Imagine if UKIP, in about 2015, had said “Brexit is really really hard, and we haven’t remotely worked out how to do it, and so we’re not going try for a few years, maybe more”
They would have died overnight
The SNP is doubtless in a wee bit of a muddle right now. Quite apart from their self-inflicted wounds, Brexit has been terrible for them.
Most Scottish voters opposed leaving the EU, and will presumably feel vindicated by the many problems that the decision has created. Now it's up to the SNP to convince those self-same voters that removing Scotland from a souped-up free trade area that it only entered in 1973 was a catastrophe that should be reversed as quickly as possible (through Scotland applying to re-join the EU as a state in its own right,) whereas unpicking a full-blown political and economic union that has existed since 1707 will be a piece of cake and obviously beneficial.
This kind of doublethink is an easy sell to the, at a guess, one third or so of the Scottish electorate who are conviction secessionists and want rid of the Union now and at virtually any price. However, the prospect of years of Scexit negotiations - against a backdrop of lengthy and heated arguments over trade, borders and money - is a harder sell for the muddy middle of floating voters who are persuadable in both directions, and whom pro-independence campaigners have to win over in sufficient numbers to get what they want.
I'll throw it open to the audience to discuss whether or not they think that Humza Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are, collectively, capable of convincing the centre of Scottish public opinion that divorce from England is worth the ballache.
I love international cricket but struggle to engage with the County Championship. There is a limited pool of talent and England call ups can seriously weaken some of these teams, as well as the viewing spectacle. But it is more accessible now so we shall see.
As for the Hundred, what a terrible idea that was.
I think the biggest issue for country cricket is lack of exposure. There are plenty of excellent cricketers outside the national set up, and lots of overseas talent too. The ECB just needed to push the T20 blast onto BBC to make some of the players more widely known. The 4 day champs is always a harder sell. When I’m retired I hope to go to a fair bit of cricket, but right now there is no time in my life.
The BBC should act as an incubator for UK sports leagues. Give the BBC a 20% equity share in cricket T20, a 10 year contract and in exchange pay whatever sky would be paying. The exposure will make the T20 competition worth billions by the time the deal is up, it can be then sold back to Sky et al as well as international markets.
There is an Indian elephant in the room, which renders such ideas unlikely. Even test cricket is being crowded out.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2023/apr/08/the-indian-premier-league-is-a-brilliant-thing-but-is-killing-test-cricket …Back in England the Ashes will soon be upon us, five Tests across six weeks with the promise of renewal and fresh eyes. For all the death-in-life stuff of an April start, this is still the beginning of something. But it is also the beginning of the end. It is tempting to glaze over a little whenever anyone starts to talk about the end of Test cricket. This is a sport that thrives on dying, that seems to have been dying, with a robust sense of theatre, since the day it was born. But this thing is actually happening now. That ice shelf really is shearing off right in front of us. Welcome to the last great summer of Tests.
Just take a look at the future tours programme. From February 2027 to mid 2031 there are six combined white ball world cups and five IPLs. In the same four-year period just six five Test series are due to take place anywhere in the world. South Africa have just two three-Test series scheduled between now and 2031, when Kagiso Rabada will be 35…
T20 is clearly the long term future but that article is too pessimistic about Tests. I think ODIs will get squeezed out before tests. As for where the best cricket will be played, again long term it is clearly going to be India as they have most interest, most players, most fans and can generate the most revenue to attract the worlds elite. That doesn't mean there is not space for lower level competitions to be worth a lot of money if they are well managed.
A T20 match involves 40 overs of cricket. A Test match that goes the full five days would be > 400 overs of cricket. It's not simply a shorter format of the game, it's a completely different game.
The risk is that what was known as cricket has created it's own destroyer, like a cuckoo in the nest. I think that would be a great shame.
I think that this is seriously pessimistic and that there is room for all 3 formats. T20 cricket has improved cricket enormously. You only have to look at the strike rates of the current England team, the incredible improvement in fielding and the greater variety used by almost every bowler. The intensity it brings has bled into the longer formats as have the skill levels.
ODIs are probably my favourite, given that my visits to England cricket tend to be one day affairs. There is so much room for the match to swing back and forward, that intensity is still there and there is a very full day of cricket for your money, normally with a result at the end of it. Again, score rates of 300+ are clearly a direct result of the skills learned from the shorter version but you also see the rebuilding and pacing of the test arena as well.
Test cricket, provided it is competitive, is just magical. A fantastic accumulation of both athleticism and strategy. To see a bowler on the top of his game steaming in like a Broad, Anderson or Brett Lee is such a delight with the only limitations being his own stamina and the options open to his captain. The skill with which a Root manipulates a field to find easy, low risk runs. its like sport and chess combined.
All 3 formats benefit enormously from happy, enthusiastic, drunk but almost universally amiable crowds. That is my reservations about the County Championship. Where does the atmosphere come from in those games?
The only really reliable strategy seems to be teaching critical thinking skills.
For me, doing a research degree helped enormously.
It really drove home that I’m entitled to my own opinions, but I’m not entitled to my own facts.
Not aimed at you but I do find it hilarious - and deeply ironic - that some of those on the political front who proclaim the loudest about following the facts seem to get their knickers in a twist about the fact that a human with a penis is a man and can't be a woman.
I'll throw it open to the audience to discuss whether or not they think that Humza Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are, collectively, capable of convincing the centre of Scottish public opinion that divorce from England is worth the ballache.
As @Leon says Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are already basically saying they, collectively, aren't capable of it.
The language is couched in a way as to try and maintain some sort of semblance of pro-indy perspective for the remaining dwindling pro-Yes-and-still-SNP hardcore, but the message is pretty clear that they think "it's going to take a while" i.e. we've no idea how to do it.
I'll throw it open to the audience to discuss whether or not they think that Humza Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are, collectively, capable of convincing the centre of Scottish public opinion that divorce from England is worth the ballache.
As @Leon says Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are already basically saying they, collectively, aren't capable of it.
The language is couched in a way as to try and maintain some sort of semblance of pro-indy perspective for the remaining dwindling pro-Yes-and-still-SNP hardcore, but the message is pretty clear that they think "it's going to take a while" i.e. we've no idea how to do it.
