less dominated by the EU.
And then what? Think about the politics for a second.
A large chunk of the Brexit vote was from workers unhappy about being undercut by workers in Eastern Europe. You seem to be proposing that they will be undercut by workers in East Asia.
Shock therapy is one thing, but do you really think any politician of any party would dare let that happen on their watch?
I think we also need to bear in mind that a lot of hardcore remainers/rejoiners who are remaining quiet at the moment will be less so when we are mid-term through a Labour government. They'll be wanting some red meat for backing Labour.
Or indeed any Lib Dems, Greens, Plaids or Scot Nats needed to get Labour over the line in a hung parliament.
Conservatives fearful of a radical government might be better off with a solid Labour majority.
On which ... the SNP leaders' hustings just this minute, fxrom the National.
8:49pm The last question of the night: will Scotland ask for a similar arrangement that Northern Ireland has been granted with regards to membership of the EU single-market? #
Kate Forbes says "if Northern Ireland can do it, why can't Scotland?" [...]
Ash Regan says that while she would ask the UK Government for a similar arrangement she doesn't think it would be forthcoming.
She says that she thinks that the European Free Trade Association could be a good option for Scotland in the short-term because rejoining the EU may take "up to ten years"
Humza Yousaf says that the party should make sure the clip of Rishi Sunak preaching about the benefits of the EU single-market for Northern Ireland should "be in every living room"
"How dare they stop us from having what Northern Ireland has"
Sunak selling his Got Brexit Done deal as Northern Ireland being in the best place on Earth - in UK and EU single market - whilst denying that “best place on earth” to Scotland, England and Wales?
He’s certainly done the SNP and Scottish Independence homework for them, by defining what happens to their UK border once they are independent. Not only that but by telling separatists this will be the best place on earth, quite an advantage over England to be there, the Conservative Primeminister giving them a huge boost and incentive to go there has he not?
HY?
No he hasn't, Northern Ireland only got this deal as it was still in the UK.
Had it joined a United Ireland a hard border would have been put back in the Irish Sea tomorrow
An independent Scotland, in the EU and Euro gets a red lane not green lane border into England?
I know you will say yes. Patrolled by tanks. But in reality it will be very messy and complicated won’t it?
Interesting that the UK's formal accession to the CPTPP looks set to be announced in the next few weeks. So much for the theory that Rishi is backsliding on Brexit somehow. As @Casino_Royale and I have been saying, the WF closes the door on the single market and customs union version of Brexit, pushing ahead with the CPTPP shows that we're not going to be in either of those any time soon.
Closing the book on NI also closes the book on Brexit. It is, IMO, now complete and from this point the relationship with the EU will be defined by the TCA and changes to it to ease trade but there is no longer that hope in the EU that they can crowbar the UK into the single market or dynamic alignment using NI.
Once we join the CPTPP I think within 5 years the nature of the who we do business with will just change and UK PLC will have to adapt to compete with imports from significantly more dynamic and better invested Asian companies than what they're used to. I'm very interested to see which companies are able to compete and which just wither and die because they failed to invest over the last 10 years and instead paid huge dividends to shareholders and bonuses to executives.
You're forgetting something... Keir Starmer is probably going to be PM in less than two years.
But the whole first term is going to be pledged not to change anything wrt Brexit and by 2029 the economy is going to look very different than it does now, our balance of imports and exports will be much less dominated by the EU.
And then what? Think about the politics for a second.
A large chunk of the Brexit vote was from workers unhappy about being undercut by workers in Eastern Europe. You seem to be proposing that they will be undercut by workers in East Asia.
Shock therapy is one thing, but do you really think any politician of any party would dare let that happen on their watch?
I think we also need to bear in mind that a lot of hardcore remainers/rejoiners who are remaining quiet at the moment will be less so when we are mid-term through a Labour government. They'll be wanting some red meat for backing Labour.
Or indeed any Lib Dems, Greens, Plaids or Scot Nats needed to get Labour over the line in a hung parliament.
Conservatives fearful of a radical government might be better off with a solid Labour majority.
On which ... the SNP leaders' hustings just this minute, fxrom the National.
8:49pm The last question of the night: will Scotland ask for a similar arrangement that Northern Ireland has been granted with regards to membership of the EU single-market? #
Kate Forbes says "if Northern Ireland can do it, why can't Scotland?" [...]
Ash Regan says that while she would ask the UK Government for a similar arrangement she doesn't think it would be forthcoming.
She says that she thinks that the European Free Trade Association could be a good option for Scotland in the short-term because rejoining the EU may take "up to ten years"
Humza Yousaf says that the party should make sure the clip of Rishi Sunak preaching about the benefits of the EU single-market for Northern Ireland should "be in every living room"
"How dare they stop us from having what Northern Ireland has"
Sunak selling his Got Brexit Done deal as Northern Ireland being in the best place on Earth - in UK and EU single market - whilst denying that “best place on earth” to Scotland, England and Wales?
He’s certainly done the SNP and Scottish Independence homework for them, by defining what happens to their UK border once they are independent. Not only that but by telling separatists this will be the best place on earth, quite an advantage over England to be there, the Conservative Primeminister giving them a huge boost and incentive to go there has he not?
HY?
No he hasn't, Northern Ireland only got this deal as it was still in the UK.
Had it joined a United Ireland a hard border would have been put back in the Irish Sea tomorrow
An independent Scotland, in the EU and Euro gets a red lane not green lane border into England?
I know you will say yes. Patrolled by tanks. But in reality it will be very messy and complicated won’t it?
An independent Scotland that rejoins the EU gets a hard border from Berwick to Carlisle yes with customs posts
Behr: Brexit as management of a relationship is, by definition, never done. But Brexitism as the doctrine of national renaissance through conflict with Brussels is dying.
That is a victory for Sunak, but it’s not bad for Starmer either if it helps to establish the superiority of managerial pragmatism over pyrotechnic charisma as the mark of a good prime minister. This is something else the Labour leader and his Tory counterpart have in common. They are both planning election pitches that dial down ideology and sideline the cranks who, until recently, set their respective parties’ agendas.
It is easier for Starmer with a double-digit lead in opinion polls. Sight of victory breeds message discipline, even among Labour MPs who couldn’t say for sure what the message is, while expectation of defeat has the opposite effect on Tories.
The weaker the party’s prospects, the less inclined it feels to put in the hard yards of grown-up government, which is its only chance of rehabilitation. Sunak has shown how it works in negotiations with Brussels. But of all the conceivable treatments that is the bitterest pill for Conservatives to swallow. If trust and diplomacy are the ingredients of a good deal, if the national economic interest is served by closer relations with Europe, the road to getting Brexit done starts to look more like the long, arduous process of undoing Brexit.
Interesting that the UK's formal accession to the CPTPP looks set to be announced in the next few weeks. So much for the theory that Rishi is backsliding on Brexit somehow. As @Casino_Royale and I have been saying, the WF closes the door on the single market and customs union version of Brexit, pushing ahead with the CPTPP shows that we're not going to be in either of those any time soon.
Closing the book on NI also closes the book on Brexit. It is, IMO, now complete and from this point the relationship with the EU will be defined by the TCA and changes to it to ease trade but there is no longer that hope in the EU that they can crowbar the UK into the single market or dynamic alignment using NI.
Once we join the CPTPP I think within 5 years the nature of the who we do business with will just change and UK PLC will have to adapt to compete with imports from significantly more dynamic and better invested Asian companies than what they're used to. I'm very interested to see which companies are able to compete and which just wither and die because they failed to invest over the last 10 years and instead paid huge dividends to shareholders and bonuses to executives.
You're forgetting something... Keir Starmer is probably going to be PM in less than two years.
But the whole first term is going to be pledged not to change anything wrt Brexit and by 2029 the economy is going to look very different than it does now, our balance of imports and exports will be much less dominated by the EU.
And then what? Think about the politics for a second.
A large chunk of the Brexit vote was from workers unhappy about being undercut by workers in Eastern Europe. You seem to be proposing that they will be undercut by workers in East Asia.
Shock therapy is one thing, but do you really think any politician of any party would dare let that happen on their watch?
I think we also need to bear in mind that a lot of hardcore remainers/rejoiners who are remaining quiet at the moment will be less so when we are mid-term through a Labour government. They'll be wanting some red meat for backing Labour.
Or indeed any Lib Dems, Greens, Plaids or Scot Nats needed to get Labour over the line in a hung parliament.
Conservatives fearful of a radical government might be better off with a solid Labour majority.
On which ... the SNP leaders' hustings just this minute, fxrom the National.
8:49pm The last question of the night: will Scotland ask for a similar arrangement that Northern Ireland has been granted with regards to membership of the EU single-market? #
Kate Forbes says "if Northern Ireland can do it, why can't Scotland?" [...]
Ash Regan says that while she would ask the UK Government for a similar arrangement she doesn't think it would be forthcoming.
She says that she thinks that the European Free Trade Association could be a good option for Scotland in the short-term because rejoining the EU may take "up to ten years"
Humza Yousaf says that the party should make sure the clip of Rishi Sunak preaching about the benefits of the EU single-market for Northern Ireland should "be in every living room"
"How dare they stop us from having what Northern Ireland has"
Sunak selling his Got Brexit Done deal as Northern Ireland being in the best place on Earth - in UK and EU single market - whilst denying that “best place on earth” to Scotland, England and Wales?
He’s certainly done the SNP and Scottish Independence homework for them, by defining what happens to their UK border once they are independent. Not only that but by telling separatists this will be the best place on earth, quite an advantage over England to be there, the Conservative Primeminister giving them a huge boost and incentive to go there has he not?
HY?
No he hasn't, Northern Ireland only got this deal as it was still in the UK.
Had it joined a United Ireland a hard border would have been put back in the Irish Sea tomorrow
An independent Scotland, in the EU and Euro gets a red lane not green lane border into England?
I know you will say yes. Patrolled by tanks. But in reality it will be very messy and complicated won’t it?
An independent Scotland that rejoins the EU gets a hard border from Berwick to Carlisle yes with customs posts
And watch towers, barbed-wire, and landmines?
I mean, how else are we going to keep the English population in?
Interesting that the UK's formal accession to the CPTPP looks set to be announced in the next few weeks. So much for the theory that Rishi is backsliding on Brexit somehow. As @Casino_Royale and I have been saying, the WF closes the door on the single market and customs union version of Brexit, pushing ahead with the CPTPP shows that we're not going to be in either of those any time soon.
Closing the book on NI also closes the book on Brexit. It is, IMO, now complete and from this point the relationship with the EU will be defined by the TCA and changes to it to ease trade but there is no longer that hope in the EU that they can crowbar the UK into the single market or dynamic alignment using NI.
Once we join the CPTPP I think within 5 years the nature of the who we do business with will just change and UK PLC will have to adapt to compete with imports from significantly more dynamic and better invested Asian companies than what they're used to. I'm very interested to see which companies are able to compete and which just wither and die because they failed to invest over the last 10 years and instead paid huge dividends to shareholders and bonuses to executives.
You're forgetting something... Keir Starmer is probably going to be PM in less than two years.
But the whole first term is going to be pledged not to change anything wrt Brexit and by 2029 the economy is going to look very different than it does now, our balance of imports and exports will be much less dominated by the EU.
And then what? Think about the politics for a second.
A large chunk of the Brexit vote was from workers unhappy about being undercut by workers in Eastern Europe. You seem to be proposing that they will be undercut by workers in East Asia.
Shock therapy is one thing, but do you really think any politician of any party would dare let that happen on their watch?
I think we also need to bear in mind that a lot of hardcore remainers/rejoiners who are remaining quiet at the moment will be less so when we are mid-term through a Labour government. They'll be wanting some red meat for backing Labour.
Or indeed any Lib Dems, Greens, Plaids or Scot Nats needed to get Labour over the line in a hung parliament.
Conservatives fearful of a radical government might be better off with a solid Labour majority.
On which ... the SNP leaders' hustings just this minute, fxrom the National.
8:49pm The last question of the night: will Scotland ask for a similar arrangement that Northern Ireland has been granted with regards to membership of the EU single-market? #
Kate Forbes says "if Northern Ireland can do it, why can't Scotland?" [...]
Ash Regan says that while she would ask the UK Government for a similar arrangement she doesn't think it would be forthcoming.
She says that she thinks that the European Free Trade Association could be a good option for Scotland in the short-term because rejoining the EU may take "up to ten years"
Humza Yousaf says that the party should make sure the clip of Rishi Sunak preaching about the benefits of the EU single-market for Northern Ireland should "be in every living room"
"How dare they stop us from having what Northern Ireland has"
Sunak selling his Got Brexit Done deal as Northern Ireland being in the best place on Earth - in UK and EU single market - whilst denying that “best place on earth” to Scotland, England and Wales?
He’s certainly done the SNP and Scottish Independence homework for them, by defining what happens to their UK border once they are independent. Not only that but by telling separatists this will be the best place on earth, quite an advantage over England to be there, the Conservative Primeminister giving them a huge boost and incentive to go there has he not?
HY?
No he hasn't, Northern Ireland only got this deal as it was still in the UK.
Had it joined a United Ireland a hard border would have been put back in the Irish Sea tomorrow
An independent Scotland, in the EU and Euro gets a red lane not green lane border into England?
I know you will say yes. Patrolled by tanks. But in reality it will be very messy and complicated won’t it?
An independent Scotland that rejoins the EU gets a hard border from Berwick to Carlisle yes with customs posts
And watch towers, barbed-wire, and landmines?
I mean, how else are we going to keep the English population in?
I reckon @StuartDickson would be happy for them to leave.
"It's OK to give the hospital keys to the national pervert because Tony Blair had him round for dinner once" is a great electoral slogan for the Tories?
I haven't noticed Edwina Currie on the Tory candidates list again?
I believe the former DPP who never prosecuted Savile might have something to do with the top of today's Labour Party though!
I’m surprised at you, that’s a little cheap.
Agree. What with the constant comments on Starmer being privately educated and this it is really a bit below HYUFD to make these misleading comments. It is not like they are errors. He knows they are misleading. I know he might come back with they are true statements, but they are incredibly disingenuous. I'm not a Starmer fan, but it wouldn't cross my mind to make these statements.
Though apparently earlier in the thread it is fine to trash the King or Thatcher government for having links with Savile. However mention Blair's links to Savile or SKS' record on Savile and that is a huge no no!
Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because someone else does something you don't like does not make it ok for you to make utterly misleading comments about someone else. SKS doesn't have a record re Saville and you know it, so why say it?
The original tweet against the King came from Labour for a Republic. If they can't take it they shouldn't dish it out, that's politics!!
What? Your not attacking them though are you? You are libeling Starmer instead. So it has nothing to do with dishing it out and not taking it has it? How would you like it if someone unjustifiably accused you of negligence which resulted in you protecting a sex offender?
Nothing libellous about it. It is unarguable Starmer was head of the DPP from 2008 to 2011 when Savile was still alive and the CPS did not prosecute him.
If leftists like Labour for a Republic can't take what they dish out, tough!
Repeating the same tosh does not make it right. As you haven't attacked Labour for Republic (whoever they are) how is there any issue of them not taking what they dish out. You seem to be confused about who you are attacking. You are attacking Starmer not them.
You have implied that Starmer was at least incompetent or negligent in not prosecuting Saville or worse deliberately didn't do so. That is libellous. Or are you saying you are not saying any of this. If so what is your point of mentioning Starmer and Saville in the same post then? Guilty by innuendo?
Labour for Republic are a pressure group within the Labour Party which Starmer leads. Today they made an appalling attack on the King and his connection to Savile, posted on here by Stuart Dickson.
If Starmer doesn't then want his own record questioned by association he should expel Labour for a Republic from the Labour Party exactly as he has expelled Corbyn!
So we are back to square one. Why do you think you have the right to libel someone because someone else that you don't like says something you don't like?
Let's see if you have the courage of your convictions. Do you think Starmer was incompetent or negligent or worse deliberately avoided prosecuting Saville? Go on do it properly. No skimming around the edges, libel him properly.
Or were you just smearing him by unjustified association?
Bills going up. The public has long grown tired of Brexit
Council Tax paid by direct debit usually. Ten payments per year. So no payment Feb 1st or Mar 1st for most. No wonder folk are feeling a little better off. So. Back on, and much higher from April 1st. £150+ pcm for my £40 k flat.
"It's OK to give the hospital keys to the national pervert because Tony Blair had him round for dinner once" is a great electoral slogan for the Tories?
I haven't noticed Edwina Currie on the Tory candidates list again?
I believe the former DPP who never prosecuted Savile might have something to do with the top of today's Labour Party though!
I’m surprised at you, that’s a little cheap.
Agree. What with the constant comments on Starmer being privately educated and this it is really a bit below HYUFD to make these misleading comments. It is not like they are errors. He knows they are misleading. I know he might come back with they are true statements, but they are incredibly disingenuous. I'm not a Starmer fan, but it wouldn't cross my mind to make these statements.
Though apparently earlier in the thread it is fine to trash the King or Thatcher government for having links with Savile. However mention Blair's links to Savile or SKS' record on Savile and that is a huge no no!
What record?
His record of being DPP when absolutely not a shred of evidence about Savile came anywhere close to crossing his desk.
SO HYUFD is saying up front that Mr Starmer did not prosecute Savile, in a discussion of politicians and the great and the good sucking up to Savile? As I recall, fellow Tory MPs were horrified - and said so - when Mr Johnson came up with that sort of stuff in the HoC. Where statements are not actionable. Here, on the other hand ...
Starmer didn't prosecute Savile when Director of the DPP, that is a matter of public record.