I note that there's a dearth of ideas on how to do it from the pro-Yes-and-but-not-SNP hardcore, aside from just not the way it's been done so far and sans woke.
Thorough piece of work by Ydoethur. Deserves at least one comment, I'd have thought.
The direction of travel for cricket seems to be shorter and shorter and shorter. Ultimately the game will dispense with bat and ball and simply charge people £100 to sit in the sun drinking beer.
If the choice was a) watch cricket for free or b) pay 100£ to sit in the sun and drink beer I would have my wallet open at light speed.
SO you would watch the Hundred in a flash then?
Probably not, I can get the point of most games, cricket though I find ineffably baffling. I can only assume it was originally designed to as a joke probably to bemuse and baffle the French. I tried to watch cricket but when even the commentators spend a lot of time commentating on what the crowd are doing or that a bird has landed at silly mid leg you have to scratch your head as to the point
Not sure there is such a position. There's 'long leg', 'leg slip', even a 'short long leg', but not a 'silly mid leg'. Unless ydoethur says otherwise of course. I'll stand corrected in that case.
if there is a silly mid on, and a silly mid off, surely one of those must be on the leg side?
Well, yes. It's just called mid on, not mid leg. Though you have short leg, fine leg, and short fine leg...
I hope that's clear now.
Ah yes, I missed out a fair few 'legs' on my list, didn't I.
Also fine leg and deep fine leg and backward short leg - just while we're at it.
The only really reliable strategy seems to be teaching critical thinking skills.
For me, doing a research degree helped enormously.
It really drove home that I’m entitled to my own opinions, but I’m not entitled to my own facts.
Not aimed at you but I do find it hilarious - and deeply ironic - that some of those on the political front who proclaim the loudest about following the facts seem to get their knickers in a twist about the fact that a human with a penis is a man and can't be a woman.
What about someone born with female genitals that has surgery to have an artificial penis? What about someone born with both gender organs?
Thorough piece of work by Ydoethur. Deserves at least one comment, I'd have thought.
The direction of travel for cricket seems to be shorter and shorter and shorter. Ultimately the game will dispense with bat and ball and simply charge people £100 to sit in the sun drinking beer.
If the choice was a) watch cricket for free or b) pay 100£ to sit in the sun and drink beer I would have my wallet open at light speed.
SO you would watch the Hundred in a flash then?
Probably not, I can get the point of most games, cricket though I find ineffably baffling. I can only assume it was originally designed to as a joke probably to bemuse and baffle the French. I tried to watch cricket but when even the commentators spend a lot of time commentating on what the crowd are doing or that a bird has landed at silly mid leg you have to scratch your head as to the point
Not sure there is such a position. There's 'long leg', 'leg slip', even a 'short long leg', but not a 'silly mid leg'. Unless ydoethur says otherwise of course. I'll stand corrected in that case.
if there is a silly mid on, and a silly mid off, surely one of those must be on the leg side?
Well, yes. It's just called mid on, not mid leg. Though you have short leg, fine leg, and short fine leg...
I hope that's clear now.
Ah yes, I missed out a fair few 'legs' on my list, didn't I.
Also fine leg and deep fine leg and backward short leg - just while we're at it.
To be clear, fielding positions described as 'leg' are both on the leg side, and behind the wicket.
Except for square leg.
Which in itself has possible 'backward' or 'deep' varieties. Or even - and this really is for the cognescenti - BOTH of those at the same time. Deep backward square leg.
Imagine if UKIP, in about 2015, had said “Brexit is really really hard, and we haven’t remotely worked out how to do it, and so we’re not going try for a few years, maybe more”
They would have died overnight
Except that was the reality of Ukip's position, and the ERG's. Despite campaigning for decades in many cases, there was no consensus as to what Brexit would or should look like. And even now Brexit has been achieved, there is still no consensus on what happens next, on what is the end game.
Boris's genius, if that is the word, was to recognise this did not matter and the fact of Brexit, or Scottish independence, can be steamrollered through and the long term left to take care of itself.
I'll throw it open to the audience to discuss whether or not they think that Humza Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are, collectively, capable of convincing the centre of Scottish public opinion that divorce from England is worth the ballache.
As @Leon says Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are already basically saying they, collectively, aren't capable of it.
The language is couched in a way as to try and maintain some sort of semblance of pro-indy perspective for the remaining dwindling pro-Yes-and-still-SNP hardcore, but the message is pretty clear that they think "it's going to take a while" i.e. we've no idea how to do it.
I note that there's a dearth of ideas on how to do it from the pro-Yes-and-but-not-SNP hardcore, aside from just not the way it's been done so far and sans woke.
It's not an unfair point. But to me it doesn't invalidate the fact that the SNP position here has been "it's coming, it's coming, it's almost here, we know what we are doing...ah actually no it's ages away and we need to go back to the drawing board".
Even Sturgeon (eventually, and belatedly) realised that at some point just continually asking Westminster for a S30 order and asking people to vote SNP on that basis wasn't going to cut the mustard forever and she had at least given some sort of thought as to what might have to come next.
The fact that her resignation handily took out the need for the so-called party "independence convention" which would set the strategy for the next WM GE and thus essentially reset the clock on the whole "election, then S30 request, then nothing" process is just a bonus for the continuity "we dunno what now" faction/wing of the SNP.
The Home Office has admitted it has no evidence to back up one of the key justifications for its crackdown on small boat crossings.
As home secretary, Priti Patel, the Tory architect of attempts to tackle Channel crossings, told parliament in 2021 that “70% of individuals on small boats are single men who are effectively economic migrants”.
With the number of boat arrivals continuing to increase, Suella Braverman backed up her predecessor’s assertion in December last year by telling MPs: “There is considerable evidence that people are coming here as economic migrants, illegally.”
Human rights groups say such claims help create a false narrative that individuals travelling to the UK by boat are not genuine asylum seekers and are therefore less deserving of sympathy.
However, when asked to respond to a Freedom of Information request for evidence to support Patel’s claim, the Home Office admitted it had none.
The response by the Home Office, dated 20 March 2023 – a year after the request was sent – states: “We have carried out a thorough search and we have established that the Home Office does not hold the information requested.”
The apparently misleading statement from the former home secretary to parliament appears not to have been corrected.
Took them a year to respond to the FOI request too. Lying incompetent shits.
I don't think they could have taken a year to respond to a FOI request. By law requests have to be replied to within 20 working days. There can be an extension of 20 more working days if a public interest test is being considered, but that can't be the case if they are saying the information isn't held.
Presumably something more complicated happened. Perhaps another exemption was invoked initially, and after an internal review they are now claiming the information isn't held? On the basis of the report one can only guess.
I'll throw it open to the audience to discuss whether or not they think that Humza Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are, collectively, capable of convincing the centre of Scottish public opinion that divorce from England is worth the ballache.
As @Leon says Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are already basically saying they, collectively, aren't capable of it.
The language is couched in a way as to try and maintain some sort of semblance of pro-indy perspective for the remaining dwindling pro-Yes-and-still-SNP hardcore, but the message is pretty clear that they think "it's going to take a while" i.e. we've no idea how to do it.
I note that there's a dearth of ideas on how to do it from the pro-Yes-and-but-not-SNP hardcore, aside from just not the way it's been done so far and sans woke.
It's not an unfair point. But to me it doesn't invalidate the fact that the SNP position here has been "it's coming, it's coming, it's almost here, we know what we are doing...ah actually no it's ages away and we need to go back to the drawing board".
Even Sturgeon (eventually, and belatedly) realised that at some point just continually asking Westminster for a S30 order and asking people to vote SNP on that basis wasn't going to cut the mustard forever and she had at least given some sort of thought as to what might have to come next.
The fact that her resignation handily took out the need for the so-called party "independence convention" which would set the strategy for the next WM GE and thus essentially reset the clock on the whole "election, then S30 request, then nothing" process is just a bonus for the continuity "we dunno what now" faction/wing of the SNP.
There is a clear path to independence. Problem is: it’s a long path
It involves a prolonged period of highly competent SNP government where Scotland prospers (certainly as compared to England) and the Scottish people feel confident enough to take on the very difficult job of divorce. At that point YES will start polling 60%+ and Westminster will have to yield. Of course then there is the issue of: if Scotland is doing so well why go to the hassle of secession, but that’s a different question
The attempt to reach Indy merely by wanting it a lot and by stoking anti London grievance has finally exhausted itself. Someone like Forbes could conceivably steer the new course I outline above. She looks patient. She’s young
The only really reliable strategy seems to be teaching critical thinking skills.
For me, doing a research degree helped enormously.
It really drove home that I’m entitled to my own opinions, but I’m not entitled to my own facts.
Not aimed at you but I do find it hilarious - and deeply ironic - that some of those on the political front who proclaim the loudest about following the facts seem to get their knickers in a twist about the fact that a human with a penis is a man and can't be a woman.
What about someone born with female genitals that has surgery to have an artificial penis? What about someone born with both gender organs?
(a) woman with an artificial extension. Same category as somebody with a prosthetic (and therefore I should have added natural)
(b) hermaphrodite, which happens naturally but is very rare.
I'll throw it open to the audience to discuss whether or not they think that Humza Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are, collectively, capable of convincing the centre of Scottish public opinion that divorce from England is worth the ballache.
As @Leon says Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are already basically saying they, collectively, aren't capable of it.
The language is couched in a way as to try and maintain some sort of semblance of pro-indy perspective for the remaining dwindling pro-Yes-and-still-SNP hardcore, but the message is pretty clear that they think "it's going to take a while" i.e. we've no idea how to do it.
I note that there's a dearth of ideas on how to do it from the pro-Yes-and-but-not-SNP hardcore, aside from just not the way it's been done so far and sans woke.
The SNP, or whatever is left of it by the time the next election to the Scottish Parliament rolls around, could do with a period in opposition. They need to perform a hard reset, encompassing the following:
(1) Getting their own house in order, in terms of transparency and good governance (2) Constructing a coherent social democratic platform, rooted in the core issues of economic inequality and lack of opportunity for the poor - rather than hitting not only their political opponents but also the great mass of Scottish public opinion over the head with extreme niche posturing on culture wars rubbish (3) Working out a coherent plan to sell independence to Scotland's floating voters, which means one that resolves and clarifies the issues of bankrolling the state, Scotland's currency, trade and the border with England in a plausible fashion that stands up to scrutiny, and with which a majority of the people can live
The last point is achievable, but they need to accept firstly that it's going to entail making a lot of ordinary voters (particularly wealthier voters,) and not just a handful of Evil Tories, furious; and secondly, that selling independence is going to be a harder job than selling Brexit. The Leave campaign won because it had three things on its side: a substantial and enthusiastic core of secessionists; a Union which it wished to break that wasn't loved by most of the electorate; and a convincing and popular argument - the infamous claim about NHS funding - that it successfully weaponised to bring over the waverers. The SNP has the first two, but the fallout from Brexit has salted the earth for them on the third point: they're going to need a really convincing prospectus to get Scotland to vote for a divorce. The contemporary equivalent of a bumbling blond buffoon on a bus ain't going to cut it.
The only really reliable strategy seems to be teaching critical thinking skills.
For me, doing a research degree helped enormously.
It really drove home that I’m entitled to my own opinions, but I’m not entitled to my own facts.
Not aimed at you but I do find it hilarious - and deeply ironic - that some of those on the political front who proclaim the loudest about following the facts seem to get their knickers in a twist about the fact that a human with a penis is a man and can't be a woman.
What about someone born with female genitals that has surgery to have an artificial penis? What about someone born with both gender organs?
I'll throw it open to the audience to discuss whether or not they think that Humza Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are, collectively, capable of convincing the centre of Scottish public opinion that divorce from England is worth the ballache.
As @Leon says Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are already basically saying they, collectively, aren't capable of it.
The language is couched in a way as to try and maintain some sort of semblance of pro-indy perspective for the remaining dwindling pro-Yes-and-still-SNP hardcore, but the message is pretty clear that they think "it's going to take a while" i.e. we've no idea how to do it.
I note that there's a dearth of ideas on how to do it from the pro-Yes-and-but-not-SNP hardcore, aside from just not the way it's been done so far and sans woke.
It's not an unfair point. But to me it doesn't invalidate the fact that the SNP position here has been "it's coming, it's coming, it's almost here, we know what we are doing...ah actually no it's ages away and we need to go back to the drawing board".