Now he may argue he didn't have sufficient evidence at the time to do so but one could also ask why had they not obtained that evidence given what we now know?
Is that how the DPP works? I always thought the police investigated crimes and then brought their evidence to the DPP to ascertain whether there was a strong enough case to prosecute. I didn't imagine that the DPP would go to the police and say "Look here chaps, that Saville chap seems a bit of a paedo, something not quite right about the cut of his jib - yes I know he spends Christmas with the Thatchers and is a prominent supporter of the Conservative party, but even so I sense he's a bad egg - bring me some evidence and I'll throw the book at him." I'm not a legal expert so I don't know how the whole thing works, but I imagine that HYUFD probably understands the whole thing perfectly and can tell us how it works. On the subject of Saville - taking down his statue - good call or bad call?
“On the subject of Saville - taking down his statue - good call or bad call?”
Got to be careful about it imo. At first he had quite a big headstone on his grave, and lots of flowers, but people came and smashed the headstone up and put it in a skip, and chucked all the flowers away. Now there’s just this little mound with nothing on it, which turns out exactly what Saville was really after all along.
Ha. Very darkly clever. Chapeau. Hasn't got the likes it deserves, but go on.
I don’t post for likes or kudos, if I did I am well short of what I deserve.
I post to keep you all in order, by slicing through spin and BS with my fickle foil of astute analysisness on any political question you can throw at me 😇
Well played Everton tonight. They’ve put my dear GF in a happy mood.
Interesting that the UK's formal accession to the CPTPP looks set to be announced in the next few weeks. So much for the theory that Rishi is backsliding on Brexit somehow. As @Casino_Royale and I have been saying, the WF closes the door on the single market and customs union version of Brexit, pushing ahead with the CPTPP shows that we're not going to be in either of those any time soon.
Closing the book on NI also closes the book on Brexit. It is, IMO, now complete and from this point the relationship with the EU will be defined by the TCA and changes to it to ease trade but there is no longer that hope in the EU that they can crowbar the UK into the single market or dynamic alignment using NI.
Once we join the CPTPP I think within 5 years the nature of the who we do business with will just change and UK PLC will have to adapt to compete with imports from significantly more dynamic and better invested Asian companies than what they're used to. I'm very interested to see which companies are able to compete and which just wither and die because they failed to invest over the last 10 years and instead paid huge dividends to shareholders and bonuses to executives.
You're forgetting something... Keir Starmer is probably going to be PM in less than two years.
But the whole first term is going to be pledged not to change anything wrt Brexit and by 2029 the economy is going to look very different than it does now, our balance of imports and exports will be much less dominated by the EU.
And then what? Think about the politics for a second.
A large chunk of the Brexit vote was from workers unhappy about being undercut by workers in Eastern Europe. You seem to be proposing that they will be undercut by workers in East Asia.
Shock therapy is one thing, but do you really think any politician of any party would dare let that happen on their watch?
I think we also need to bear in mind that a lot of hardcore remainers/rejoiners who are remaining quiet at the moment will be less so when we are mid-term through a Labour government. They'll be wanting some red meat for backing Labour.
Or indeed any Lib Dems, Greens, Plaids or Scot Nats needed to get Labour over the line in a hung parliament.
Conservatives fearful of a radical government might be better off with a solid Labour majority.
On which ... the SNP leaders' hustings just this minute, fxrom the National.
8:49pm The last question of the night: will Scotland ask for a similar arrangement that Northern Ireland has been granted with regards to membership of the EU single-market? #
Kate Forbes says "if Northern Ireland can do it, why can't Scotland?" [...]
Ash Regan says that while she would ask the UK Government for a similar arrangement she doesn't think it would be forthcoming.
She says that she thinks that the European Free Trade Association could be a good option for Scotland in the short-term because rejoining the EU may take "up to ten years"
Humza Yousaf says that the party should make sure the clip of Rishi Sunak preaching about the benefits of the EU single-market for Northern Ireland should "be in every living room"
"How dare they stop us from having what Northern Ireland has"
Sunak selling his Got Brexit Done deal as Northern Ireland being in the best place on Earth - in UK and EU single market - whilst denying that “best place on earth” to Scotland, England and Wales?
He’s certainly done the SNP and Scottish Independence homework for them, by defining what happens to their UK border once they are independent. Not only that but by telling separatists this will be the best place on earth, quite an advantage over England to be there, the Conservative Primeminister giving them a huge boost and incentive to go there has he not?
HY?
No he hasn't, Northern Ireland only got this deal as it was still in the UK.
Had it joined a United Ireland a hard border would have been put back in the Irish Sea tomorrow
An independent Scotland, in the EU and Euro gets a red lane not green lane border into England?
I know you will say yes. Patrolled by tanks. But in reality it will be very messy and complicated won’t it?
An independent Scotland that rejoins the EU gets a hard border from Berwick to Carlisle yes with customs posts
And watch towers, barbed-wire, and landmines?
I mean, how else are we going to keep the English population in?
I noticed HYUFD's, er, excitement yesterday at the thought of extending Hadrian's Wall northward to the Scottish border, and found myself thinking what most of Newcastle, not to mention almost everyone in Northumberland up to and including Berwick, would say at having it all covered with a 10 foot layer of Roman Army standard issue drystone walliing, painted white when done.
I'm not wholly convinced this week's events will help the Prime Minister that much. John Major, among others, did marvellous work in Northern Ireland but gained little from it electorally in the rest of the UK. The truth is, however much it's boosted by Conservative supporters and pro-Conservative media, most people don't care that much about Northern Ireland.
I don't imagine in 2016 many contemplating a LEAVE vote considered the impact of such a vote on Northern Ireland and its politics - I could be wrong.
Sunak, to his credit, has delivered a deal and perhaps it's a sign unlike on here the emotions of the past seven years are being replaced by a pragmatic reality. It takes two to tango - arguably both the UK and the EU have "won" simply by removing the issue from the board. Naturally, some on here emphasise the positives for Britain but let's not forget it's probably a good deal for the EU inasmuch as it provides a sound economic and political relationship with the UK going forward.
Nobody will be talking about re-joining but the adversarial nature of the post-2016 relationship on both sides is finally being replaced by the necessity to make this work. Those who still want the fight will deny the deal but the truth is more now want to move on and in that regard Sunak was pushing at a door far more easy to open than was the case a few years go.
The Tories have infamously been pandering to the DUP for many years now -and allowing them to wreck Stormont's business as the NI parliament while keeping most of their salaries. So knowing a bit about NI isn't going to cause most folk to feel more positive. Mr Sunak is still very much in clearing up his lot's mess mode, I think.
There’s not much that can be done if either side wants to suspend Stormont.
When SF shut it down, were you upset?
When 70 odd party members of SF in good standing were all in the same 6 foot square toilet, when a man was slowly beaten to death in the bar… were you worried? When SF threatened to suspend the assembly, again, if the police enquiry wasn’t handled more “sensitively”…
Well, it turns out that people listened. And learned.
That’s the Peace Process.
Unless you are anti-agreement Man Of Violence?
That’s the problem.
Most critics of the DUP think it entirely fair and reasonable for Sinn Fein to shut down the Assembly, if they can’t get their way.
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Strange how any criticism of the DUP leads to assumptions that one is pro-SF, terrorists, etc.
Did I say that? No.
I’ve been horrified, personally, by quite how quickly we’ve allowed the DUP to be legitimised. I’m old enough to remember when me saying I held them in almost as much contempt as Sinn Fein/IRA, was not at all controversial.
Lots of us who wish NI well agree. Once they decided that SF and DUP would be the ones who get the votes and not SDLP and UUP then the message is, sadly clear.
Sinn Fein and the DUP are wankers, without question.
I’d far rather see an executive based upon UUP, SDLP, Alliance, with the rest sidelined.
But, the GFA makes it sensible to vote for wankers, to protect your community’s interests.
When the GFA was signed, there were no non sectarian parties in NI. Now, the Alliance Party are a major player in NI politics. There must be a way of amending the GFA to reflect this change.
Interesting that the UK's formal accession to the CPTPP looks set to be announced in the next few weeks. So much for the theory that Rishi is backsliding on Brexit somehow. As @Casino_Royale and I have been saying, the WF closes the door on the single market and customs union version of Brexit, pushing ahead with the CPTPP shows that we're not going to be in either of those any time soon.
Closing the book on NI also closes the book on Brexit. It is, IMO, now complete and from this point the relationship with the EU will be defined by the TCA and changes to it to ease trade but there is no longer that hope in the EU that they can crowbar the UK into the single market or dynamic alignment using NI.
Once we join the CPTPP I think within 5 years the nature of the who we do business with will just change and UK PLC will have to adapt to compete with imports from significantly more dynamic and better invested Asian companies than what they're used to. I'm very interested to see which companies are able to compete and which just wither and die because they failed to invest over the last 10 years and instead paid huge dividends to shareholders and bonuses to executives.
You're forgetting something... Keir Starmer is probably going to be PM in less than two years.
But the whole first term is going to be pledged not to change anything wrt Brexit and by 2029 the economy is going to look very different than it does now, our balance of imports and exports will be much less dominated by the EU.
And then what? Think about the politics for a second.
A large chunk of the Brexit vote was from workers unhappy about being undercut by workers in Eastern Europe. You seem to be proposing that they will be undercut by workers in East Asia.
Shock therapy is one thing, but do you really think any politician of any party would dare let that happen on their watch?
I think we also need to bear in mind that a lot of hardcore remainers/rejoiners who are remaining quiet at the moment will be less so when we are mid-term through a Labour government. They'll be wanting some red meat for backing Labour.
Or indeed any Lib Dems, Greens, Plaids or Scot Nats needed to get Labour over the line in a hung parliament.
Conservatives fearful of a radical government might be better off with a solid Labour majority.
On which ... the SNP leaders' hustings just this minute, fxrom the National.
8:49pm The last question of the night: will Scotland ask for a similar arrangement that Northern Ireland has been granted with regards to membership of the EU single-market? #
Kate Forbes says "if Northern Ireland can do it, why can't Scotland?" [...]
Ash Regan says that while she would ask the UK Government for a similar arrangement she doesn't think it would be forthcoming.
She says that she thinks that the European Free Trade Association could be a good option for Scotland in the short-term because rejoining the EU may take "up to ten years"
Humza Yousaf says that the party should make sure the clip of Rishi Sunak preaching about the benefits of the EU single-market for Northern Ireland should "be in every living room"
"How dare they stop us from having what Northern Ireland has"
Sunak selling his Got Brexit Done deal as Northern Ireland being in the best place on Earth - in UK and EU single market - whilst denying that “best place on earth” to Scotland, England and Wales?
He’s certainly done the SNP and Scottish Independence homework for them, by defining what happens to their UK border once they are independent. Not only that but by telling separatists this will be the best place on earth, quite an advantage over England to be there, the Conservative Primeminister giving them a huge boost and incentive to go there has he not?
HY?
No he hasn't, Northern Ireland only got this deal as it was still in the UK.
Had it joined a United Ireland a hard border would have been put back in the Irish Sea tomorrow
An independent Scotland, in the EU and Euro gets a red lane not green lane border into England?
I know you will say yes. Patrolled by tanks. But in reality it will be very messy and complicated won’t it?
An independent Scotland that rejoins the EU gets a hard border from Berwick to Carlisle yes with customs posts
Interesting that the UK's formal accession to the CPTPP looks set to be announced in the next few weeks. So much for the theory that Rishi is backsliding on Brexit somehow. As @Casino_Royale and I have been saying, the WF closes the door on the single market and customs union version of Brexit, pushing ahead with the CPTPP shows that we're not going to be in either of those any time soon.
Closing the book on NI also closes the book on Brexit. It is, IMO, now complete and from this point the relationship with the EU will be defined by the TCA and changes to it to ease trade but there is no longer that hope in the EU that they can crowbar the UK into the single market or dynamic alignment using NI.
Once we join the CPTPP I think within 5 years the nature of the who we do business with will just change and UK PLC will have to adapt to compete with imports from significantly more dynamic and better invested Asian companies than what they're used to. I'm very interested to see which companies are able to compete and which just wither and die because they failed to invest over the last 10 years and instead paid huge dividends to shareholders and bonuses to executives.
You're forgetting something... Keir Starmer is probably going to be PM in less than two years.
But the whole first term is going to be pledged not to change anything wrt Brexit and by 2029 the economy is going to look very different than it does now, our balance of imports and exports will be much less dominated by the EU.
And then what? Think about the politics for a second.
A large chunk of the Brexit vote was from workers unhappy about being undercut by workers in Eastern Europe. You seem to be proposing that they will be undercut by workers in East Asia.
Shock therapy is one thing, but do you really think any politician of any party would dare let that happen on their watch?
I think we also need to bear in mind that a lot of hardcore remainers/rejoiners who are remaining quiet at the moment will be less so when we are mid-term through a Labour government. They'll be wanting some red meat for backing Labour.
Or indeed any Lib Dems, Greens, Plaids or Scot Nats needed to get Labour over the line in a hung parliament.
Conservatives fearful of a radical government might be better off with a solid Labour majority.
On which ... the SNP leaders' hustings just this minute, fxrom the National.
8:49pm The last question of the night: will Scotland ask for a similar arrangement that Northern Ireland has been granted with regards to membership of the EU single-market? #
Kate Forbes says "if Northern Ireland can do it, why can't Scotland?" [...]
Ash Regan says that while she would ask the UK Government for a similar arrangement she doesn't think it would be forthcoming.
She says that she thinks that the European Free Trade Association could be a good option for Scotland in the short-term because rejoining the EU may take "up to ten years"
Humza Yousaf says that the party should make sure the clip of Rishi Sunak preaching about the benefits of the EU single-market for Northern Ireland should "be in every living room"
"How dare they stop us from having what Northern Ireland has"
Sunak selling his Got Brexit Done deal as Northern Ireland being in the best place on Earth - in UK and EU single market - whilst denying that “best place on earth” to Scotland, England and Wales?
He’s certainly done the SNP and Scottish Independence homework for them, by defining what happens to their UK border once they are independent. Not only that but by telling separatists this will be the best place on earth, quite an advantage over England to be there, the Conservative Primeminister giving them a huge boost and incentive to go there has he not?
HY?
No he hasn't, Northern Ireland only got this deal as it was still in the UK.
Had it joined a United Ireland a hard border would have been put back in the Irish Sea tomorrow
An independent Scotland, in the EU and Euro gets a red lane not green lane border into England?
I know you will say yes. Patrolled by tanks. But in reality it will be very messy and complicated won’t it?
We will need tanks to prevent England benefiting from our oil, water and renewables. Then we’ll see who subsidises whom.
I'm not wholly convinced this week's events will help the Prime Minister that much. John Major, among others, did marvellous work in Northern Ireland but gained little from it electorally in the rest of the UK. The truth is, however much it's boosted by Conservative supporters and pro-Conservative media, most people don't care that much about Northern Ireland.
I don't imagine in 2016 many contemplating a LEAVE vote considered the impact of such a vote on Northern Ireland and its politics - I could be wrong.
Sunak, to his credit, has delivered a deal and perhaps it's a sign unlike on here the emotions of the past seven years are being replaced by a pragmatic reality. It takes two to tango - arguably both the UK and the EU have "won" simply by removing the issue from the board. Naturally, some on here emphasise the positives for Britain but let's not forget it's probably a good deal for the EU inasmuch as it provides a sound economic and political relationship with the UK going forward.
Nobody will be talking about re-joining but the adversarial nature of the post-2016 relationship on both sides is finally being replaced by the necessity to make this work. Those who still want the fight will deny the deal but the truth is more now want to move on and in that regard Sunak was pushing at a door far more easy to open than was the case a few years go.
The Tories have infamously been pandering to the DUP for many years now -and allowing them to wreck Stormont's business as the NI parliament while keeping most of their salaries. So knowing a bit about NI isn't going to cause most folk to feel more positive. Mr Sunak is still very much in clearing up his lot's mess mode, I think.
There’s not much that can be done if either side wants to suspend Stormont.
When SF shut it down, were you upset?
When 70 odd party members of SF in good standing were all in the same 6 foot square toilet, when a man was slowly beaten to death in the bar… were you worried? When SF threatened to suspend the assembly, again, if the police enquiry wasn’t handled more “sensitively”…
Well, it turns out that people listened. And learned.
That’s the Peace Process.
Unless you are anti-agreement Man Of Violence?
That’s the problem.
Most critics of the DUP think it entirely fair and reasonable for Sinn Fein to shut down the Assembly, if they can’t get their way.
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Strange how any criticism of the DUP leads to assumptions that one is pro-SF, terrorists, etc.
Did I say that? No.
I’ve been horrified, personally, by quite how quickly we’ve allowed the DUP to be legitimised. I’m old enough to remember when me saying I held them in almost as much contempt as Sinn Fein/IRA, was not at all controversial.
Lots of us who wish NI well agree. Once they decided that SF and DUP would be the ones who get the votes and not SDLP and UUP then the message is, sadly clear.
Sinn Fein and the DUP are wankers, without question.
I’d far rather see an executive based upon UUP, SDLP, Alliance, with the rest sidelined.
But, the GFA makes it sensible to vote for wankers, to protect your community’s interests.
When the GFA was signed, there were no non sectarian parties in NI. Now, the Alliance Party are a major player in NI politics. There must be a way of amending the GFA to reflect this change.
The problem is the sectarian parties are the ones with friends with guns.
Or no guns, honestly, but don't mess with us or there might be violence again, but we're not making threats, but you'll do what we say if you know what's good for you.
PMQs: SKS draws on the impact of the cost of living...