Even Sturgeon (eventually, and belatedly) realised that at some point just continually asking Westminster for a S30 order and asking people to vote SNP on that basis wasn't going to cut the mustard forever and she had at least given some sort of thought as to what might have to come next.
The fact that her resignation handily took out the need for the so-called party "independence convention" which would set the strategy for the next WM GE and thus essentially reset the clock on the whole "election, then S30 request, then nothing" process is just a bonus for the continuity "we dunno what now" faction/wing of the SNP.
There is a clear path to independence. Problem is: it’s a long path
It involves a prolonged period of highly competent SNP government where Scotland prospers (certainly as compared to England) and the Scottish people feel confident enough to take on the very difficult job of divorce. At that point YES will start polling 60%+ and Westminster will have to yield. Of course then there is the issue of: if Scotland is doing so well why go to the hassle of secession, but that’s a different question
The attempt to reach Indy merely by wanting it a lot and by stoking anti London grievance has finally exhausted itself. Someone like Forbes could conceivably steer the new course I outline above. She looks patient. She’s young
Impossible to thrive when all the big decisions are taken by England. Scotland is NOT doing well but seems to have lots of easily fooled idiots who believe crooks despite the hard evidence that they are fleecing them.
I'll throw it open to the audience to discuss whether or not they think that Humza Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are, collectively, capable of convincing the centre of Scottish public opinion that divorce from England is worth the ballache.
As @Leon says Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are already basically saying they, collectively, aren't capable of it.
The language is couched in a way as to try and maintain some sort of semblance of pro-indy perspective for the remaining dwindling pro-Yes-and-still-SNP hardcore, but the message is pretty clear that they think "it's going to take a while" i.e. we've no idea how to do it.
I note that there's a dearth of ideas on how to do it from the pro-Yes-and-but-not-SNP hardcore, aside from just not the way it's been done so far and sans woke.
It's not an unfair point. But to me it doesn't invalidate the fact that the SNP position here has been "it's coming, it's coming, it's almost here, we know what we are doing...ah actually no it's ages away and we need to go back to the drawing board".
Even Sturgeon (eventually, and belatedly) realised that at some point just continually asking Westminster for a S30 order and asking people to vote SNP on that basis wasn't going to cut the mustard forever and she had at least given some sort of thought as to what might have to come next.
The fact that her resignation handily took out the need for the so-called party "independence convention" which would set the strategy for the next WM GE and thus essentially reset the clock on the whole "election, then S30 request, then nothing" process is just a bonus for the continuity "we dunno what now" faction/wing of the SNP.
SNP have shown that not only are they crap at governing Scotland on its pocket money, they are also absolutely crap at getting independence. They are good for nothing at present and will reap the rewards they deserve hopefully. Though the inferiority complex is so inbred now that many will never be able to stand on their own two legs.
Nice soundbite. Will be interesting to see if any answers are forthcoming, come manifesto time, to the following questions:
1. Government isn't responsible for day-to-day operational decisions by the police. Therefore, what confidence can we have that extra officers won't be assigned to sitting in front of computers looking to catch people who say reprehensible things on Facebook, rather than doing the donkey work of investigating the wide variety of crimes (virtually everything apart from writing nasty things and murder) in which they appear to show precious little interest? 2. Who is going to pay for the extra police via additional taxation? Will it be (a) rich old farts or (b) the working poor?
I'll throw it open to the audience to discuss whether or not they think that Humza Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are, collectively, capable of convincing the centre of Scottish public opinion that divorce from England is worth the ballache.
As @Leon says Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are already basically saying they, collectively, aren't capable of it.
The language is couched in a way as to try and maintain some sort of semblance of pro-indy perspective for the remaining dwindling pro-Yes-and-still-SNP hardcore, but the message is pretty clear that they think "it's going to take a while" i.e. we've no idea how to do it.
I note that there's a dearth of ideas on how to do it from the pro-Yes-and-but-not-SNP hardcore, aside from just not the way it's been done so far and sans woke.
It's not an unfair point. But to me it doesn't invalidate the fact that the SNP position here has been "it's coming, it's coming, it's almost here, we know what we are doing...ah actually no it's ages away and we need to go back to the drawing board".
Even Sturgeon (eventually, and belatedly) realised that at some point just continually asking Westminster for a S30 order and asking people to vote SNP on that basis wasn't going to cut the mustard forever and she had at least given some sort of thought as to what might have to come next.
The fact that her resignation handily took out the need for the so-called party "independence convention" which would set the strategy for the next WM GE and thus essentially reset the clock on the whole "election, then S30 request, then nothing" process is just a bonus for the continuity "we dunno what now" faction/wing of the SNP.
There is a clear path to independence. Problem is: it’s a long path
It involves a prolonged period of highly competent SNP government where Scotland prospers (certainly as compared to England) and the Scottish people feel confident enough to take on the very difficult job of divorce. At that point YES will start polling 60%+ and Westminster will have to yield. Of course then there is the issue of: if Scotland is doing so well why go to the hassle of secession, but that’s a different question
The attempt to reach Indy merely by wanting it a lot and by stoking anti London grievance has finally exhausted itself. Someone like Forbes could conceivably steer the new course I outline above. She looks patient. She’s young
That path is theoretically sound. Arguably it was working to a point. But as seen the practicalities of it are entirely different from the theory.
There's no real reason to believe WM will yield at 60% any more than they would at 50%. It was this expected sense of "fair play" that ultimately did Sturgeon in in my view, because at best she couldn't come up with a credible answer to "now is not the time". All WM ever needed to do was repeat that and the SNP couldn't come up with a response.
The problem with the SNP "gradualist" approach is that it tried to make the assumption that everyone "Yes" will continue to be so for ever more and moreover will continue to be specifically "Yes" for the SNP and only the SNP, allowing them an uninterrupted electoral period of god knows how long whilst they go off and gradually try to win over the people who aren't Yes.
In reality you only bring your broad church together for a relatively limited period of time. It might still be multiple electoral cycles, as the SNP did so up until now, but people eventually get bored, drift away, splinter off, move on, think their view of what independence looks like is different from that of the party, get irritated at continually voting for a party that nominally stands for the thing they want but isn't making discernible progress towards it and (apparently) is actively focusing on other things it wants instead.
[Add to the mix the specific SNP failures here of actively shutting down internal dissent against itself, so refusing to consider alternative approaches, plus whatever apparently needs to be investigated by the police.]
What that all means is you have a relatively narrow window in reality to make it happen, so that when that window comes along, you've got to be pretty damn proactive about it. The SNP got that window once, leading to 2014. Arguably they got that window again basically just up until Sturgeon resigned, when they had all the advantages they were ever going to get, and they failed to use it. So essentially in my eyes they've blown it, hugely. Missed as near as dammit an open goal.
Anyway. I still believe in the principle of an independent Scotland. But I can no longer believe the SNP is the vehicle that will bring that situation about, certainly not in its current state.
The only really reliable strategy seems to be teaching critical thinking skills.
For me, doing a research degree helped enormously.
It really drove home that I’m entitled to my own opinions, but I’m not entitled to my own facts.
Not aimed at you but I do find it hilarious - and deeply ironic - that some of those on the political front who proclaim the loudest about following the facts seem to get their knickers in a twist about the fact that a human with a penis is a man and can't be a woman.
What about someone born with female genitals that has surgery to have an artificial penis? What about someone born with both gender organs?
Still men
Someone born with both organs is a man?
And, by the way, this @WillG is completely correct that this is all a bit more complex than it looks.
Think chromosomes. XX - woman. XY - man. Right?
What about XXY? What about XO? What about those with XY gonadal dysgenesis, who have XY chromosomes, but no penis?
Even if we go straight to the science, it's a little more complex than it looks.
Thorough piece of work by Ydoethur. Deserves at least one comment, I'd have thought.
The direction of travel for cricket seems to be shorter and shorter and shorter. Ultimately the game will dispense with bat and ball and simply charge people £100 to sit in the sun drinking beer.
If the choice was a) watch cricket for free or b) pay 100£ to sit in the sun and drink beer I would have my wallet open at light speed.
SO you would watch the Hundred in a flash then?
Probably not, I can get the point of most games, cricket though I find ineffably baffling. I can only assume it was originally designed to as a joke probably to bemuse and baffle the French. I tried to watch cricket but when even the commentators spend a lot of time commentating on what the crowd are doing or that a bird has landed at silly mid leg you have to scratch your head as to the point
Not sure there is such a position. There's 'long leg', 'leg slip', even a 'short long leg', but not a 'silly mid leg'. Unless ydoethur says otherwise of course. I'll stand corrected in that case.
if there is a silly mid on, and a silly mid off, surely one of those must be on the leg side?
To save time...
I never knew about "Straight Hit"; when I played it was either "Straight Long On", or "Straight Long Off" depending on which side of the stumps you were.
I'll throw it open to the audience to discuss whether or not they think that Humza Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are, collectively, capable of convincing the centre of Scottish public opinion that divorce from England is worth the ballache.
As @Leon says Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are already basically saying they, collectively, aren't capable of it.
The language is couched in a way as to try and maintain some sort of semblance of pro-indy perspective for the remaining dwindling pro-Yes-and-still-SNP hardcore, but the message is pretty clear that they think "it's going to take a while" i.e. we've no idea how to do it.
I note that there's a dearth of ideas on how to do it from the pro-Yes-and-but-not-SNP hardcore, aside from just not the way it's been done so far and sans woke.
It's not an unfair point. But to me it doesn't invalidate the fact that the SNP position here has been "it's coming, it's coming, it's almost here, we know what we are doing...ah actually no it's ages away and we need to go back to the drawing board".
Even Sturgeon (eventually, and belatedly) realised that at some point just continually asking Westminster for a S30 order and asking people to vote SNP on that basis wasn't going to cut the mustard forever and she had at least given some sort of thought as to what might have to come next.
The fact that her resignation handily took out the need for the so-called party "independence convention" which would set the strategy for the next WM GE and thus essentially reset the clock on the whole "election, then S30 request, then nothing" process is just a bonus for the continuity "we dunno what now" faction/wing of the SNP.
There is a clear path to independence. Problem is: it’s a long path
It involves a prolonged period of highly competent SNP government where Scotland prospers (certainly as compared to England) and the Scottish people feel confident enough to take on the very difficult job of divorce. At that point YES will start polling 60%+ and Westminster will have to yield. Of course then there is the issue of: if Scotland is doing so well why go to the hassle of secession, but that’s a different question
The attempt to reach Indy merely by wanting it a lot and by stoking anti London grievance has finally exhausted itself. Someone like Forbes could conceivably steer the new course I outline above. She looks patient. She’s young
That's not a path to independence. That's just time passing and vaguely hoping it might happen.
Thorough piece of work by Ydoethur. Deserves at least one comment, I'd have thought.
The direction of travel for cricket seems to be shorter and shorter and shorter. Ultimately the game will dispense with bat and ball and simply charge people £100 to sit in the sun drinking beer.
If the choice was a) watch cricket for free or b) pay 100£ to sit in the sun and drink beer I would have my wallet open at light speed.
SO you would watch the Hundred in a flash then?
Probably not, I can get the point of most games, cricket though I find ineffably baffling. I can only assume it was originally designed to as a joke probably to bemuse and baffle the French. I tried to watch cricket but when even the commentators spend a lot of time commentating on what the crowd are doing or that a bird has landed at silly mid leg you have to scratch your head as to the point
Not sure there is such a position. There's 'long leg', 'leg slip', even a 'short long leg', but not a 'silly mid leg'. Unless ydoethur says otherwise of course. I'll stand corrected in that case.
if there is a silly mid on, and a silly mid off, surely one of those must be on the leg side?
To save time...
I never knew about "Straight Hit"; when I played it was either "Straight Long On", or "Straight Long Off" depending on which side of the stumps you were.
The whole thing's ridiculous anyway. You can't have 38 fielders.
The only really reliable strategy seems to be teaching critical thinking skills.
For me, doing a research degree helped enormously.
It really drove home that I’m entitled to my own opinions, but I’m not entitled to my own facts.
Not aimed at you but I do find it hilarious - and deeply ironic - that some of those on the political front who proclaim the loudest about following the facts seem to get their knickers in a twist about the fact that a human with a penis is a man and can't be a woman.