"The average family in Britain will be poorer than the average family in Poland. We're going to see a generation of young people learning to say 'Auf Wiedersehen, Pet' in Polish", says SKS
What a tosser
What would you have him say?
No brainer today
"Hancock killing Granny's".
It is a shocking state of affairs, a leader of the supposed Labour Party arrogantly implying the average (pebbledashed house, toolmaker dad & nurse mum) British family should somehow be far superior to a Polish family.
Tosser with a capital T
I am going to try to ignore your perpetual, petty sniping at Starmer going forward. He's a long way from perfect but compared to anyone in the Tory leadership, and particularly compared to the fuckwit Johnson (who you were prepared to vote for let us remember), Starmer is just fine.
So, I'm going to try to ignore you, but it's hard because your focus on undermining Labour instead of attacking the true culprits is really bloody intensely irritating.
That feels better.
SKS is BJ but worse
Equal in the liar Department
Equal in the only in it for himself department
Equal in the warmonger Department
Worse in the Democracy Department
Any evidence to back any of that up..
I really do wonder if @bigjohnowls is just enjoying rubbing up Labour supporters for the sake of it
He definitely does, but that doesn’t stop me worrying about him. There is an obsessive level of bitterness that’s not healthy.
To be fair you can see that in other posters including @Scott_xP who is embittered by Brexit
Embittered is precisely the right word. The past few years have left me with my mouth agog, watching my country inflict massive damage on itself, damage that will last years, decades.
I have sympathy with people in Germany in 1933, watching on astonished as people then, too, fell for cynical, right-wing, unicorn-promising bullshit. Let’s be honest, if born in a different time and place, the lunatics who brought us Brexit would have been burning books and firebombing synagogues, collarbones shattering as they flung their right arms high into the air.
It’s been nauseating to see the Brexit Borg on here frotting themselves silly over Sunak’s newly discovered genius in slightly damping down one corner of the raging bin fire the right-wing of this country has cheerfully dragged us into. Sunak, the moron who has the temerity to tell us how fortunate NI is to be in the single market. And the Borg frot away, trotting out the same tired lies.
And supposedly intelligent, dispassionate, coolly analytical types gaze upon the Tory-delivered bin fire, as prices rise, the rivers fill with shit, the shelves empty, food rots in the fields, industries wither, we have to devise the atrocity that is warm spaces, and smugly tell us that we’re better off.
Cameron trying to control his ERG nutters, putting party before country and accidentally taking us out of the EU, is like Hindenberg and von Papen thinking they were smart in taking Hitler into the fold.
In 25 years time, once the next generation have delivered their own stunde null and cast off the poisonous legacy bequeathed on them by the Boomers and the misty-eyed nostalgics, the deluded swivel-eyed nationalists weeping at the death of the Queen whilst carelessly screwing the country, we’ll look back on the past few years with horror.
Yes, I am very bitter.
I added my like for a fine example of the empassioned rant.
Don't agree with all of it, but it's a good attack on many of the politicans that brought us Brexit, promising populist bullshit.
I hesitated only because it can be read as a broadside against all who voted Brexit - there are some who voted Brexit for sincerely held principled reasons and can be happy with what they have done. For the leaders of vote leave, I share your contempt (but also for the leaders of the remain cause, for losing to them and failing to make the positive case for EU membership).
If a poster is going to compare me to people who burn synagogues, I’m happy to compare that poster to a steaming pile of faeces.
Interesting that the UK's formal accession to the CPTPP looks set to be announced in the next few weeks. So much for the theory that Rishi is backsliding on Brexit somehow. As @Casino_Royale and I have been saying, the WF closes the door on the single market and customs union version of Brexit, pushing ahead with the CPTPP shows that we're not going to be in either of those any time soon.
Closing the book on NI also closes the book on Brexit. It is, IMO, now complete and from this point the relationship with the EU will be defined by the TCA and changes to it to ease trade but there is no longer that hope in the EU that they can crowbar the UK into the single market or dynamic alignment using NI.
Once we join the CPTPP I think within 5 years the nature of the who we do business with will just change and UK PLC will have to adapt to compete with imports from significantly more dynamic and better invested Asian companies than what they're used to. I'm very interested to see which companies are able to compete and which just wither and die because they failed to invest over the last 10 years and instead paid huge dividends to shareholders and bonuses to executives.
You're forgetting something... Keir Starmer is probably going to be PM in less than two years.
But the whole first term is going to be pledged not to change anything wrt Brexit and by 2029 the economy is going to look very different than it does now, our balance of imports and exports will be much less dominated by the EU.
And then what? Think about the politics for a second.
A large chunk of the Brexit vote was from workers unhappy about being undercut by workers in Eastern Europe. You seem to be proposing that they will be undercut by workers in East Asia.
Shock therapy is one thing, but do you really think any politician of any party would dare let that happen on their watch?
I think we also need to bear in mind that a lot of hardcore remainers/rejoiners who are remaining quiet at the moment will be less so when we are mid-term through a Labour government. They'll be wanting some red meat for backing Labour.
Or indeed any Lib Dems, Greens, Plaids or Scot Nats needed to get Labour over the line in a hung parliament.
Conservatives fearful of a radical government might be better off with a solid Labour majority.
On which ... the SNP leaders' hustings just this minute, fxrom the National.
8:49pm The last question of the night: will Scotland ask for a similar arrangement that Northern Ireland has been granted with regards to membership of the EU single-market? #
Kate Forbes says "if Northern Ireland can do it, why can't Scotland?" [...]
Ash Regan says that while she would ask the UK Government for a similar arrangement she doesn't think it would be forthcoming.
She says that she thinks that the European Free Trade Association could be a good option for Scotland in the short-term because rejoining the EU may take "up to ten years"
Humza Yousaf says that the party should make sure the clip of Rishi Sunak preaching about the benefits of the EU single-market for Northern Ireland should "be in every living room"
"How dare they stop us from having what Northern Ireland has"
Sunak selling his Got Brexit Done deal as Northern Ireland being in the best place on Earth - in UK and EU single market - whilst denying that “best place on earth” to Scotland, England and Wales?
He’s certainly done the SNP and Scottish Independence homework for them, by defining what happens to their UK border once they are independent. Not only that but by telling separatists this will be the best place on earth, quite an advantage over England to be there, the Conservative Primeminister giving them a huge boost and incentive to go there has he not?
HY?
No he hasn't, Northern Ireland only got this deal as it was still in the UK.
Had it joined a United Ireland a hard border would have been put back in the Irish Sea tomorrow
An independent Scotland, in the EU and Euro gets a red lane not green lane border into England?
I know you will say yes. Patrolled by tanks. But in reality it will be very messy and complicated won’t it?
You think then indy Scotland could get a "cherry-picked" membership of the single market without FoM? Because that's what you'd need to avoid a border between it and rUK.
Bills going up. The public has long grown tired of Brexit
Council Tax paid by direct debit usually. Ten payments per year. So no payment Feb 1st or Mar 1st for most. No wonder folk are feeling a little better off. So. Back on, and much higher from April 1st. £150+ pcm for my £40 k flat.
Everyone has the right to ask for twelve equal instalments, rather than paying upfront over the first ten months. Just email your council and ask.
Very surprised Leon hasn't been on here crowing about how the Wuhan Lab leak is increasing becoming accepted.
a) Credit to him for, it appears, getting it right. b) Credit to him for not crowing. c) I hope he's alright.
Slept in today, did you?
Having got so much wrong, his desperation to be found right on something was almost pitiful, as well as premature, with a majority of US government agencies still of the contrary view.
Interesting that the UK's formal accession to the CPTPP looks set to be announced in the next few weeks. So much for the theory that Rishi is backsliding on Brexit somehow. As @Casino_Royale and I have been saying, the WF closes the door on the single market and customs union version of Brexit, pushing ahead with the CPTPP shows that we're not going to be in either of those any time soon.
Closing the book on NI also closes the book on Brexit. It is, IMO, now complete and from this point the relationship with the EU will be defined by the TCA and changes to it to ease trade but there is no longer that hope in the EU that they can crowbar the UK into the single market or dynamic alignment using NI.
Once we join the CPTPP I think within 5 years the nature of the who we do business with will just change and UK PLC will have to adapt to compete with imports from significantly more dynamic and better invested Asian companies than what they're used to. I'm very interested to see which companies are able to compete and which just wither and die because they failed to invest over the last 10 years and instead paid huge dividends to shareholders and bonuses to executives.
You're forgetting something... Keir Starmer is probably going to be PM in less than two years.
But the whole first term is going to be pledged not to change anything wrt Brexit and by 2029 the economy is going to look very different than it does now, our balance of imports and exports will be much less dominated by the EU.
And then what? Think about the politics for a second.
A large chunk of the Brexit vote was from workers unhappy about being undercut by workers in Eastern Europe. You seem to be proposing that they will be undercut by workers in East Asia.
Shock therapy is one thing, but do you really think any politician of any party would dare let that happen on their watch?
I think we also need to bear in mind that a lot of hardcore remainers/rejoiners who are remaining quiet at the moment will be less so when we are mid-term through a Labour government. They'll be wanting some red meat for backing Labour.
Or indeed any Lib Dems, Greens, Plaids or Scot Nats needed to get Labour over the line in a hung parliament.
Conservatives fearful of a radical government might be better off with a solid Labour majority.
On which ... the SNP leaders' hustings just this minute, fxrom the National.
8:49pm The last question of the night: will Scotland ask for a similar arrangement that Northern Ireland has been granted with regards to membership of the EU single-market? #
Kate Forbes says "if Northern Ireland can do it, why can't Scotland?" [...]
Ash Regan says that while she would ask the UK Government for a similar arrangement she doesn't think it would be forthcoming.
She says that she thinks that the European Free Trade Association could be a good option for Scotland in the short-term because rejoining the EU may take "up to ten years"
Humza Yousaf says that the party should make sure the clip of Rishi Sunak preaching about the benefits of the EU single-market for Northern Ireland should "be in every living room"
"How dare they stop us from having what Northern Ireland has"
Sunak selling his Got Brexit Done deal as Northern Ireland being in the best place on Earth - in UK and EU single market - whilst denying that “best place on earth” to Scotland, England and Wales?
He’s certainly done the SNP and Scottish Independence homework for them, by defining what happens to their UK border once they are independent. Not only that but by telling separatists this will be the best place on earth, quite an advantage over England to be there, the Conservative Primeminister giving them a huge boost and incentive to go there has he not?
HY?
No he hasn't, Northern Ireland only got this deal as it was still in the UK.
Had it joined a United Ireland a hard border would have been put back in the Irish Sea tomorrow
An independent Scotland, in the EU and Euro gets a red lane not green lane border into England?
I know you will say yes. Patrolled by tanks. But in reality it will be very messy and complicated won’t it?
An independent Scotland that rejoins the EU gets a hard border from Berwick to Carlisle yes with customs posts
And watch towers, barbed-wire, and landmines?
I mean, how else are we going to keep the English population in?
I reckon @StuartDickson would be happy for them to leave.
Oh sorry, do you mean the ones in England?
Any English ex-pats trying to come back in across the border from an independent Scotland will surely be whisked off to Rwanda lickety-split?
I'm really tickled pink by northern_monkey using the phrase "unicorn-hunting bullshit" this week of all weeks when the "unicorn" is real. We've had the likes of @Scott_xP posting stupid meme after stupid meme for years about how Brexiteers like myself preferred solution for NI is a unicorn and yet the unicorn is real and has happened.
A throwback to everyone's favourite European Twitter commentator during Covid19 and FBPE Favourite Dave Keating, from when I was opposing Theresa May's deal, is well worth looking back at today: https://twitter.com/davekeating/status/1053224418653159425
Dave Keating @DaveKeating 19 Oct 2018 So what exactly is the Irish border backstop problem in the #Brexit talks? I break it down on France 24. [video] In other words, the #Brexit trilemma:
What solution do we have today to the Trilemma?
Not quite.
“When goods move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, they will now move without customs bureaucracy, they will move without routine customs checks,” he told Radio 4.
But that’s not quite what the Windsor Framework says. The 26-page agreement contains provisions for bureaucracy that would not apply to goods moving between, say, England and Wales.
For example, the Framework says businesses will have to provide “commercial data” to an official body to move goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
Later, the Framework says that a lorry entering Northern Ireland from England, Wales or Scotland would need a “document confirming that goods are staying in Northern Ireland and are moved in line with the terms of our internal market scheme”...
A very light touch border, sure. But more of a border than between, say Portsmouth and the Isle of WIght.
Rishi has done very well. But when you overclaim, you risk creating trouble down the line.
My take. It hasn’t dealt with the problem border, but moved the problem to the most worrying place for it to be, the reason it was in the sea in the first place.
Sunak’s deal will not end EU law in Northern Ireland, nor ultimate oversight of EU judges in some circumstances, so for certain Northern Island is still on a different course from mainland UK. This means the “green lane” removing Irish Sea border merely kicks that problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, especially as the EU and UK increasingly diverge - this is exactly where everyone but the DUP fear it being!
So is that border problem really resolved, as some claim, or just MOVED to a more worrying place for it to be in the coming years of divergence going forward?
I'm not wholly convinced this week's events will help the Prime Minister that much. John Major, among others, did marvellous work in Northern Ireland but gained little from it electorally in the rest of the UK. The truth is, however much it's boosted by Conservative supporters and pro-Conservative media, most people don't care that much about Northern Ireland.
I don't imagine in 2016 many contemplating a LEAVE vote considered the impact of such a vote on Northern Ireland and its politics - I could be wrong.
Sunak, to his credit, has delivered a deal and perhaps it's a sign unlike on here the emotions of the past seven years are being replaced by a pragmatic reality. It takes two to tango - arguably both the UK and the EU have "won" simply by removing the issue from the board. Naturally, some on here emphasise the positives for Britain but let's not forget it's probably a good deal for the EU inasmuch as it provides a sound economic and political relationship with the UK going forward.
Nobody will be talking about re-joining but the adversarial nature of the post-2016 relationship on both sides is finally being replaced by the necessity to make this work. Those who still want the fight will deny the deal but the truth is more now want to move on and in that regard Sunak was pushing at a door far more easy to open than was the case a few years go.
The Tories have infamously been pandering to the DUP for many years now -and allowing them to wreck Stormont's business as the NI parliament while keeping most of their salaries. So knowing a bit about NI isn't going to cause most folk to feel more positive. Mr Sunak is still very much in clearing up his lot's mess mode, I think.
There’s not much that can be done if either side wants to suspend Stormont.
When SF shut it down, were you upset?
When 70 odd party members of SF in good standing were all in the same 6 foot square toilet, when a man was slowly beaten to death in the bar… were you worried? When SF threatened to suspend the assembly, again, if the police enquiry wasn’t handled more “sensitively”…
Well, it turns out that people listened. And learned.
That’s the Peace Process.
Unless you are anti-agreement Man Of Violence?
That’s the problem.
Most critics of the DUP think it entirely fair and reasonable for Sinn Fein to shut down the Assembly, if they can’t get their way.
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Strange how any criticism of the DUP leads to assumptions that one is pro-SF, terrorists, etc.
Did I say that? No.
I’ve been horrified, personally, by quite how quickly we’ve allowed the DUP to be legitimised. I’m old enough to remember when me saying I held them in almost as much contempt as Sinn Fein/IRA, was not at all controversial.
Lots of us who wish NI well agree. Once they decided that SF and DUP would be the ones who get the votes and not SDLP and UUP then the message is, sadly clear.
Sinn Fein and the DUP are wankers, without question.
I’d far rather see an executive based upon UUP, SDLP, Alliance, with the rest sidelined.
But, the GFA makes it sensible to vote for wankers, to protect your community’s interests.
When the GFA was signed, there were no non sectarian parties in NI. Now, the Alliance Party are a major player in NI politics. There must be a way of amending the GFA to reflect this change.
The Alliance was founded in 1971, IIRC
They’ve been doing their thing for a long, long time.
Off topic. I tested positive for COVID once. Negative each other time. Increasingly convinced I haven't had it. Got some strange stomach virus that many of my students and colleagues have had. Just can't eat. Not don't want to. But physically can't. When I force food down feel nauseous for hours. Have not been physically sick even once. Finding drinking something I need to remember to do too. Am now at a week since I ate an actual meal. The last thing I need is to lose weight. Not finding Working difficult at all. Just cannot be taking enough calories. Not sure why I'm saying all this. I've got a virus obviously. But we obviously don't need to eat the amount we habitually do to function. I think that is my point
Interesting that the UK's formal accession to the CPTPP looks set to be announced in the next few weeks. So much for the theory that Rishi is backsliding on Brexit somehow. As @Casino_Royale and I have been saying, the WF closes the door on the single market and customs union version of Brexit, pushing ahead with the CPTPP shows that we're not going to be in either of those any time soon.
Closing the book on NI also closes the book on Brexit. It is, IMO, now complete and from this point the relationship with the EU will be defined by the TCA and changes to it to ease trade but there is no longer that hope in the EU that they can crowbar the UK into the single market or dynamic alignment using NI.
Once we join the CPTPP I think within 5 years the nature of the who we do business with will just change and UK PLC will have to adapt to compete with imports from significantly more dynamic and better invested Asian companies than what they're used to. I'm very interested to see which companies are able to compete and which just wither and die because they failed to invest over the last 10 years and instead paid huge dividends to shareholders and bonuses to executives.
You're forgetting something... Keir Starmer is probably going to be PM in less than two years.
But the whole first term is going to be pledged not to change anything wrt Brexit and by 2029 the economy is going to look very different than it does now, our balance of imports and exports will be much less dominated by the EU.
And then what? Think about the politics for a second.
A large chunk of the Brexit vote was from workers unhappy about being undercut by workers in Eastern Europe. You seem to be proposing that they will be undercut by workers in East Asia.
Shock therapy is one thing, but do you really think any politician of any party would dare let that happen on their watch?
I think we also need to bear in mind that a lot of hardcore remainers/rejoiners who are remaining quiet at the moment will be less so when we are mid-term through a Labour government. They'll be wanting some red meat for backing Labour.
Or indeed any Lib Dems, Greens, Plaids or Scot Nats needed to get Labour over the line in a hung parliament.
Conservatives fearful of a radical government might be better off with a solid Labour majority.
On which ... the SNP leaders' hustings just this minute, fxrom the National.
8:49pm The last question of the night: will Scotland ask for a similar arrangement that Northern Ireland has been granted with regards to membership of the EU single-market? #
Kate Forbes says "if Northern Ireland can do it, why can't Scotland?" [...]
Ash Regan says that while she would ask the UK Government for a similar arrangement she doesn't think it would be forthcoming.
She says that she thinks that the European Free Trade Association could be a good option for Scotland in the short-term because rejoining the EU may take "up to ten years"
Humza Yousaf says that the party should make sure the clip of Rishi Sunak preaching about the benefits of the EU single-market for Northern Ireland should "be in every living room"
"How dare they stop us from having what Northern Ireland has"
Sunak selling his Got Brexit Done deal as Northern Ireland being in the best place on Earth - in UK and EU single market - whilst denying that “best place on earth” to Scotland, England and Wales?
He’s certainly done the SNP and Scottish Independence homework for them, by defining what happens to their UK border once they are independent. Not only that but by telling separatists this will be the best place on earth, quite an advantage over England to be there, the Conservative Primeminister giving them a huge boost and incentive to go there has he not?
HY?
No he hasn't, Northern Ireland only got this deal as it was still in the UK.
Had it joined a United Ireland a hard border would have been put back in the Irish Sea tomorrow
An independent Scotland, in the EU and Euro gets a red lane not green lane border into England?
I know you will say yes. Patrolled by tanks. But in reality it will be very messy and complicated won’t it?
We will need tanks to prevent England benefiting from our oil, water and renewables. Then we’ll see who subsidises whom.
England would take that part of North Sea oil which belongs to it.
It would also not send a penny further from the Treasury to subsidise the huge Scottish deficit
I'm not wholly convinced this week's events will help the Prime Minister that much. John Major, among others, did marvellous work in Northern Ireland but gained little from it electorally in the rest of the UK. The truth is, however much it's boosted by Conservative supporters and pro-Conservative media, most people don't care that much about Northern Ireland.
I don't imagine in 2016 many contemplating a LEAVE vote considered the impact of such a vote on Northern Ireland and its politics - I could be wrong.
Sunak, to his credit, has delivered a deal and perhaps it's a sign unlike on here the emotions of the past seven years are being replaced by a pragmatic reality. It takes two to tango - arguably both the UK and the EU have "won" simply by removing the issue from the board. Naturally, some on here emphasise the positives for Britain but let's not forget it's probably a good deal for the EU inasmuch as it provides a sound economic and political relationship with the UK going forward.
Nobody will be talking about re-joining but the adversarial nature of the post-2016 relationship on both sides is finally being replaced by the necessity to make this work. Those who still want the fight will deny the deal but the truth is more now want to move on and in that regard Sunak was pushing at a door far more easy to open than was the case a few years go.
The Tories have infamously been pandering to the DUP for many years now -and allowing them to wreck Stormont's business as the NI parliament while keeping most of their salaries. So knowing a bit about NI isn't going to cause most folk to feel more positive. Mr Sunak is still very much in clearing up his lot's mess mode, I think.
There’s not much that can be done if either side wants to suspend Stormont.
When SF shut it down, were you upset?
When 70 odd party members of SF in good standing were all in the same 6 foot square toilet, when a man was slowly beaten to death in the bar… were you worried? When SF threatened to suspend the assembly, again, if the police enquiry wasn’t handled more “sensitively”…
Well, it turns out that people listened. And learned.
That’s the Peace Process.
Unless you are anti-agreement Man Of Violence?
That’s the problem.
Most critics of the DUP think it entirely fair and reasonable for Sinn Fein to shut down the Assembly, if they can’t get their way.
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Strange how any criticism of the DUP leads to assumptions that one is pro-SF, terrorists, etc.
Did I say that? No.
I’ve been horrified, personally, by quite how quickly we’ve allowed the DUP to be legitimised. I’m old enough to remember when me saying I held them in almost as much contempt as Sinn Fein/IRA, was not at all controversial.
Lots of us who wish NI well agree. Once they decided that SF and DUP would be the ones who get the votes and not SDLP and UUP then the message is, sadly clear.
Sinn Fein and the DUP are wankers, without question.
I’d far rather see an executive based upon UUP, SDLP, Alliance, with the rest sidelined.
But, the GFA makes it sensible to vote for wankers, to protect your community’s interests.
When the GFA was signed, there were no non sectarian parties in NI. Now, the Alliance Party are a major player in NI politics. There must be a way of amending the GFA to reflect this change.
The problem is the sectarian parties are the ones with friends with guns.
Or no guns, honestly, but don't mess with us or there might be violence again, but we're not making threats, but you'll do what we say if you know what's good for you.
Alliance has taken votes from centrist parties, even as the centre diminishes.
Sinn Fein, the DUP/TUV now have 63% between them.
Back in 1998, they had 45% (including independent hardline unionists). UUP/SDLP/Alliance have gone from 51% to 32%.
I'm not wholly convinced this week's events will help the Prime Minister that much. John Major, among others, did marvellous work in Northern Ireland but gained little from it electorally in the rest of the UK. The truth is, however much it's boosted by Conservative supporters and pro-Conservative media, most people don't care that much about Northern Ireland.
I don't imagine in 2016 many contemplating a LEAVE vote considered the impact of such a vote on Northern Ireland and its politics - I could be wrong.
Sunak, to his credit, has delivered a deal and perhaps it's a sign unlike on here the emotions of the past seven years are being replaced by a pragmatic reality. It takes two to tango - arguably both the UK and the EU have "won" simply by removing the issue from the board. Naturally, some on here emphasise the positives for Britain but let's not forget it's probably a good deal for the EU inasmuch as it provides a sound economic and political relationship with the UK going forward.
Nobody will be talking about re-joining but the adversarial nature of the post-2016 relationship on both sides is finally being replaced by the necessity to make this work. Those who still want the fight will deny the deal but the truth is more now want to move on and in that regard Sunak was pushing at a door far more easy to open than was the case a few years go.
The Tories have infamously been pandering to the DUP for many years now -and allowing them to wreck Stormont's business as the NI parliament while keeping most of their salaries. So knowing a bit about NI isn't going to cause most folk to feel more positive. Mr Sunak is still very much in clearing up his lot's mess mode, I think.
There’s not much that can be done if either side wants to suspend Stormont.
When SF shut it down, were you upset?
When 70 odd party members of SF in good standing were all in the same 6 foot square toilet, when a man was slowly beaten to death in the bar… were you worried? When SF threatened to suspend the assembly, again, if the police enquiry wasn’t handled more “sensitively”…
Well, it turns out that people listened. And learned.
That’s the Peace Process.
Unless you are anti-agreement Man Of Violence?
That’s the problem.
Most critics of the DUP think it entirely fair and reasonable for Sinn Fein to shut down the Assembly, if they can’t get their way.
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Strange how any criticism of the DUP leads to assumptions that one is pro-SF, terrorists, etc.
Did I say that? No.
I’ve been horrified, personally, by quite how quickly we’ve allowed the DUP to be legitimised. I’m old enough to remember when me saying I held them in almost as much contempt as Sinn Fein/IRA, was not at all controversial.
Lots of us who wish NI well agree. Once they decided that SF and DUP would be the ones who get the votes and not SDLP and UUP then the message is, sadly clear.
Sinn Fein and the DUP are wankers, without question.
I’d far rather see an executive based upon UUP, SDLP, Alliance, with the rest sidelined.
But, the GFA makes it sensible to vote for wankers, to protect your community’s interests.
When the GFA was signed, there were no non sectarian parties in NI. Now, the Alliance Party are a major player in NI politics. There must be a way of amending the GFA to reflect this change.
When the GFA was signed, there were more viable non-sectarian parties than today! There were ideological non-sectarians like the Alliance as well as the NI Women's Coalition, the Greens, and a few post-sectarian or Labour tradition outfits on the centre-left, like the Democratic Left and the local Labour movement. But interestingly, a lot of those would have had a clearer _unionist_ or _nationalist_ position than the contemporary Alliance party - e.g. Alliance at that time would not have been seen as a party neutral on the UK, which it seemed to become after Brexit (to great success among younger voters).
PMQs: SKS draws on the impact of the cost of living...
"The average family in Britain will be poorer than the average family in Poland. We're going to see a generation of young people learning to say 'Auf Wiedersehen, Pet' in Polish", says SKS
What a tosser
What would you have him say?
No brainer today
"Hancock killing Granny's".
It is a shocking state of affairs, a leader of the supposed Labour Party arrogantly implying the average (pebbledashed house, toolmaker dad & nurse mum) British family should somehow be far superior to a Polish family.
Tosser with a capital T
I am going to try to ignore your perpetual, petty sniping at Starmer going forward. He's a long way from perfect but compared to anyone in the Tory leadership, and particularly compared to the fuckwit Johnson (who you were prepared to vote for let us remember), Starmer is just fine.
So, I'm going to try to ignore you, but it's hard because your focus on undermining Labour instead of attacking the true culprits is really bloody intensely irritating.
That feels better.
SKS is BJ but worse
Equal in the liar Department
Equal in the only in it for himself department
Equal in the warmonger Department
Worse in the Democracy Department
Any evidence to back any of that up..
I really do wonder if @bigjohnowls is just enjoying rubbing up Labour supporters for the sake of it
He definitely does, but that doesn’t stop me worrying about him. There is an obsessive level of bitterness that’s not healthy.
To be fair you can see that in other posters including @Scott_xP who is embittered by Brexit
Embittered is precisely the right word. The past few years have left me with my mouth agog, watching my country inflict massive damage on itself, damage that will last years, decades.
I have sympathy with people in Germany in 1933, watching on astonished as people then, too, fell for cynical, right-wing, unicorn-promising bullshit. Let’s be honest, if born in a different time and place, the lunatics who brought us Brexit would have been burning books and firebombing synagogues, collarbones shattering as they flung their right arms high into the air.
It’s been nauseating to see the Brexit Borg on here frotting themselves silly over Sunak’s newly discovered genius in slightly damping down one corner of the raging bin fire the right-wing of this country has cheerfully dragged us into. Sunak, the moron who has the temerity to tell us how fortunate NI is to be in the single market. And the Borg frot away, trotting out the same tired lies.
And supposedly intelligent, dispassionate, coolly analytical types gaze upon the Tory-delivered bin fire, as prices rise, the rivers fill with shit, the shelves empty, food rots in the fields, industries wither, we have to devise the atrocity that is warm spaces, and smugly tell us that we’re better off.
Cameron trying to control his ERG nutters, putting party before country and accidentally taking us out of the EU, is like Hindenberg and von Papen thinking they were smart in taking Hitler into the fold.
In 25 years time, once the next generation have delivered their own stunde null and cast off the poisonous legacy bequeathed on them by the Boomers and the misty-eyed nostalgics, the deluded swivel-eyed nationalists weeping at the death of the Queen whilst carelessly screwing the country, we’ll look back on the past few years with horror.
Yes, I am very bitter.
I added my like for a fine example of the empassioned rant.
Don't agree with all of it, but it's a good attack on many of the politicans that brought us Brexit, promising populist bullshit.
I hesitated only because it can be read as a broadside against all who voted Brexit - there are some who voted Brexit for sincerely held principled reasons and can be happy with what they have done. For the leaders of vote leave, I share your contempt (but also for the leaders of the remain cause, for losing to them and failing to make the positive case for EU membership).
If a poster is going to compare me to people who burn synagogues, I’m happy to compare that poster to a steaming pile of faeces.
FWIW, I don't think you should consider yourself to be included in 'lunatics', Sean.
Bills going up. The public has long grown tired of Brexit
Council Tax paid by direct debit usually. Ten payments per year. So no payment Feb 1st or Mar 1st for most. No wonder folk are feeling a little better off. So. Back on, and much higher from April 1st. £150+ pcm for my £40 k flat.
Everyone has the right to ask for twelve equal instalments, rather than paying upfront over the first ten months. Just email your council and ask.
Yes In actual fact I understand the legality of even that is questionable? You pay for the year. There is no legal requirement to pay in advance AIUI. Nor in instalments. And you aren't in arrears till the year is up. Not sure if that is still the legal position.
Sunak deserves a little bounce for his NI efforts. I wouldn't begrudge it him. The big picture hasn't changed - Lab majority coming - but he's looking like a giant compared to his recent predecessors.
I think a little bounce only (if any). Joe Public has no interest in NI or ongoing banter over Brexit which has happened.
However, I have a hunch that Sunak's quiet head-down, get-on-with-the-job style will ratchet up admiration gradually. A slow burner.
The recent edition of of the The Times Red Box Podcast was interesting - the one where they have the monthly voter focus group. This time it was a group of 2019 CP voters who plan to vote Labour next time. A small sample I know but what came through is that their disillusionment goes back to Johnson and Truss and folk do have short memories. And the Labour lead is soft. And they prefer Sunak to Starmer even though that plan to vote Labour.
It is pretty obvious that Sunak's job is to lose with grace and dignity, such that he may even keep his job as leader, and enable to Tory party to become once again capable of being a One Nation serious government. The sort that doesn't send its citizenship dirty washing to Bangladesh or its refugees to Rwanda. He needs to work harder on that front.
I have voted Tory in GEs for nearly 50 years. I am not going to this time on simple moral, competence and sanity grounds. The question is whether I (and a few million others) do so delightedly or with some regret that we have to.
So you punish Sunak despite him being sane, competent and (at least relatively) moral
I understand the vogue way of phrasing this absurdity is to claim Sunak is being CANCELLED rather than punished. Alternatively someone simply prefers to vote for someone else.
Of course @algarkirk can vote how he likes. But he’s voting against Sunak because of the failings of Johnson.
I'm not wholly convinced this week's events will help the Prime Minister that much. John Major, among others, did marvellous work in Northern Ireland but gained little from it electorally in the rest of the UK. The truth is, however much it's boosted by Conservative supporters and pro-Conservative media, most people don't care that much about Northern Ireland.
I don't imagine in 2016 many contemplating a LEAVE vote considered the impact of such a vote on Northern Ireland and its politics - I could be wrong.
Sunak, to his credit, has delivered a deal and perhaps it's a sign unlike on here the emotions of the past seven years are being replaced by a pragmatic reality. It takes two to tango - arguably both the UK and the EU have "won" simply by removing the issue from the board. Naturally, some on here emphasise the positives for Britain but let's not forget it's probably a good deal for the EU inasmuch as it provides a sound economic and political relationship with the UK going forward.
Nobody will be talking about re-joining but the adversarial nature of the post-2016 relationship on both sides is finally being replaced by the necessity to make this work. Those who still want the fight will deny the deal but the truth is more now want to move on and in that regard Sunak was pushing at a door far more easy to open than was the case a few years go.
The Tories have infamously been pandering to the DUP for many years now -and allowing them to wreck Stormont's business as the NI parliament while keeping most of their salaries. So knowing a bit about NI isn't going to cause most folk to feel more positive. Mr Sunak is still very much in clearing up his lot's mess mode, I think.
There’s not much that can be done if either side wants to suspend Stormont.
When SF shut it down, were you upset?
When 70 odd party members of SF in good standing were all in the same 6 foot square toilet, when a man was slowly beaten to death in the bar… were you worried? When SF threatened to suspend the assembly, again, if the police enquiry wasn’t handled more “sensitively”…
Well, it turns out that people listened. And learned.
That’s the Peace Process.
Unless you are anti-agreement Man Of Violence?
That’s the problem.
Most critics of the DUP think it entirely fair and reasonable for Sinn Fein to shut down the Assembly, if they can’t get their way.
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Strange how any criticism of the DUP leads to assumptions that one is pro-SF, terrorists, etc.
Did I say that? No.
I’ve been horrified, personally, by quite how quickly we’ve allowed the DUP to be legitimised. I’m old enough to remember when me saying I held them in almost as much contempt as Sinn Fein/IRA, was not at all controversial.
Lots of us who wish NI well agree. Once they decided that SF and DUP would be the ones who get the votes and not SDLP and UUP then the message is, sadly clear.
Sinn Fein and the DUP are wankers, without question.
I’d far rather see an executive based upon UUP, SDLP, Alliance, with the rest sidelined.
But, the GFA makes it sensible to vote for wankers, to protect your community’s interests.
When the GFA was signed, there were no non sectarian parties in NI. Now, the Alliance Party are a major player in NI politics. There must be a way of amending the GFA to reflect this change.
The problem is the sectarian parties are the ones with friends with guns.
Or no guns, honestly, but don't mess with us or there might be violence again, but we're not making threats, but you'll do what we say if you know what's good for you.
Alliance has taken votes from centrist parties, even as the centre diminishes.
Sinn Fein, the DUP/TUV now have 63% between them.
Back in 1998, they had 45% (including independent hardline unionists). UUP/SDLP/Alliance have gone from 51% to 32%.
All according to the latest Lucid Talk poll.