What about someone born with female genitals that has surgery to have an artificial penis? What about someone born with both gender organs?
Still men
Someone born with both organs is a man?
And, by the way, this @WillG is completely correct that this is all a bit more complex than it looks.
Think chromosomes. XX - woman. XY - man. Right?
What about XXY? What about XO? What about those with XY gonadal dysgenesis, who have XY chromosomes, but no penis?
Even if we go straight to the science, it's a little more complex than it looks.
We can go to the nth degree about the exceptions but the general rule still holds - if a human has a penis, it's a man, and if they have female organs like the clitoris, they are a woman.
Yes, there are a very few people who have both characteristics but there always has been. That's no reason why the tail should wag the dog and that those very few exceptions get to determine how the whole of humanity is characterised.
The people who are in that position - unfortunately - are used as pawns by the lobby that says "if you are say you're a woman, you're a woman." The lobby is not interested in their well-being, they are seen as a useful tool to push the wider agenda.
Difficult conversations are never easy in politics. Alastair Masser, a former Tory special adviser to the chief whip after the 2015 election, tells the new series of the Hacks and Flaks podcast how he had picked up complaints that a Conservative MP had “a body odour issue”. “We were all dancing around how to have this embarrassing, difficult conversation,” he says.
The only really reliable strategy seems to be teaching critical thinking skills.
For me, doing a research degree helped enormously.
It really drove home that I’m entitled to my own opinions, but I’m not entitled to my own facts.
Not aimed at you but I do find it hilarious - and deeply ironic - that some of those on the political front who proclaim the loudest about following the facts seem to get their knickers in a twist about the fact that a human with a penis is a man and can't be a woman.
What about someone born with female genitals that has surgery to have an artificial penis? What about someone born with both gender organs?
Still men
Someone born with both organs is a man?
And, by the way, this @WillG is completely correct that this is all a bit more complex than it looks.
Think chromosomes. XX - woman. XY - man. Right?
What about XXY? What about XO? What about those with XY gonadal dysgenesis, who have XY chromosomes, but no penis?
Even if we go straight to the science, it's a little more complex than it looks.
I'll throw it open to the audience to discuss whether or not they think that Humza Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are, collectively, capable of convincing the centre of Scottish public opinion that divorce from England is worth the ballache.
As @Leon says Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are already basically saying they, collectively, aren't capable of it.
The language is couched in a way as to try and maintain some sort of semblance of pro-indy perspective for the remaining dwindling pro-Yes-and-still-SNP hardcore, but the message is pretty clear that they think "it's going to take a while" i.e. we've no idea how to do it.
I note that there's a dearth of ideas on how to do it from the pro-Yes-and-but-not-SNP hardcore, aside from just not the way it's been done so far and sans woke.
It's not an unfair point. But to me it doesn't invalidate the fact that the SNP position here has been "it's coming, it's coming, it's almost here, we know what we are doing...ah actually no it's ages away and we need to go back to the drawing board".
Even Sturgeon (eventually, and belatedly) realised that at some point just continually asking Westminster for a S30 order and asking people to vote SNP on that basis wasn't going to cut the mustard forever and she had at least given some sort of thought as to what might have to come next.
The fact that her resignation handily took out the need for the so-called party "independence convention" which would set the strategy for the next WM GE and thus essentially reset the clock on the whole "election, then S30 request, then nothing" process is just a bonus for the continuity "we dunno what now" faction/wing of the SNP.
There is a clear path to independence. Problem is: it’s a long path
It involves a prolonged period of highly competent SNP government where Scotland prospers (certainly as compared to England) and the Scottish people feel confident enough to take on the very difficult job of divorce. At that point YES will start polling 60%+ and Westminster will have to yield. Of course then there is the issue of: if Scotland is doing so well why go to the hassle of secession, but that’s a different question
The attempt to reach Indy merely by wanting it a lot and by stoking anti London grievance has finally exhausted itself. Someone like Forbes could conceivably steer the new course I outline above. She looks patient. She’s young
That's not a path to independence. That's just time passing and vaguely hoping it might happen.
Lol. Go on then. Try and find a different one or a better one. I know you personally believe Westminster should grant a vote whenever the SNP demands one but that’s simply not gonna happen. Especially now the SNP have imploded
For me it’s 60%+ YES in the polls plus a generation has to have elapsed. Then Westminster should yield
But maybe @solarflare is right and the moment has gone almost forever. 2014 was it (with a potential second bite around 2017 post Brexit). Now the stars will not align for a long long time
Nice soundbite. Will be interesting to see if any answers are forthcoming, come manifesto time, to the following questions:
1. Government isn't responsible for day-to-day operational decisions by the police. Therefore, what confidence can we have that extra officers won't be assigned to sitting in front of computers looking to catch people who say reprehensible things on Facebook, rather than doing the donkey work of investigating the wide variety of crimes (virtually everything apart from writing nasty things and murder) in which they appear to show precious little interest? 2. Who is going to pay for the extra police via additional taxation? Will it be (a) rich old farts or (b) the working poor?
The thing about Labour is that they are all about measuring inputs rather than outputs. They say the statistic is damning. Well what do they commit to get it down to?
The only really reliable strategy seems to be teaching critical thinking skills.
For me, doing a research degree helped enormously.
It really drove home that I’m entitled to my own opinions, but I’m not entitled to my own facts.
Not aimed at you but I do find it hilarious - and deeply ironic - that some of those on the political front who proclaim the loudest about following the facts seem to get their knickers in a twist about the fact that a human with a penis is a man and can't be a woman.
What about someone born with female genitals that has surgery to have an artificial penis? What about someone born with both gender organs?
Still men
Someone born with both organs is a man?
And, by the way, this @WillG is completely correct that this is all a bit more complex than it looks.
Think chromosomes. XX - woman. XY - man. Right?
What about XXY? What about XO? What about those with XY gonadal dysgenesis, who have XY chromosomes, but no penis?
Even if we go straight to the science, it's a little more complex than it looks.
We can go to the nth degree about the exceptions but the general rule still holds - if a human has a penis, it's a man, and if they have female organs like the clitoris, they are a woman.