The numbers are true, but it misses that a SF-DUP axis running Stormont would have been unimaginable in 1998. People would have thought the system would have shut down. The IRA were still armed and SF were politically opposed to cooperation with the police (as late as 2007!), and the DUP rejected the GFA wholesale including powersharing with Catholics. Nowadays people can easily imagine it because post-2007 they made it work. That's why (some) people are frustrated (but they are mostly middle-class and young Alliance voters; hard to emphasise how different they are from the median voter).
I'm really tickled pink by northern_monkey using the phrase "unicorn-hunting bullshit" this week of all weeks when the "unicorn" is real. We've had the likes of @Scott_xP posting stupid meme after stupid meme for years about how Brexiteers like myself preferred solution for NI is a unicorn and yet the unicorn is real and has happened.
A throwback to everyone's favourite European Twitter commentator during Covid19 and FBPE Favourite Dave Keating, from when I was opposing Theresa May's deal, is well worth looking back at today: https://twitter.com/davekeating/status/1053224418653159425
Dave Keating @DaveKeating 19 Oct 2018 So what exactly is the Irish border backstop problem in the #Brexit talks? I break it down on France 24. [video] In other words, the #Brexit trilemma:
What solution do we have today to the Trilemma?
I think you're getting rather carried away. While Rishi's deal is to be welcomed, it's ultimately only fixing a problem that Brexit itself caused, and NI is no better off now than when we were in the EU (unless you go with Rishi's analysis that NI's being in the Single Market gives it a competitive edge over the other nations of the UK, which is hardly roll-out-the-barrel stuff for the rest of us). No, Brexit is still dreary and grey.
NI is better off now than when we were in the EU, as are England and Wales too, because of all the benefits from Brexit.
Brexit was a vote that it was worth leaving the Single Market and Customs Union, because of all the benefits that taking back control would bring.
NI now is in the utterly remarkable position of having those benefits, without having to pay the price for those benefits. A true win/win and how can you possibly deny that its in a better position now?
Nowhere in the EU, nowhere else in the world, gets all the benefits of being out of the EU, while also getting the benefits of being in, simultaneously.
You are wrong I would say.
My reasoning is, how exactly does this play out over time say as much as 20 years, with UK and EU markets diverging, yet EU still with so much legal power over Northern Ireland?
The key bit is it’s not a miracle they are in both places simultaneously, it actually means Northern Ireland does not have full control over its sovereignty during this diverging of markets period, it has no veto or brake over new EU law being introduced to it. This is fact. And it’s why the hailing of Rishi and his deal has pulled the wool over too many intelligent eyes this week.
The “what a great position to be in” and “this finishes Boris off” spin is mugging everyone off.
BRAKE? First, the threshold for the Stormont veto is high, 30 members across two parties just to trigger it. Secondly EU briefing paper on the Commission website says of the new veto: "This mechanism would be triggered under the most exceptional circumstances and as a matter of last resort", making clear there is no expectation it should be used regularly, such as veto every NEW EU LAW to be imposed on Northern Ireland. If anyone tries to use it like that, details set out in the actual text Sunak has agreed, gives EU the ability to take 'appropriate remedial measures' to protect their market. And that’s even after a UK government agrees with DUP and does not overrule them so agrees to go to war against EU on DUP behalf - why should DUP ever trust a UK government and EU favourable mechanism, or ever swallow the ludicrous spin this gives them their own veto?
In fact, why should ANY Unionist or Brexiteer swallow this Second Class Sovereignty for NI wherever they are, whatever party they are in? HY?
Border in Irish Sea transferred to North South Ireland border. No real brake or Veto over new EU law in Northern Ireland. EU the ability to take 'appropriate remedial measures' to protect their market Whenever UK government won’t do dirty on DUP.
Am I the only poster on the site who actually understands this?
On the lab leak theory going mainstream - I don't it's particularly important, in itself. Just suggests that lax standards at a lab were the issue, rather than horrible conditions at a food market. Neither paint China in good light. Indeed, the latter feels more backward to me.
A secondary issue is the undermining of scientific evidence in general. This stuff isn't my field, but I've seen a few economic/business/finance models in my time and the number of basic errors and weird simplistic assumptions you spot is quite scary.
I hope standards are higher elsewhere. If 'science' develops a similar reputation then I think we are in trouble.
Off topic. I tested positive for COVID once. Negative each other time. Increasingly convinced I haven't had it. Got some strange stomach virus that many of my students and colleagues have had. Just can't eat. Not don't want to. But physically can't. When I force food down feel nauseous for hours. Have not been physically sick even once. Finding drinking something I need to remember to do too. Am now at a week since I ate an actual meal. The last thing I need is to lose weight. Not finding Working difficult at all. Just cannot be taking enough calories. Not sure why I'm saying all this. I've got a virus obviously. But we obviously don't need to eat the amount we habitually do to function. I think that is my point
Some of the newer covid variants have quite prominent GI symptoms.
Off topic. I tested positive for COVID once. Negative each other time. Increasingly convinced I haven't had it. Got some strange stomach virus that many of my students and colleagues have had. Just can't eat. Not don't want to. But physically can't. When I force food down feel nauseous for hours. Have not been physically sick even once. Finding drinking something I need to remember to do too. Am now at a week since I ate an actual meal. The last thing I need is to lose weight. Not finding Working difficult at all. Just cannot be taking enough calories. Not sure why I'm saying all this. I've got a virus obviously. But we obviously don't need to eat the amount we habitually do to function. I think that is my point
Some of the newer covid variants have quite prominent GI symptoms.
"Setting aside the merits of the news stories being underpinned by the trove of messages, Conservative MPs and political journalists have expressed some astonishment that Hancock entrusted millions of words of his private correspondence to Oakeshott, of all people.
A journalist who has long made clear her disdain for his lockdown policies, she has been accused of having a poor track record when it comes to source protection, and is in a relationship with the leader of the anti-lockdown Reform party.
As Robert Colvile, the director of the rightwing Centre for Policy Studies thinktank and co-author of the 2019 Tory manifesto, said: “The main lesson I’ve learned from this is not to hire someone who absolutely hates your signature policy as your ghostwriter.”
One political journalist said: “The man needs his head testing to have gone near Oakeshott with a flaming trebuchet, let alone a bargepole.”
Extraordinarily Oakeshott handed the entire archive of Hancock’s messages to the Daily Telegraph despite being paid a rumoured six-figure salary by Rupert Murdoch’s News UK to be a pundit on its struggling TalkTV channel.
Staff at the Sun and the Times have been left fuming that they are now trying to follow up a story given to a rival newspaper by one of their own employees – while TalkTV has missed out on a scoop that could have helped it in its ratings battle with GB News. Oakeshott said she is only employed by TalkTV on a freelance basis and is therefore able to work for other publications."
I'm really tickled pink by northern_monkey using the phrase "unicorn-hunting bullshit" this week of all weeks when the "unicorn" is real. We've had the likes of @Scott_xP posting stupid meme after stupid meme for years about how Brexiteers like myself preferred solution for NI is a unicorn and yet the unicorn is real and has happened.
A throwback to everyone's favourite European Twitter commentator during Covid19 and FBPE Favourite Dave Keating, from when I was opposing Theresa May's deal, is well worth looking back at today: https://twitter.com/davekeating/status/1053224418653159425
Dave Keating @DaveKeating 19 Oct 2018 So what exactly is the Irish border backstop problem in the #Brexit talks? I break it down on France 24. [video] In other words, the #Brexit trilemma:
What solution do we have today to the Trilemma?
Not quite.
“When goods move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, they will now move without customs bureaucracy, they will move without routine customs checks,” he told Radio 4.
But that’s not quite what the Windsor Framework says. The 26-page agreement contains provisions for bureaucracy that would not apply to goods moving between, say, England and Wales.
For example, the Framework says businesses will have to provide “commercial data” to an official body to move goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
Later, the Framework says that a lorry entering Northern Ireland from England, Wales or Scotland would need a “document confirming that goods are staying in Northern Ireland and are moved in line with the terms of our internal market scheme”...
A very light touch border, sure. But more of a border than between, say Portsmouth and the Isle of WIght.
Rishi has done very well. But when you overclaim, you risk creating trouble down the line.
My take. It hasn’t dealt with the problem border, but moved the problem to the most worrying place for it to be, the reason it was in the sea in the first place.
Sunak’s deal will not end EU law in Northern Ireland, nor ultimate oversight of EU judges in some circumstances, so for certain Northern Island is still on a different course from mainland UK. This means the “green lane” removing Irish Sea border merely kicks that problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, especially as the EU and UK increasingly diverge - this is exactly where everyone but the DUP fear it being!
So is that border problem really resolved, as some claim, or just MOVED to a more worrying place for it to be in the coming years of divergence going forward?
Yes and no.
First thing to note is that there's a long line of British PMs doing Brilliant Deals With Europe that turn out to be oversold. Something about our national psyche needs a win, rather than a high-scoring draw that ensures both teams progress to the next round of the competition. And sucessful negotiations that stick tend to be win-win.
As for the border question, I think the border stays where it was, because it's the only sane and safe place to put it. As you say, putting it between NI and the Republic pleases the DUP (c'mon, it's a chunk of why they backed Brexit all along) and terrifies anyone else. My guess (provincial physics master, me) is that, as long as they get the computer access, the EU can get the info they need from the Irish Sea checks and there's space to tighten or relax if the green lane gets abused.
Something similar with the ECJ cushioning and the Stormont Lock. They're not just symbolic, but when push comes to shove the ECJ seems to have the powers it needs in the end. And the Stormont Lock might never be activated; the threshold and costs are just high enough to make it more hassle than it's worth. See Norway- they've done exactly one veto, I think.
It does lead to wry amusement; the angriest comments today seem to be from those who welcome RIshi's deal as the foundation to pile more Brexit upon the Brexit that's already secured. Everyone else seems to be saying "the deal looks fine and it's nice to have a UK government who isn't trying to get their way by headbanging."
Maybe the opportunity to headbang was the point all along.
"It's OK to give the hospital keys to the national pervert because Tony Blair had him round for dinner once" is a great electoral slogan for the Tories?
I haven't noticed Edwina Currie on the Tory candidates list again?
I believe the former DPP who never prosecuted Savile might have something to do with the top of today's Labour Party though!
I’m surprised at you, that’s a little cheap.
Agree. What with the constant comments on Starmer being privately educated and this it is really a bit below HYUFD to make these misleading comments. It is not like they are errors. He knows they are misleading. I know he might come back with they are true statements, but they are incredibly disingenuous. I'm not a Starmer fan, but it wouldn't cross my mind to make these statements.
Though apparently earlier in the thread it is fine to trash the King or Thatcher government for having links with Savile. However mention Blair's links to Savile or SKS' record on Savile and that is a huge no no!
Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because someone else does something you don't like does not make it ok for you to make utterly misleading comments about someone else. SKS doesn't have a record re Saville and you know it, so why say it?
The original tweet against the King came from Labour for a Republic. If they can't take it they shouldn't dish it out, that's politics!!
What? Your not attacking them though are you? You are libeling Starmer instead. So it has nothing to do with dishing it out and not taking it has it? How would you like it if someone unjustifiably accused you of negligence which resulted in you protecting a sex offender?
Nothing libellous about it. It is unarguable Starmer was head of the DPP from 2008 to 2011 when Savile was still alive and the CPS did not prosecute him.
If leftists like Labour for a Republic can't take what they dish out, tough!
Repeating the same tosh does not make it right. As you haven't attacked Labour for Republic (whoever they are) how is there any issue of them not taking what they dish out. You seem to be confused about who you are attacking. You are attacking Starmer not them.
You have implied that Starmer was at least incompetent or negligent in not prosecuting Saville or worse deliberately didn't do so. That is libellous. Or are you saying you are not saying any of this. If so what is your point of mentioning Starmer and Saville in the same post then? Guilty by innuendo?
Labour for Republic are a pressure group within the Labour Party which Starmer leads. Today they made an appalling attack on the King and his connection to Savile, posted on here by Stuart Dickson.
If Starmer doesn't then want his own record questioned by association he should expel Labour for a Republic from the Labour Party exactly as he has expelled Corbyn!
What, precisely, did they do that was so appalling? Remind us, again, will you?
You are *always* criticising and attacking members of the Royal Family, so it can't be that.
You know full well they were alluding to the King knowing what Savile was up to and colluding with him.
It was appalling and if Starmer had any guts he would expel Labour for a Republic from the Labour Party tomorrow
Come on. The Kings brother has a dodgy record with young girls too. Not quite as bad as Savile, at least from what we know so far.
I don't think showing Savile and Charles together is libellous, merely a statement of fact that paedos suck up to powerful people as a way of covering their activities up.
Off topic. Watching the Tesla Investor Day presentation. I have a degree in mechanical engineering and a PhD in manufacturing engineering. What they are doing with their approach to excellence and quality is the most impressive engineering I think I've ever seen.
Off topic. I tested positive for COVID once. Negative each other time. Increasingly convinced I haven't had it. Got some strange stomach virus that many of my students and colleagues have had. Just can't eat. Not don't want to. But physically can't. When I force food down feel nauseous for hours. Have not been physically sick even once. Finding drinking something I need to remember to do too. Am now at a week since I ate an actual meal. The last thing I need is to lose weight. Not finding Working difficult at all. Just cannot be taking enough calories. Not sure why I'm saying all this. I've got a virus obviously. But we obviously don't need to eat the amount we habitually do to function. I think that is my point
Some of the newer covid variants have quite prominent GI symptoms.
Yeah. Thanks for that. It's really reassuring. Just not being able to physically eat is a bit disconcerting.
One thing about fasting (or what you are having) is that once the liver and muscle glycogen is gone, people lose muscle mass. It is important to recover this with a high protein diet and plenty of exercise once symptoms allow.
Off topic. Watching the Tesla Investor Day presentation. I have a degree in mechanical engineering and a PhD in manufacturing engineering. What they are doing with their approach to excellence and quality is the most impressive engineering I think I've ever seen.
I'm really tickled pink by northern_monkey using the phrase "unicorn-hunting bullshit" this week of all weeks when the "unicorn" is real. We've had the likes of @Scott_xP posting stupid meme after stupid meme for years about how Brexiteers like myself preferred solution for NI is a unicorn and yet the unicorn is real and has happened.
A throwback to everyone's favourite European Twitter commentator during Covid19 and FBPE Favourite Dave Keating, from when I was opposing Theresa May's deal, is well worth looking back at today: https://twitter.com/davekeating/status/1053224418653159425
Dave Keating @DaveKeating 19 Oct 2018 So what exactly is the Irish border backstop problem in the #Brexit talks? I break it down on France 24. [video] In other words, the #Brexit trilemma:
What solution do we have today to the Trilemma?
Not quite.
“When goods move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, they will now move without customs bureaucracy, they will move without routine customs checks,” he told Radio 4.
But that’s not quite what the Windsor Framework says. The 26-page agreement contains provisions for bureaucracy that would not apply to goods moving between, say, England and Wales.
For example, the Framework says businesses will have to provide “commercial data” to an official body to move goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
Later, the Framework says that a lorry entering Northern Ireland from England, Wales or Scotland would need a “document confirming that goods are staying in Northern Ireland and are moved in line with the terms of our internal market scheme”...
A very light touch border, sure. But more of a border than between, say Portsmouth and the Isle of WIght.
Rishi has done very well. But when you overclaim, you risk creating trouble down the line.
My take. It hasn’t dealt with the problem border, but moved the problem to the most worrying place for it to be, the reason it was in the sea in the first place.
Sunak’s deal will not end EU law in Northern Ireland, nor ultimate oversight of EU judges in some circumstances, so for certain Northern Island is still on a different course from mainland UK. This means the “green lane” removing Irish Sea border merely kicks that problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, especially as the EU and UK increasingly diverge - this is exactly where everyone but the DUP fear it being!
So is that border problem really resolved, as some claim, or just MOVED to a more worrying place for it to be in the coming years of divergence going forward?
Yes and no.
First thing to note is that there's a long line of British PMs doing Brilliant Deals With Europe that turn out to be oversold. Something about our national psyche needs a win, rather than a high-scoring draw that ensures both teams progress to the next round of the competition. And sucessful negotiations that stick tend to be win-win.
As for the border question, I think the border stays where it was, because it's the only sane and safe place to put it. As you say, putting it between NI and the Republic pleases the DUP (c'mon, it's a chunk of why they backed Brexit all along) and terrifies anyone else. My guess (provincial physics master, me) is that, as long as they get the computer access, the EU can get the info they need from the Irish Sea checks and there's space to tighten or relax if the green lane gets abused.
Something similar with the ECJ cushioning and the Stormont Lock. They're not just symbolic, but when push comes to shove the ECJ seems to have the powers it needs in the end. And the Stormont Lock might never be activated; the threshold and costs are just high enough to make it more hassle than it's worth. See Norway- they've done exactly one veto, I think.
It does lead to wry amusement; the angriest comments today seem to be from those who welcome RIshi's deal as the foundation to pile more Brexit upon the Brexit that's already secured. Everyone else seems to be saying "the deal looks fine and it's nice to have a UK government who isn't trying to get their way by headbanging."
Maybe the opportunity to headbang was the point all along.
I note what you are saying. But Note how some are posting tonight, if Scotland was independent, in EU and Euro, as is ROI we would need a hard border between England and Scotland.
I am sticking with the big take out of Sunak’s deal is it doesn’t solve the problem of a border in the Irish Sea, it merely kicks ongoing unresolved problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, as the two markets diverge - exactly what many feared and warned of long before we even voted for Brexit. as we consider how time plays out with this deal in place.
Sunak’s Agreement doesn’t really resolve all the issues he is claiming it resolves. And it leaves us sadly with nothing now in the offing that can reopen Stormont and get Good Friday Agreement back on track. 😕
Off topic. I tested positive for COVID once. Negative each other time. Increasingly convinced I haven't had it. Got some strange stomach virus that many of my students and colleagues have had. Just can't eat. Not don't want to. But physically can't. When I force food down feel nauseous for hours. Have not been physically sick even once. Finding drinking something I need to remember to do too. Am now at a week since I ate an actual meal. The last thing I need is to lose weight. Not finding Working difficult at all. Just cannot be taking enough calories. Not sure why I'm saying all this. I've got a virus obviously. But we obviously don't need to eat the amount we habitually do to function. I think that is my point
Sorry to hear you're unwell. Our ancestors would have gone without food for long periods, and fasting is traditional in many faiths. Digestion is hard work - stopping doing it for a little while can be good for the body. If you can only manage a small amount, something very nutrient dense like cheese would seem a good option.
"It's OK to give the hospital keys to the national pervert because Tony Blair had him round for dinner once" is a great electoral slogan for the Tories?
I haven't noticed Edwina Currie on the Tory candidates list again?
I believe the former DPP who never prosecuted Savile might have something to do with the top of today's Labour Party though!
I’m surprised at you, that’s a little cheap.
Agree. What with the constant comments on Starmer being privately educated and this it is really a bit below HYUFD to make these misleading comments. It is not like they are errors. He knows they are misleading. I know he might come back with they are true statements, but they are incredibly disingenuous. I'm not a Starmer fan, but it wouldn't cross my mind to make these statements.
Though apparently earlier in the thread it is fine to trash the King or Thatcher government for having links with Savile. However mention Blair's links to Savile or SKS' record on Savile and that is a huge no no!
Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because someone else does something you don't like does not make it ok for you to make utterly misleading comments about someone else. SKS doesn't have a record re Saville and you know it, so why say it?
The original tweet against the King came from Labour for a Republic. If they can't take it they shouldn't dish it out, that's politics!!
What? Your not attacking them though are you? You are libeling Starmer instead. So it has nothing to do with dishing it out and not taking it has it? How would you like it if someone unjustifiably accused you of negligence which resulted in you protecting a sex offender?
Nothing libellous about it. It is unarguable Starmer was head of the DPP from 2008 to 2011 when Savile was still alive and the CPS did not prosecute him.
If leftists like Labour for a Republic can't take what they dish out, tough!
Repeating the same tosh does not make it right. As you haven't attacked Labour for Republic (whoever they are) how is there any issue of them not taking what they dish out. You seem to be confused about who you are attacking. You are attacking Starmer not them.
You have implied that Starmer was at least incompetent or negligent in not prosecuting Saville or worse deliberately didn't do so. That is libellous. Or are you saying you are not saying any of this. If so what is your point of mentioning Starmer and Saville in the same post then? Guilty by innuendo?
Labour for Republic are a pressure group within the Labour Party which Starmer leads. Today they made an appalling attack on the King and his connection to Savile, posted on here by Stuart Dickson.
If Starmer doesn't then want his own record questioned by association he should expel Labour for a Republic from the Labour Party exactly as he has expelled Corbyn!
Thank you for your incendiary expose on Starmer and Savile. Are you planning to turbocharge this revelation for the GE?
I'm really tickled pink by northern_monkey using the phrase "unicorn-hunting bullshit" this week of all weeks when the "unicorn" is real. We've had the likes of @Scott_xP posting stupid meme after stupid meme for years about how Brexiteers like myself preferred solution for NI is a unicorn and yet the unicorn is real and has happened.
A throwback to everyone's favourite European Twitter commentator during Covid19 and FBPE Favourite Dave Keating, from when I was opposing Theresa May's deal, is well worth looking back at today: https://twitter.com/davekeating/status/1053224418653159425
Dave Keating @DaveKeating 19 Oct 2018 So what exactly is the Irish border backstop problem in the #Brexit talks? I break it down on France 24. [video] In other words, the #Brexit trilemma:
What solution do we have today to the Trilemma?
Not quite.
“When goods move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, they will now move without customs bureaucracy, they will move without routine customs checks,” he told Radio 4.
But that’s not quite what the Windsor Framework says. The 26-page agreement contains provisions for bureaucracy that would not apply to goods moving between, say, England and Wales.
For example, the Framework says businesses will have to provide “commercial data” to an official body to move goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
Later, the Framework says that a lorry entering Northern Ireland from England, Wales or Scotland would need a “document confirming that goods are staying in Northern Ireland and are moved in line with the terms of our internal market scheme”...
A very light touch border, sure. But more of a border than between, say Portsmouth and the Isle of WIght.
Rishi has done very well. But when you overclaim, you risk creating trouble down the line.
My take. It hasn’t dealt with the problem border, but moved the problem to the most worrying place for it to be, the reason it was in the sea in the first place.
Sunak’s deal will not end EU law in Northern Ireland, nor ultimate oversight of EU judges in some circumstances, so for certain Northern Island is still on a different course from mainland UK. This means the “green lane” removing Irish Sea border merely kicks that problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, especially as the EU and UK increasingly diverge - this is exactly where everyone but the DUP fear it being!
So is that border problem really resolved, as some claim, or just MOVED to a more worrying place for it to be in the coming years of divergence going forward?
Yes and no.
First thing to note is that there's a long line of British PMs doing Brilliant Deals With Europe that turn out to be oversold. Something about our national psyche needs a win, rather than a high-scoring draw that ensures both teams progress to the next round of the competition. And sucessful negotiations that stick tend to be win-win.
As for the border question, I think the border stays where it was, because it's the only sane and safe place to put it. As you say, putting it between NI and the Republic pleases the DUP (c'mon, it's a chunk of why they backed Brexit all along) and terrifies anyone else. My guess (provincial physics master, me) is that, as long as they get the computer access, the EU can get the info they need from the Irish Sea checks and there's space to tighten or relax if the green lane gets abused.
Something similar with the ECJ cushioning and the Stormont Lock. They're not just symbolic, but when push comes to shove the ECJ seems to have the powers it needs in the end. And the Stormont Lock might never be activated; the threshold and costs are just high enough to make it more hassle than it's worth. See Norway- they've done exactly one veto, I think.
It does lead to wry amusement; the angriest comments today seem to be from those who welcome RIshi's deal as the foundation to pile more Brexit upon the Brexit that's already secured. Everyone else seems to be saying "the deal looks fine and it's nice to have a UK government who isn't trying to get their way by headbanging."
Maybe the opportunity to headbang was the point all along.
I note what you are saying. But Note how some are posting tonight, if Scotland was independent, in EU and Euro, as is ROI we would need a hard border between England and Scotland.
I am sticking with the big take out of Sunak’s deal is it doesn’t solve the problem of a border in the Irish Sea, it merely kicks ongoing unresolved problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, as the two markets diverge - exactly what many feared and warned of long before we even voted for Brexit. as we consider how time plays out with this deal in place.
Sunak’s Agreement doesn’t really resolve all the issues he is claiming it resolves. And it leaves us sadly with nothing now in the offing that can reopen Stormont and get Good Friday Agreement back on track. 😕
It’s quite a colossal failure really.
Some of it's sadly inevitable. If the DUP don't want to play ball with Stormont and enough of their voters like that, there's not much the rest of us can do. And, despite what some would claim, the Irish trilemma has been shrunk, but it's still present.
But this is better than what was there before, and sometimes better is all you can hope for.
I'm really tickled pink by northern_monkey using the phrase "unicorn-hunting bullshit" this week of all weeks when the "unicorn" is real. We've had the likes of @Scott_xP posting stupid meme after stupid meme for years about how Brexiteers like myself preferred solution for NI is a unicorn and yet the unicorn is real and has happened.
A throwback to everyone's favourite European Twitter commentator during Covid19 and FBPE Favourite Dave Keating, from when I was opposing Theresa May's deal, is well worth looking back at today: https://twitter.com/davekeating/status/1053224418653159425
Dave Keating @DaveKeating 19 Oct 2018 So what exactly is the Irish border backstop problem in the #Brexit talks? I break it down on France 24. [video] In other words, the #Brexit trilemma:
What solution do we have today to the Trilemma?
Not quite.
“When goods move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, they will now move without customs bureaucracy, they will move without routine customs checks,” he told Radio 4.
But that’s not quite what the Windsor Framework says. The 26-page agreement contains provisions for bureaucracy that would not apply to goods moving between, say, England and Wales.
For example, the Framework says businesses will have to provide “commercial data” to an official body to move goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
Later, the Framework says that a lorry entering Northern Ireland from England, Wales or Scotland would need a “document confirming that goods are staying in Northern Ireland and are moved in line with the terms of our internal market scheme”...
A very light touch border, sure. But more of a border than between, say Portsmouth and the Isle of WIght.
Rishi has done very well. But when you overclaim, you risk creating trouble down the line.
My take. It hasn’t dealt with the problem border, but moved the problem to the most worrying place for it to be, the reason it was in the sea in the first place.
Sunak’s deal will not end EU law in Northern Ireland, nor ultimate oversight of EU judges in some circumstances, so for certain Northern Island is still on a different course from mainland UK. This means the “green lane” removing Irish Sea border merely kicks that problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, especially as the EU and UK increasingly diverge - this is exactly where everyone but the DUP fear it being!
So is that border problem really resolved, as some claim, or just MOVED to a more worrying place for it to be in the coming years of divergence going forward?
Yes and no.
First thing to note is that there's a long line of British PMs doing Brilliant Deals With Europe that turn out to be oversold. Something about our national psyche needs a win, rather than a high-scoring draw that ensures both teams progress to the next round of the competition. And sucessful negotiations that stick tend to be win-win.
As for the border question, I think the border stays where it was, because it's the only sane and safe place to put it. As you say, putting it between NI and the Republic pleases the DUP (c'mon, it's a chunk of why they backed Brexit all along) and terrifies anyone else. My guess (provincial physics master, me) is that, as long as they get the computer access, the EU can get the info they need from the Irish Sea checks and there's space to tighten or relax if the green lane gets abused.
Something similar with the ECJ cushioning and the Stormont Lock. They're not just symbolic, but when push comes to shove the ECJ seems to have the powers it needs in the end. And the Stormont Lock might never be activated; the threshold and costs are just high enough to make it more hassle than it's worth. See Norway- they've done exactly one veto, I think.
It does lead to wry amusement; the angriest comments today seem to be from those who welcome RIshi's deal as the foundation to pile more Brexit upon the Brexit that's already secured. Everyone else seems to be saying "the deal looks fine and it's nice to have a UK government who isn't trying to get their way by headbanging."
Maybe the opportunity to headbang was the point all along.
I note what you are saying. But Note how some are posting tonight, if Scotland was independent, in EU and Euro, as is ROI we would need a hard border between England and Scotland.
I am sticking with the big take out of Sunak’s deal is it doesn’t solve the problem of a border in the Irish Sea, it merely kicks ongoing unresolved problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, as the two markets diverge - exactly what many feared and warned of long before we even voted for Brexit. as we consider how time plays out with this deal in place.
Sunak’s Agreement doesn’t really resolve all the issues he is claiming it resolves. And it leaves us sadly with nothing now in the offing that can reopen Stormont and get Good Friday Agreement back on track. 😕
It’s quite a colossal failure really.
Some of it's sadly inevitable. If the DUP don't want to play ball with Stormont and enough of their voters like that, there's not much the rest of us can do. And, despite what some would claim, the Irish trilemma has been shrunk, but it's still present.
But this is better than what was there before, and sometimes better is all you can hope for.
It it better though? My whole argument is, aside from pets plants and parcels in many ways it worse, not better!
Let me explain in bullet points.
Sunak’s deal will not end EU law in Northern Ireland, nor ultimate oversight of EU judges in some circumstances. That’s asking the DUP to permanently now accept Second Class Sovereignty, not live in an anomaly for a while everyone promises to sort out. It’s very easy to dismiss DUP as never satisfied, but they are being asked to accept Second Class Sovereignty in their own country, are they not. New EU laws they can do nothing about, no real brake or Veto to stop their country divulging away from the UK with new EU law and rules.
In fact this deal bolsters EU because it enshrines more NEW EU law in future without NI politicians being able to stop it. It enshrines the right of EU to take 'appropriate remedial measures' to protect their market whenever they don’t get their way.
It does not resolve the problem of border in Irish Sea. It transfers the unresolved problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, as the two markets diverge. This in turn allows an Independent Scotland to ask for exactly the same. It’s actually shining a pathway and inspiring Scottish Independence.
How can it better this week, when last week there was the hope, based on long time promise, all these things would be properly sorted out, not fudged behind a wall of spin. That hopes gone. The hope these issues properly sorted out and Stormont resuming at last, is now gone. How can that leave us in a better place post deal than pre deal?
Bills going up. The public has long grown tired of Brexit
Council Tax paid by direct debit usually. Ten payments per year. So no payment Feb 1st or Mar 1st for most. No wonder folk are feeling a little better off. So. Back on, and much higher from April 1st. £150+ pcm for my £40 k flat.
Everyone has the right to ask for twelve equal instalments, rather than paying upfront over the first ten months. Just email your council and ask.
Yes In actual fact I understand the legality of even that is questionable? You pay for the year. There is no legal requirement to pay in advance AIUI. Nor in instalments. And you aren't in arrears till the year is up. Not sure if that is still the legal position.
I pay in 12 equal installments. There's no interest charge so it's a win on time value of money.
I'm really tickled pink by northern_monkey using the phrase "unicorn-hunting bullshit" this week of all weeks when the "unicorn" is real. We've had the likes of @Scott_xP posting stupid meme after stupid meme for years about how Brexiteers like myself preferred solution for NI is a unicorn and yet the unicorn is real and has happened.
A throwback to everyone's favourite European Twitter commentator during Covid19 and FBPE Favourite Dave Keating, from when I was opposing Theresa May's deal, is well worth looking back at today: https://twitter.com/davekeating/status/1053224418653159425
Dave Keating @DaveKeating 19 Oct 2018 So what exactly is the Irish border backstop problem in the #Brexit talks? I break it down on France 24. [video] In other words, the #Brexit trilemma:
What solution do we have today to the Trilemma?
Not quite.
“When goods move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, they will now move without customs bureaucracy, they will move without routine customs checks,” he told Radio 4.
But that’s not quite what the Windsor Framework says. The 26-page agreement contains provisions for bureaucracy that would not apply to goods moving between, say, England and Wales.
For example, the Framework says businesses will have to provide “commercial data” to an official body to move goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
Later, the Framework says that a lorry entering Northern Ireland from England, Wales or Scotland would need a “document confirming that goods are staying in Northern Ireland and are moved in line with the terms of our internal market scheme”...
A very light touch border, sure. But more of a border than between, say Portsmouth and the Isle of WIght.
Rishi has done very well. But when you overclaim, you risk creating trouble down the line.
My take. It hasn’t dealt with the problem border, but moved the problem to the most worrying place for it to be, the reason it was in the sea in the first place.
Sunak’s deal will not end EU law in Northern Ireland, nor ultimate oversight of EU judges in some circumstances, so for certain Northern Island is still on a different course from mainland UK. This means the “green lane” removing Irish Sea border merely kicks that problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, especially as the EU and UK increasingly diverge - this is exactly where everyone but the DUP fear it being!
So is that border problem really resolved, as some claim, or just MOVED to a more worrying place for it to be in the coming years of divergence going forward?
Yes and no.
First thing to note is that there's a long line of British PMs doing Brilliant Deals With Europe that turn out to be oversold. Something about our national psyche needs a win, rather than a high-scoring draw that ensures both teams progress to the next round of the competition. And sucessful negotiations that stick tend to be win-win.
As for the border question, I think the border stays where it was, because it's the only sane and safe place to put it. As you say, putting it between NI and the Republic pleases the DUP (c'mon, it's a chunk of why they backed Brexit all along) and terrifies anyone else. My guess (provincial physics master, me) is that, as long as they get the computer access, the EU can get the info they need from the Irish Sea checks and there's space to tighten or relax if the green lane gets abused.
Something similar with the ECJ cushioning and the Stormont Lock. They're not just symbolic, but when push comes to shove the ECJ seems to have the powers it needs in the end. And the Stormont Lock might never be activated; the threshold and costs are just high enough to make it more hassle than it's worth. See Norway- they've done exactly one veto, I think.
It does lead to wry amusement; the angriest comments today seem to be from those who welcome RIshi's deal as the foundation to pile more Brexit upon the Brexit that's already secured. Everyone else seems to be saying "the deal looks fine and it's nice to have a UK government who isn't trying to get their way by headbanging."
Maybe the opportunity to headbang was the point all along.
I note what you are saying. But Note how some are posting tonight, if Scotland was independent, in EU and Euro, as is ROI we would need a hard border between England and Scotland.
I am sticking with the big take out of Sunak’s deal is it doesn’t solve the problem of a border in the Irish Sea, it merely kicks ongoing unresolved problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, as the two markets diverge - exactly what many feared and warned of long before we even voted for Brexit. as we consider how time plays out with this deal in place.
Sunak’s Agreement doesn’t really resolve all the issues he is claiming it resolves. And it leaves us sadly with nothing now in the offing that can reopen Stormont and get Good Friday Agreement back on track. 😕
It’s quite a colossal failure really.
Some of it's sadly inevitable. If the DUP don't want to play ball with Stormont and enough of their voters like that, there's not much the rest of us can do. And, despite what some would claim, the Irish trilemma has been shrunk, but it's still present.
But this is better than what was there before, and sometimes better is all you can hope for.
It it better though? My whole argument is, aside from pets plants and parcels in many ways it worse, not better!