Yes, there are a very few people who have both characteristics but there always has been. That's no reason why the tail should wag the dog and that those very few exceptions get to determine how the whole of humanity is characterised.
The people who are in that position - unfortunately - are used as pawns by the lobby that says "if you are say you're a woman, you're a woman." The lobby is not interested in their well-being, they are seen as a useful tool to push the wider agenda.
We can go to the nth degree about the exceptions but the general rule still holds - sex is between a man and a woman.
No?
Edge and corner cases matter. They may be rare, but our society has thankfully learnt to accept the rare cases as being valid and valued. I don't like this talk that 'very rare' (*) cases don't matter.
(*) Which is debatable, depending on the figures used.
The only really reliable strategy seems to be teaching critical thinking skills.
For me, doing a research degree helped enormously.
It really drove home that I’m entitled to my own opinions, but I’m not entitled to my own facts.
Not aimed at you but I do find it hilarious - and deeply ironic - that some of those on the political front who proclaim the loudest about following the facts seem to get their knickers in a twist about the fact that a human with a penis is a man and can't be a woman.
What about someone born with female genitals that has surgery to have an artificial penis? What about someone born with both gender organs?
Still men
Someone born with both organs is a man?
And, by the way, this @WillG is completely correct that this is all a bit more complex than it looks.
Think chromosomes. XX - woman. XY - man. Right?
What about XXY? What about XO? What about those with XY gonadal dysgenesis, who have XY chromosomes, but no penis?
Even if we go straight to the science, it's a little more complex than it looks.
We can go to the nth degree about the exceptions but the general rule still holds - if a human has a penis, it's a man, and if they have female organs like the clitoris, they are a woman.
Yes, there are a very few people who have both characteristics but there always has been. That's no reason why the tail should wag the dog and that those very few exceptions get to determine how the whole of humanity is characterised.
The people who are in that position - unfortunately - are used as pawns by the lobby that says "if you are say you're a woman, you're a woman." The lobby is not interested in their well-being, they are seen as a useful tool to push the wider agenda.
Ultimately, this is very simple.
If someone wants me to address then with the "she/her" pronoun and they have a penis, then I should acede with their wishes. Because it is common courtesy. Just as if they called themselves MoonBeam Sunshines, I should call them MoonBeam Sunshines. It costs me nothing to be polite. Likewise, if they wish to wear a dress, or makeup, that is entirely their right.
If they wish to enter female only safe spaces (i.e. changing rooms) or enter sporting events, that should not be allowed.
Nice soundbite. Will be interesting to see if any answers are forthcoming, come manifesto time, to the following questions:
1. Government isn't responsible for day-to-day operational decisions by the police. Therefore, what confidence can we have that extra officers won't be assigned to sitting in front of computers looking to catch people who say reprehensible things on Facebook, rather than doing the donkey work of investigating the wide variety of crimes (virtually everything apart from writing nasty things and murder) in which they appear to show precious little interest? 2. Who is going to pay for the extra police via additional taxation? Will it be (a) rich old farts or (b) the working poor?
The thing about Labour is that they are all about measuring inputs rather than outputs. They say the statistic is damning. Well what do they commit to get it down to?
The only really reliable strategy seems to be teaching critical thinking skills.
For me, doing a research degree helped enormously.
It really drove home that I’m entitled to my own opinions, but I’m not entitled to my own facts.
Not aimed at you but I do find it hilarious - and deeply ironic - that some of those on the political front who proclaim the loudest about following the facts seem to get their knickers in a twist about the fact that a human with a penis is a man and can't be a woman.
What about someone born with female genitals that has surgery to have an artificial penis? What about someone born with both gender organs?
Still men
Is someone without a penis a woman? What if it is someone that lost theirs in a nasty car accident?
The only really reliable strategy seems to be teaching critical thinking skills.
For me, doing a research degree helped enormously.
It really drove home that I’m entitled to my own opinions, but I’m not entitled to my own facts.
Not aimed at you but I do find it hilarious - and deeply ironic - that some of those on the political front who proclaim the loudest about following the facts seem to get their knickers in a twist about the fact that a human with a penis is a man and can't be a woman.
What about someone born with female genitals that has surgery to have an artificial penis? What about someone born with both gender organs?
Still men
Someone born with both organs is a man?
And, by the way, this @WillG is completely correct that this is all a bit more complex than it looks.
Think chromosomes. XX - woman. XY - man. Right?
What about XXY? What about XO? What about those with XY gonadal dysgenesis, who have XY chromosomes, but no penis?
Even if we go straight to the science, it's a little more complex than it looks.
We can go to the nth degree about the exceptions but the general rule still holds - if a human has a penis, it's a man, and if they have female organs like the clitoris, they are a woman.
Yes, there are a very few people who have both characteristics but there always has been. That's no reason why the tail should wag the dog and that those very few exceptions get to determine how the whole of humanity is characterised.
The people who are in that position - unfortunately - are used as pawns by the lobby that says "if you are say you're a woman, you're a woman." The lobby is not interested in their well-being, they are seen as a useful tool to push the wider agenda.
Ultimately, this is very simple.
If someone wants me to address then with the "she/her" pronoun and they have a penis, then I should acede with their wishes. Because it is common courtesy. Just as if they called themselves MoonBeam Sunshines, I should call them MoonBeam Sunshines. It costs me nothing to be polite. Likewise, if they wish to wear a dress, or makeup, that is entirely their right.
If they wish to enter female only safe spaces (i.e. changing rooms) or enter sporting events, that should not be allowed.
This isn't complicated.
So someone that is born with male genitalia, who has always had female brain chemistry, has been assessed as psychologically female by medical experts, has had surgery to change their biology, goes by a female name, dresses as a woman and has anxiety attacks when classified as male... they should not be allowed to use the female changing rooms?
I'll throw it open to the audience to discuss whether or not they think that Humza Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are, collectively, capable of convincing the centre of Scottish public opinion that divorce from England is worth the ballache.
As @Leon says Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are already basically saying they, collectively, aren't capable of it.
The language is couched in a way as to try and maintain some sort of semblance of pro-indy perspective for the remaining dwindling pro-Yes-and-still-SNP hardcore, but the message is pretty clear that they think "it's going to take a while" i.e. we've no idea how to do it.