Let me explain in bullet points.
Sunak’s deal will not end EU law in Northern Ireland, nor ultimate oversight of EU judges in some circumstances. That’s asking the DUP to permanently now accept Second Class Sovereignty, not live in an anomaly for a while everyone promises to sort out. It’s very easy to dismiss DUP as never satisfied, but they are being asked to accept Second Class Sovereignty in their own country, are they not. New EU laws they can do nothing about, no real brake or Veto to stop their country divulging away from the UK with new EU law and rules.
In fact this deal bolsters EU because it enshrines more NEW EU law in future without NI politicians being able to stop it. It enshrines the right of EU to take 'appropriate remedial measures' to protect their market whenever they don’t get their way.
It does not resolve the problem of border in Irish Sea. It transfers the unresolved problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, as the two markets diverge. This in turn allows an Independent Scotland to ask for exactly the same. It’s actually shining a pathway and inspiring Scottish Independence.
How can it better this week, when last week there was the hope, based on long time promise, all these things would be properly sorted out, not fudged behind a wall of spin. That hopes gone. The hope these issues properly sorted out and Stormont resuming at last, is now gone. How can that leave us in a better place post deal than pre deal?
No it doesn't. It gives a green lane for goods between GB and NI as long as NI remains in the UK. The red lane for significant checks only applies to GB goods going to the Republic of Ireland. If NI ever left the UK the hard border would be transferred to the Irish Sea again.
Just as a hard border would be constructed between England and Scotland complete with customs posts if it ever left the UK to rejoin the EU
I'm really tickled pink by northern_monkey using the phrase "unicorn-hunting bullshit" this week of all weeks when the "unicorn" is real. We've had the likes of @Scott_xP posting stupid meme after stupid meme for years about how Brexiteers like myself preferred solution for NI is a unicorn and yet the unicorn is real and has happened.
A throwback to everyone's favourite European Twitter commentator during Covid19 and FBPE Favourite Dave Keating, from when I was opposing Theresa May's deal, is well worth looking back at today: https://twitter.com/davekeating/status/1053224418653159425
Dave Keating @DaveKeating 19 Oct 2018 So what exactly is the Irish border backstop problem in the #Brexit talks? I break it down on France 24. [video] In other words, the #Brexit trilemma:
What solution do we have today to the Trilemma?
Not quite.
“When goods move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, they will now move without customs bureaucracy, they will move without routine customs checks,” he told Radio 4.
But that’s not quite what the Windsor Framework says. The 26-page agreement contains provisions for bureaucracy that would not apply to goods moving between, say, England and Wales.
For example, the Framework says businesses will have to provide “commercial data” to an official body to move goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
Later, the Framework says that a lorry entering Northern Ireland from England, Wales or Scotland would need a “document confirming that goods are staying in Northern Ireland and are moved in line with the terms of our internal market scheme”...
A very light touch border, sure. But more of a border than between, say Portsmouth and the Isle of WIght.
Rishi has done very well. But when you overclaim, you risk creating trouble down the line.
My take. It hasn’t dealt with the problem border, but moved the problem to the most worrying place for it to be, the reason it was in the sea in the first place.
Sunak’s deal will not end EU law in Northern Ireland, nor ultimate oversight of EU judges in some circumstances, so for certain Northern Island is still on a different course from mainland UK. This means the “green lane” removing Irish Sea border merely kicks that problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, especially as the EU and UK increasingly diverge - this is exactly where everyone but the DUP fear it being!
So is that border problem really resolved, as some claim, or just MOVED to a more worrying place for it to be in the coming years of divergence going forward?
Yes and no.
First thing to note is that there's a long line of British PMs doing Brilliant Deals With Europe that turn out to be oversold. Something about our national psyche needs a win, rather than a high-scoring draw that ensures both teams progress to the next round of the competition. And sucessful negotiations that stick tend to be win-win.
As for the border question, I think the border stays where it was, because it's the only sane and safe place to put it. As you say, putting it between NI and the Republic pleases the DUP (c'mon, it's a chunk of why they backed Brexit all along) and terrifies anyone else. My guess (provincial physics master, me) is that, as long as they get the computer access, the EU can get the info they need from the Irish Sea checks and there's space to tighten or relax if the green lane gets abused.
Something similar with the ECJ cushioning and the Stormont Lock. They're not just symbolic, but when push comes to shove the ECJ seems to have the powers it needs in the end. And the Stormont Lock might never be activated; the threshold and costs are just high enough to make it more hassle than it's worth. See Norway- they've done exactly one veto, I think.
It does lead to wry amusement; the angriest comments today seem to be from those who welcome RIshi's deal as the foundation to pile more Brexit upon the Brexit that's already secured. Everyone else seems to be saying "the deal looks fine and it's nice to have a UK government who isn't trying to get their way by headbanging."
Maybe the opportunity to headbang was the point all along.
I note what you are saying. But Note how some are posting tonight, if Scotland was independent, in EU and Euro, as is ROI we would need a hard border between England and Scotland.
I am sticking with the big take out of Sunak’s deal is it doesn’t solve the problem of a border in the Irish Sea, it merely kicks ongoing unresolved problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, as the two markets diverge - exactly what many feared and warned of long before we even voted for Brexit. as we consider how time plays out with this deal in place.
Sunak’s Agreement doesn’t really resolve all the issues he is claiming it resolves. And it leaves us sadly with nothing now in the offing that can reopen Stormont and get Good Friday Agreement back on track. 😕
It’s quite a colossal failure really.
Some of it's sadly inevitable. If the DUP don't want to play ball with Stormont and enough of their voters like that, there's not much the rest of us can do. And, despite what some would claim, the Irish trilemma has been shrunk, but it's still present.
But this is better than what was there before, and sometimes better is all you can hope for.
It it better though? My whole argument is, aside from pets plants and parcels in many ways it worse, not better!
Let me explain in bullet points.
Sunak’s deal will not end EU law in Northern Ireland, nor ultimate oversight of EU judges in some circumstances. That’s asking the DUP to permanently now accept Second Class Sovereignty, not live in an anomaly for a while everyone promises to sort out. It’s very easy to dismiss DUP as never satisfied, but they are being asked to accept Second Class Sovereignty in their own country, are they not. New EU laws they can do nothing about, no real brake or Veto to stop their country divulging away from the UK with new EU law and rules.
In fact this deal bolsters EU because it enshrines more NEW EU law in future without NI politicians being able to stop it. It enshrines the right of EU to take 'appropriate remedial measures' to protect their market whenever they don’t get their way.
It does not resolve the problem of border in Irish Sea. It transfers the unresolved problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, as the two markets diverge. This in turn allows an Independent Scotland to ask for exactly the same. It’s actually shining a pathway and inspiring Scottish Independence.
How can it better this week, when last week there was the hope, based on long time promise, all these things would be properly sorted out, not fudged behind a wall of spin. That hopes gone. The hope these issues properly sorted out and Stormont resuming at last, is now gone. How can that leave us in a better place post deal than pre deal?
No it doesn't. It gives a green lane for goods between GB and NI as long as NI remains in the UK. The red lane for significant checks only applies to GB goods going to the Republic of Ireland. If NI ever left the UK the hard border would be transferred to the Irish Sea again.
Just as a hard border would be constructed between England and Scotland complete with customs posts if it ever left the UK to rejoin the EU
Yes - it would have to be, according to EU law. Independent Scotland in the EU is the political analogue of supporting whoever is playing against England. Many in the SNP leadership would want to drop that loony policy within hours of a referendum win. Voters might eventually suss that Scotland wouldn't have the Braveheartian "FREEDOM!" to decide unilaterally what kind of trade relations it had with England, either if it were in the EU or if it were outside it, ...but by then it might be too late to GTFU because Scotland certainly wouldn't have the right to rejoin Britain without Rump Britain's agreement.
It's very easy to imagine that in the period between indyref and independence day the Rump British government would take a Windsor Davies attitude.
I'm really tickled pink by northern_monkey using the phrase "unicorn-hunting bullshit" this week of all weeks when the "unicorn" is real. We've had the likes of @Scott_xP posting stupid meme after stupid meme for years about how Brexiteers like myself preferred solution for NI is a unicorn and yet the unicorn is real and has happened.
A throwback to everyone's favourite European Twitter commentator during Covid19 and FBPE Favourite Dave Keating, from when I was opposing Theresa May's deal, is well worth looking back at today: https://twitter.com/davekeating/status/1053224418653159425
Dave Keating @DaveKeating 19 Oct 2018 So what exactly is the Irish border backstop problem in the #Brexit talks? I break it down on France 24. [video] In other words, the #Brexit trilemma:
What solution do we have today to the Trilemma?
Not quite.
“When goods move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, they will now move without customs bureaucracy, they will move without routine customs checks,” he told Radio 4.
But that’s not quite what the Windsor Framework says. The 26-page agreement contains provisions for bureaucracy that would not apply to goods moving between, say, England and Wales.
For example, the Framework says businesses will have to provide “commercial data” to an official body to move goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
Later, the Framework says that a lorry entering Northern Ireland from England, Wales or Scotland would need a “document confirming that goods are staying in Northern Ireland and are moved in line with the terms of our internal market scheme”...
A very light touch border, sure. But more of a border than between, say Portsmouth and the Isle of WIght.
Rishi has done very well. But when you overclaim, you risk creating trouble down the line.
My take. It hasn’t dealt with the problem border, but moved the problem to the most worrying place for it to be, the reason it was in the sea in the first place.
Sunak’s deal will not end EU law in Northern Ireland, nor ultimate oversight of EU judges in some circumstances, so for certain Northern Island is still on a different course from mainland UK. This means the “green lane” removing Irish Sea border merely kicks that problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, especially as the EU and UK increasingly diverge - this is exactly where everyone but the DUP fear it being!
So is that border problem really resolved, as some claim, or just MOVED to a more worrying place for it to be in the coming years of divergence going forward?
Yes and no.
First thing to note is that there's a long line of British PMs doing Brilliant Deals With Europe that turn out to be oversold. Something about our national psyche needs a win, rather than a high-scoring draw that ensures both teams progress to the next round of the competition. And sucessful negotiations that stick tend to be win-win.
As for the border question, I think the border stays where it was, because it's the only sane and safe place to put it. As you say, putting it between NI and the Republic pleases the DUP (c'mon, it's a chunk of why they backed Brexit all along) and terrifies anyone else. My guess (provincial physics master, me) is that, as long as they get the computer access, the EU can get the info they need from the Irish Sea checks and there's space to tighten or relax if the green lane gets abused.
Something similar with the ECJ cushioning and the Stormont Lock. They're not just symbolic, but when push comes to shove the ECJ seems to have the powers it needs in the end. And the Stormont Lock might never be activated; the threshold and costs are just high enough to make it more hassle than it's worth. See Norway- they've done exactly one veto, I think.
It does lead to wry amusement; the angriest comments today seem to be from those who welcome RIshi's deal as the foundation to pile more Brexit upon the Brexit that's already secured. Everyone else seems to be saying "the deal looks fine and it's nice to have a UK government who isn't trying to get their way by headbanging."
Maybe the opportunity to headbang was the point all along.
I note what you are saying. But Note how some are posting tonight, if Scotland was independent, in EU and Euro, as is ROI we would need a hard border between England and Scotland.
I am sticking with the big take out of Sunak’s deal is it doesn’t solve the problem of a border in the Irish Sea, it merely kicks ongoing unresolved problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, as the two markets diverge - exactly what many feared and warned of long before we even voted for Brexit. as we consider how time plays out with this deal in place.
Sunak’s Agreement doesn’t really resolve all the issues he is claiming it resolves. And it leaves us sadly with nothing now in the offing that can reopen Stormont and get Good Friday Agreement back on track. 😕
It’s quite a colossal failure really.
Some of it's sadly inevitable. If the DUP don't want to play ball with Stormont and enough of their voters like that, there's not much the rest of us can do. And, despite what some would claim, the Irish trilemma has been shrunk, but it's still present.
But this is better than what was there before, and sometimes better is all you can hope for.
It it better though? My whole argument is, aside from pets plants and parcels in many ways it worse, not better!
Let me explain in bullet points.
Sunak’s deal will not end EU law in Northern Ireland, nor ultimate oversight of EU judges in some circumstances. That’s asking the DUP to permanently now accept Second Class Sovereignty, not live in an anomaly for a while everyone promises to sort out. It’s very easy to dismiss DUP as never satisfied, but they are being asked to accept Second Class Sovereignty in their own country, are they not. New EU laws they can do nothing about, no real brake or Veto to stop their country divulging away from the UK with new EU law and rules.
In fact this deal bolsters EU because it enshrines more NEW EU law in future without NI politicians being able to stop it. It enshrines the right of EU to take 'appropriate remedial measures' to protect their market whenever they don’t get their way.
It does not resolve the problem of border in Irish Sea. It transfers the unresolved problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, as the two markets diverge. This in turn allows an Independent Scotland to ask for exactly the same. It’s actually shining a pathway and inspiring Scottish Independence.
How can it better this week, when last week there was the hope, based on long time promise, all these things would be properly sorted out, not fudged behind a wall of spin. That hopes gone. The hope these issues properly sorted out and Stormont resuming at last, is now gone. How can that leave us in a better place post deal than pre deal?
No it doesn't. It gives a green lane for goods between GB and NI as long as NI remains in the UK. The red lane for significant checks only applies to GB goods going to the Republic of Ireland. If NI ever left the UK the hard border would be transferred to the Irish Sea again.
Just as a hard border would be constructed between England and Scotland complete with customs posts if it ever left the UK to rejoin the EU
MoonRabbit's posts have got increasingly far from reality when HYUFD is the one spitting facts.
Bills going up. The public has long grown tired of Brexit
Council Tax paid by direct debit usually. Ten payments per year. So no payment Feb 1st or Mar 1st for most. No wonder folk are feeling a little better off. So. Back on, and much higher from April 1st. £150+ pcm for my £40 k flat.
Everyone has the right to ask for twelve equal instalments, rather than paying upfront over the first ten months. Just email your council and ask.
Yes In actual fact I understand the legality of even that is questionable? You pay for the year. There is no legal requirement to pay in advance AIUI. Nor in instalments. And you aren't in arrears till the year is up. Not sure if that is still the legal position.
It was a new right granted by the Localism Act, and in my Borough I was the very first person to ask for it, as well as being the Cabinet Member responsible for collecting the tax at the time. Leading by example….
I'm really tickled pink by northern_monkey using the phrase "unicorn-hunting bullshit" this week of all weeks when the "unicorn" is real. We've had the likes of @Scott_xP posting stupid meme after stupid meme for years about how Brexiteers like myself preferred solution for NI is a unicorn and yet the unicorn is real and has happened.
A throwback to everyone's favourite European Twitter commentator during Covid19 and FBPE Favourite Dave Keating, from when I was opposing Theresa May's deal, is well worth looking back at today: https://twitter.com/davekeating/status/1053224418653159425
Dave Keating @DaveKeating 19 Oct 2018 So what exactly is the Irish border backstop problem in the #Brexit talks? I break it down on France 24. [video] In other words, the #Brexit trilemma:
What solution do we have today to the Trilemma?
Not quite.
“When goods move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, they will now move without customs bureaucracy, they will move without routine customs checks,” he told Radio 4.
But that’s not quite what the Windsor Framework says. The 26-page agreement contains provisions for bureaucracy that would not apply to goods moving between, say, England and Wales.
For example, the Framework says businesses will have to provide “commercial data” to an official body to move goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
Later, the Framework says that a lorry entering Northern Ireland from England, Wales or Scotland would need a “document confirming that goods are staying in Northern Ireland and are moved in line with the terms of our internal market scheme”...
A very light touch border, sure. But more of a border than between, say Portsmouth and the Isle of WIght.
Rishi has done very well. But when you overclaim, you risk creating trouble down the line.
My take. It hasn’t dealt with the problem border, but moved the problem to the most worrying place for it to be, the reason it was in the sea in the first place.
Sunak’s deal will not end EU law in Northern Ireland, nor ultimate oversight of EU judges in some circumstances, so for certain Northern Island is still on a different course from mainland UK. This means the “green lane” removing Irish Sea border merely kicks that problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, especially as the EU and UK increasingly diverge - this is exactly where everyone but the DUP fear it being!
So is that border problem really resolved, as some claim, or just MOVED to a more worrying place for it to be in the coming years of divergence going forward?
Yes and no.
First thing to note is that there's a long line of British PMs doing Brilliant Deals With Europe that turn out to be oversold. Something about our national psyche needs a win, rather than a high-scoring draw that ensures both teams progress to the next round of the competition. And sucessful negotiations that stick tend to be win-win.
As for the border question, I think the border stays where it was, because it's the only sane and safe place to put it. As you say, putting it between NI and the Republic pleases the DUP (c'mon, it's a chunk of why they backed Brexit all along) and terrifies anyone else. My guess (provincial physics master, me) is that, as long as they get the computer access, the EU can get the info they need from the Irish Sea checks and there's space to tighten or relax if the green lane gets abused.
Something similar with the ECJ cushioning and the Stormont Lock. They're not just symbolic, but when push comes to shove the ECJ seems to have the powers it needs in the end. And the Stormont Lock might never be activated; the threshold and costs are just high enough to make it more hassle than it's worth. See Norway- they've done exactly one veto, I think.
It does lead to wry amusement; the angriest comments today seem to be from those who welcome RIshi's deal as the foundation to pile more Brexit upon the Brexit that's already secured. Everyone else seems to be saying "the deal looks fine and it's nice to have a UK government who isn't trying to get their way by headbanging."
Maybe the opportunity to headbang was the point all along.
I note what you are saying. But Note how some are posting tonight, if Scotland was independent, in EU and Euro, as is ROI we would need a hard border between England and Scotland.
I am sticking with the big take out of Sunak’s deal is it doesn’t solve the problem of a border in the Irish Sea, it merely kicks ongoing unresolved problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, as the two markets diverge - exactly what many feared and warned of long before we even voted for Brexit. as we consider how time plays out with this deal in place.
Sunak’s Agreement doesn’t really resolve all the issues he is claiming it resolves. And it leaves us sadly with nothing now in the offing that can reopen Stormont and get Good Friday Agreement back on track. 😕
It’s quite a colossal failure really.
Some of it's sadly inevitable. If the DUP don't want to play ball with Stormont and enough of their voters like that, there's not much the rest of us can do. And, despite what some would claim, the Irish trilemma has been shrunk, but it's still present.
But this is better than what was there before, and sometimes better is all you can hope for.
It it better though? My whole argument is, aside from pets plants and parcels in many ways it worse, not better!
Let me explain in bullet points.
Sunak’s deal will not end EU law in Northern Ireland, nor ultimate oversight of EU judges in some circumstances. That’s asking the DUP to permanently now accept Second Class Sovereignty, not live in an anomaly for a while everyone promises to sort out. It’s very easy to dismiss DUP as never satisfied, but they are being asked to accept Second Class Sovereignty in their own country, are they not. New EU laws they can do nothing about, no real brake or Veto to stop their country divulging away from the UK with new EU law and rules.
In fact this deal bolsters EU because it enshrines more NEW EU law in future without NI politicians being able to stop it. It enshrines the right of EU to take 'appropriate remedial measures' to protect their market whenever they don’t get their way.
It does not resolve the problem of border in Irish Sea. It transfers the unresolved problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, as the two markets diverge. This in turn allows an Independent Scotland to ask for exactly the same. It’s actually shining a pathway and inspiring Scottish Independence.
How can it better this week, when last week there was the hope, based on long time promise, all these things would be properly sorted out, not fudged behind a wall of spin. That hopes gone. The hope these issues properly sorted out and Stormont resuming at last, is now gone. How can that leave us in a better place post deal than pre deal?
No it doesn't. It gives a green lane for goods between GB and NI as long as NI remains in the UK. The red lane for significant checks only applies to GB goods going to the Republic of Ireland. If NI ever left the UK the hard border would be transferred to the Irish Sea again.
Just as a hard border would be constructed between England and Scotland complete with customs posts if it ever left the UK to rejoin the EU
“customs posts”? You’ve gone soft - what happened to your earlier proposal for the hundred metres of sand with land mines, a wall, and watchtowers?
Comments
I’d far rather see an executive based upon UUP, SDLP, Alliance, with the rest sidelined.
But, the GFA makes it sensible to vote for wankers, to protect your community’s interests.
*Which, of course, he isn't.
Don't agree with all of it, but it's a good attack on many of the politicans that brought us Brexit, promising populist bullshit.
I hesitated only because it can be read as a broadside against all who voted Brexit - there are some who voted Brexit for sincerely held principled reasons and can be happy with what they have done. For the leaders of vote leave, I share your contempt (but also for the leaders of the remain cause, for losing to them and failing to make the positive case for EU membership).
NEW: Teachers looking for 'excuse' not to work during pandemic, said Gavin Williamson
Read more ⤵️
https://telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/01/gavin-williamson-whatsapp-message-teachers-work-pandemic/
This is #thelockdownfiles
https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1631038446553690116
Classy.
(No, quite right to pull it down. Yet the echoes are very uncomfortable.)
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/averageweeklyearningsingreatbritain/february2023#average-weekly-earnings-data
Got to be careful about it imo. At first he had quite a big headstone on his grave, and lots of flowers, but people came and smashed the headstone up and put it in a skip, and chucked all the flowers away. Now there’s just this little mound with nothing on it, which turns out exactly what Saville was really after all along.
When I am being punched in the face it's not unreasonable for me to criticise the person doing so, even if the bloke a few feet away had also punched me in the face awhile ago.
We are bastards.
Therefore we must atone by voting Tory.
He’s certainly done the SNP and Scottish Independence homework for them, by defining what happens to their UK border once they are independent. Not only that but by telling separatists this will be the best place on earth, quite an advantage over England to be there, the Conservative Primeminister giving them a huge boost and incentive to go there has he not?
HY?
You have implied that Starmer was at least incompetent or negligent in not prosecuting Saville or worse deliberately didn't do so. That is libellous. Or are you saying you are not saying any of this. If so what is your point of mentioning Starmer and Saville in the same post then? Guilty by innuendo?
Had it joined a United Ireland a hard border would have been put back in the Irish Sea tomorrow
Nauseating hypocrite. As well as a liar, cheat and failure.
And yet still very popular in South Staffordshire.
He stood down in November 2013.
So. A full 3 and a half years of a Conservative PM shielding his evil protection of perverts.
Cameron should be strung up for that. As should all the government MP's who stood by and did nothing.
They ought to all resign immediately on principle and stand for a by election if they have the front to even show their faces in public.
It's a disgrace.
Having had a casting call for face eating leopards, employed a select group of face eating leopards, promoted the most face eating leopards etc.
We now have people going “Why the fuck are we up to our nuts in face eating leopards? Also they are the wrong kind of face eating leopards.”
Bills going up. The public has long grown tired of Brexit
If Starmer doesn't then want his own record questioned by association he should expel Labour for a Republic from the Labour Party exactly as he has expelled Corbyn!
What about we make a joint bid for it?
Very darkly clever. Chapeau.
Hasn't got the likes it deserves, but go on.
You are *always* criticising and attacking members of the Royal Family, so it can't be that.
'The problem is, as a security risk he wasn't allowed to do anything important, as an idiot he wasn't allowed to do anything difficult and as a complete wanker he wasn't allowed to do anything useful,' said a spokesman. 'This didn't leave many options, so he was put at Education where he made lots of pointless announcements and bunged £15 million to his mates at Ark Academies to produce a load of very shitty online lessons.'
Williamson himself disputed this. 'I was trying my hardest to keep schools open, which is why I issued three different sets of advice every day on how they should do it and ordered everyone else to do twice as much work,' he said. 'I don't know why people working sixty hour weeks felt this wasn't fair. They must be lazy twats who all vote Labour. Besides, the DfE's staff agreed with me on those days when they were drunk, so I had their full backing all the time. And since they must all be brilliant because all of them have been in the civil service since getting their thirds at Russell Group Unis, I don't know what the fuckers are complaining about.'
Teaching unions said nothing, because they are incapable of speech, but one teacher near Williamson's constituency asked whether anyone had checked Williamson's penis was actual the one millimetre long that his latest girlfriend said it is.
Des violons
De l'automne
It was appalling and if Starmer had any guts he would expel Labour for a Republic from the Labour Party tomorrow
I know you will say yes. Patrolled by tanks. But in reality it will be very messy and complicated won’t it?
That is a victory for Sunak, but it’s not bad for Starmer either if it helps to establish the superiority of managerial pragmatism over pyrotechnic charisma as the mark of a good prime minister. This is something else the Labour leader and his Tory counterpart have in common. They are both planning election pitches that dial down ideology and sideline the cranks who, until recently, set their respective parties’ agendas.
It is easier for Starmer with a double-digit lead in opinion polls. Sight of victory breeds message discipline, even among Labour MPs who couldn’t say for sure what the message is, while expectation of defeat has the opposite effect on Tories.
The weaker the party’s prospects, the less inclined it feels to put in the hard yards of grown-up government, which is its only chance of rehabilitation. Sunak has shown how it works in negotiations with Brussels. But of all the conceivable treatments that is the bitterest pill for Conservatives to swallow. If trust and diplomacy are the ingredients of a good deal, if the national economic interest is served by closer relations with Europe, the road to getting Brexit done starts to look more like the long, arduous process of undoing Brexit.
I mean, how else are we going to keep the English population in?
Oh sorry, do you mean the ones in England?
Let's see if you have the courage of your convictions. Do you think Starmer was incompetent or negligent or worse deliberately avoided prosecuting Saville? Go on do it properly. No skimming around the edges, libel him properly.
Or were you just smearing him by unjustified association?
So. Back on, and much higher from April 1st.
£150+ pcm for my £40 k flat.
I post to keep you all in order, by slicing through spin and BS with my fickle foil of astute analysisness on any political question you can throw at me 😇
Well played Everton tonight. They’ve put my dear GF in a happy mood.
What a bloody mess this is becoming.
a) Credit to him for, it appears, getting it right.
b) Credit to him for not crowing.
c) I hope he's alright.
Or no guns, honestly, but don't mess with us or there might be violence again, but we're not making threats, but you'll do what we say if you know what's good for you.
Because that's what you'd need to avoid a border between it and rUK.
Having got so much wrong, his desperation to be found right on something was almost pitiful, as well as premature, with a majority of US government agencies still of the contrary view.
Sunak’s deal will not end EU law in Northern Ireland, nor ultimate oversight of EU judges in some circumstances, so for certain Northern Island is still on a different course from mainland UK. This means the “green lane” removing Irish Sea border merely kicks that problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, especially as the EU and UK increasingly diverge - this is exactly where everyone but the DUP fear it being!
So is that border problem really resolved, as some claim, or just MOVED to a more worrying place for it to be in the coming years of divergence going forward?
They’ve been doing their thing for a long, long time.
I tested positive for COVID once. Negative each other time.
Increasingly convinced I haven't had it. Got some strange stomach virus that many of my students and colleagues have had.
Just can't eat. Not don't want to. But physically can't. When I force food down feel nauseous for hours. Have not been physically sick even once. Finding drinking something I need to remember to do too.
Am now at a week since I ate an actual meal.
The last thing I need is to lose weight.
Not finding Working difficult at all. Just cannot be taking enough calories.
Not sure why I'm saying all this. I've got a virus obviously.
But we obviously don't need to eat the amount we habitually do to function.
I think that is my point
It would also not send a penny further from the Treasury to subsidise the huge Scottish deficit
Apols for any offence caused by my lack of PB diligence.
Sinn Fein, the DUP/TUV now have 63% between them.
Back in 1998, they had 45% (including independent hardline unionists). UUP/SDLP/Alliance have gone from 51% to 32%.
All according to the latest Lucid Talk poll.
You pay for the year. There is no legal requirement to pay in advance AIUI. Nor in instalments.
And you aren't in arrears till the year is up.
Not sure if that is still the legal position.
My reasoning is, how exactly does this play out over time say as much as 20 years, with UK and EU markets diverging, yet EU still with so much legal power over Northern Ireland?
The key bit is it’s not a miracle they are in both places simultaneously, it actually means Northern Ireland does not have full control over its sovereignty during this diverging of markets period, it has no veto or brake over new EU law being introduced to it. This is fact. And it’s why the hailing of Rishi and his deal has pulled the wool over too many intelligent eyes this week.
The “what a great position to be in” and “this finishes Boris off” spin is mugging everyone off.
BRAKE? First, the threshold for the Stormont veto is high, 30 members across two parties just to trigger it. Secondly EU briefing paper on the Commission website says of the new veto: "This mechanism would be triggered under the most exceptional circumstances and as a matter of last resort", making clear there is no expectation it should be used regularly, such as veto every NEW EU LAW to be imposed on Northern Ireland. If anyone tries to use it like that, details set out in the actual text Sunak has agreed, gives EU the ability to take 'appropriate remedial measures' to protect their market. And that’s even after a UK government agrees with DUP and does not overrule them so agrees to go to war against EU on DUP behalf - why should DUP ever trust a UK government and EU favourable mechanism, or ever swallow the ludicrous spin this gives them their own veto?
In fact, why should ANY Unionist or Brexiteer swallow this Second Class Sovereignty for NI wherever they are, whatever party they are in? HY?
Border in Irish Sea transferred to North South Ireland border.
No real brake or Veto over new EU law in Northern Ireland.
EU the ability to take 'appropriate remedial measures' to protect their market Whenever UK government won’t do dirty on DUP.
Am I the only poster on the site who actually understands this?
A secondary issue is the undermining of scientific evidence in general. This stuff isn't my field, but I've seen a few economic/business/finance models in my time and the number of basic errors and weird simplistic assumptions you spot is quite scary.
I hope standards are higher elsewhere. If 'science' develops a similar reputation then I think we are in trouble.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8238098/#:~:text=In an analysis of 116,nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.
Just not being able to physically eat is a bit disconcerting.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/mar/01/isabel-oakeshott-the-journalist-who-turned-over-matt-hancock
"Setting aside the merits of the news stories being underpinned by the trove of messages, Conservative MPs and political journalists have expressed some astonishment that Hancock entrusted millions of words of his private correspondence to Oakeshott, of all people.
A journalist who has long made clear her disdain for his lockdown policies, she has been accused of having a poor track record when it comes to source protection, and is in a relationship with the leader of the anti-lockdown Reform party.
As Robert Colvile, the director of the rightwing Centre for Policy Studies thinktank and co-author of the 2019 Tory manifesto, said: “The main lesson I’ve learned from this is not to hire someone who absolutely hates your signature policy as your ghostwriter.”
One political journalist said: “The man needs his head testing to have gone near Oakeshott with a flaming trebuchet, let alone a bargepole.”
Extraordinarily Oakeshott handed the entire archive of Hancock’s messages to the Daily Telegraph despite being paid a rumoured six-figure salary by Rupert Murdoch’s News UK to be a pundit on its struggling TalkTV channel.
Staff at the Sun and the Times have been left fuming that they are now trying to follow up a story given to a rival newspaper by one of their own employees – while TalkTV has missed out on a scoop that could have helped it in its ratings battle with GB News. Oakeshott said she is only employed by TalkTV on a freelance basis and is therefore able to work for other publications."
First thing to note is that there's a long line of British PMs doing Brilliant Deals With Europe that turn out to be oversold. Something about our national psyche needs a win, rather than a high-scoring draw that ensures both teams progress to the next round of the competition. And sucessful negotiations that stick tend to be win-win.
As for the border question, I think the border stays where it was, because it's the only sane and safe place to put it. As you say, putting it between NI and the Republic pleases the DUP (c'mon, it's a chunk of why they backed Brexit all along) and terrifies anyone else. My guess (provincial physics master, me) is that, as long as they get the computer access, the EU can get the info they need from the Irish Sea checks and there's space to tighten or relax if the green lane gets abused.
Something similar with the ECJ cushioning and the Stormont Lock. They're not just symbolic, but when push comes to shove the ECJ seems to have the powers it needs in the end. And the Stormont Lock might never be activated; the threshold and costs are just high enough to make it more hassle than it's worth. See Norway- they've done exactly one veto, I think.
It does lead to wry amusement; the angriest comments today seem to be from those who welcome RIshi's deal as the foundation to pile more Brexit upon the Brexit that's already secured. Everyone else seems to be saying "the deal looks fine and it's nice to have a UK government who isn't trying to get their way by headbanging."
Maybe the opportunity to headbang was the point all along.
I don't think showing Savile and Charles together is libellous, merely a statement of fact that paedos suck up to powerful people as a way of covering their activities up.
Long range weather forecasting a wet Festival.
I am sticking with the big take out of Sunak’s deal is it doesn’t solve the problem of a border in the Irish Sea, it merely kicks ongoing unresolved problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, as the two markets diverge - exactly what many feared and warned of long before we even voted for Brexit. as we consider how time plays out with this deal in place.
Sunak’s Agreement doesn’t really resolve all the issues he is claiming it resolves. And it leaves us sadly with nothing now in the offing that can reopen Stormont and get Good Friday Agreement back on track. 😕
It’s quite a colossal failure really.
But this is better than what was there before, and sometimes better is all you can hope for.
Let me explain in bullet points.
Sunak’s deal will not end EU law in Northern Ireland, nor ultimate oversight of EU judges in some circumstances. That’s asking the DUP to permanently now accept Second Class Sovereignty, not live in an anomaly for a while everyone promises to sort out. It’s very easy to dismiss DUP as never satisfied, but they are being asked to accept Second Class Sovereignty in their own country, are they not. New EU laws they can do nothing about, no real brake or Veto to stop their country divulging away from the UK with new EU law and rules.
In fact this deal bolsters EU because it enshrines more NEW EU law in future without NI politicians being able to stop it. It enshrines the right of EU to take 'appropriate remedial measures' to protect their market whenever they don’t get their way.
It does not resolve the problem of border in Irish Sea. It transfers the unresolved problem back to increased market surveillance on North-South Ireland border, as the two markets diverge. This in turn allows an Independent Scotland to ask for exactly the same. It’s actually shining a pathway and inspiring Scottish Independence.
How can it better this week, when last week there was the hope, based on long time promise, all these things would be properly sorted out, not fudged behind a wall of spin. That hopes gone. The hope these issues properly sorted out and Stormont resuming at last, is now gone. How can that leave us in a better place post deal than pre deal?
Just as a hard border would be constructed between England and Scotland complete with customs posts if it ever left the UK to rejoin the EU
Independent Scotland in the EU is the political analogue of supporting whoever is playing against England. Many in the SNP leadership would want to drop that loony policy within hours of a referendum win. Voters might eventually suss that Scotland wouldn't have the Braveheartian "FREEDOM!" to decide unilaterally what kind of trade relations it had with England, either if it were in the EU or if it were outside it, ...but by then it might be too late to GTFU because Scotland certainly wouldn't have the right to rejoin Britain without Rump Britain's agreement.
It's very easy to imagine that in the period between indyref and independence day the Rump British government would take a Windsor Davies attitude.