I note that there's a dearth of ideas on how to do it from the pro-Yes-and-but-not-SNP hardcore, aside from just not the way it's been done so far and sans woke.
It's not an unfair point. But to me it doesn't invalidate the fact that the SNP position here has been "it's coming, it's coming, it's almost here, we know what we are doing...ah actually no it's ages away and we need to go back to the drawing board".
Even Sturgeon (eventually, and belatedly) realised that at some point just continually asking Westminster for a S30 order and asking people to vote SNP on that basis wasn't going to cut the mustard forever and she had at least given some sort of thought as to what might have to come next.
The fact that her resignation handily took out the need for the so-called party "independence convention" which would set the strategy for the next WM GE and thus essentially reset the clock on the whole "election, then S30 request, then nothing" process is just a bonus for the continuity "we dunno what now" faction/wing of the SNP.
There is a clear path to independence. Problem is: it’s a long path
It involves a prolonged period of highly competent SNP government where Scotland prospers (certainly as compared to England) and the Scottish people feel confident enough to take on the very difficult job of divorce. At that point YES will start polling 60%+ and Westminster will have to yield. Of course then there is the issue of: if Scotland is doing so well why go to the hassle of secession, but that’s a different question
The attempt to reach Indy merely by wanting it a lot and by stoking anti London grievance has finally exhausted itself. Someone like Forbes could conceivably steer the new course I outline above. She looks patient. She’s young
That's not a path to independence. That's just time passing and vaguely hoping it might happen.
Lol. Go on then. Try and find a different one or a better one. I know you personally believe Westminster should grant a vote whenever the SNP demands one but that’s simply not gonna happen. Especially now the SNP have imploded
For me it’s 60%+ YES in the polls plus a generation has to have elapsed. Then Westminster should yield
But maybe @solarflare is right and the moment has gone almost forever. 2014 was it (with a potential second bite around 2017 post Brexit). Now the stars will not align for a long long time
Scottish independence is a bit like having a baby I reckon.
The only really reliable strategy seems to be teaching critical thinking skills.
For me, doing a research degree helped enormously.
It really drove home that I’m entitled to my own opinions, but I’m not entitled to my own facts.
Not aimed at you but I do find it hilarious - and deeply ironic - that some of those on the political front who proclaim the loudest about following the facts seem to get their knickers in a twist about the fact that a human with a penis is a man and can't be a woman.
What about someone born with female genitals that has surgery to have an artificial penis? What about someone born with both gender organs?
Still men
Someone born with both organs is a man?
And, by the way, this @WillG is completely correct that this is all a bit more complex than it looks.
Think chromosomes. XX - woman. XY - man. Right?
What about XXY? What about XO? What about those with XY gonadal dysgenesis, who have XY chromosomes, but no penis?
Even if we go straight to the science, it's a little more complex than it looks.
We can go to the nth degree about the exceptions but the general rule still holds - if a human has a penis, it's a man, and if they have female organs like the clitoris, they are a woman.
Yes, there are a very few people who have both characteristics but there always has been. That's no reason why the tail should wag the dog and that those very few exceptions get to determine how the whole of humanity is characterised.
The people who are in that position - unfortunately - are used as pawns by the lobby that says "if you are say you're a woman, you're a woman." The lobby is not interested in their well-being, they are seen as a useful tool to push the wider agenda.
Ultimately, this is very simple.
If someone wants me to address then with the "she/her" pronoun and they have a penis, then I should acede with their wishes. Because it is common courtesy. Just as if they called themselves MoonBeam Sunshines, I should call them MoonBeam Sunshines. It costs me nothing to be polite. Likewise, if they wish to wear a dress, or makeup, that is entirely their right.
If they wish to enter female only safe spaces (i.e. changing rooms) or enter sporting events, that should not be allowed.
This isn't complicated.
So someone that is born with male genitalia, who has always had female brain chemistry, has been assessed as psychologically female by medical experts, has had surgery to change their biology, goes by a female name, dresses as a woman and has anxiety attacks when classified as male... they should not be allowed to use the female changing rooms?
I agree with you.
Someone who has had gender reassignment surgery should be allowed to use the other changing rooms.
I'll throw it open to the audience to discuss whether or not they think that Humza Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are, collectively, capable of convincing the centre of Scottish public opinion that divorce from England is worth the ballache.
As @Leon says Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are already basically saying they, collectively, aren't capable of it.
The language is couched in a way as to try and maintain some sort of semblance of pro-indy perspective for the remaining dwindling pro-Yes-and-still-SNP hardcore, but the message is pretty clear that they think "it's going to take a while" i.e. we've no idea how to do it.
I note that there's a dearth of ideas on how to do it from the pro-Yes-and-but-not-SNP hardcore, aside from just not the way it's been done so far and sans woke.
It's not an unfair point. But to me it doesn't invalidate the fact that the SNP position here has been "it's coming, it's coming, it's almost here, we know what we are doing...ah actually no it's ages away and we need to go back to the drawing board".
Even Sturgeon (eventually, and belatedly) realised that at some point just continually asking Westminster for a S30 order and asking people to vote SNP on that basis wasn't going to cut the mustard forever and she had at least given some sort of thought as to what might have to come next.
The fact that her resignation handily took out the need for the so-called party "independence convention" which would set the strategy for the next WM GE and thus essentially reset the clock on the whole "election, then S30 request, then nothing" process is just a bonus for the continuity "we dunno what now" faction/wing of the SNP.
There is a clear path to independence. Problem is: it’s a long path
It involves a prolonged period of highly competent SNP government where Scotland prospers (certainly as compared to England) and the Scottish people feel confident enough to take on the very difficult job of divorce. At that point YES will start polling 60%+ and Westminster will have to yield. Of course then there is the issue of: if Scotland is doing so well why go to the hassle of secession, but that’s a different question
The attempt to reach Indy merely by wanting it a lot and by stoking anti London grievance has finally exhausted itself. Someone like Forbes could conceivably steer the new course I outline above. She looks patient. She’s young
That's not a path to independence. That's just time passing and vaguely hoping it might happen.
Lol. Go on then. Try and find a different one or a better one. I know you personally believe Westminster should grant a vote whenever the SNP demands one but that’s simply not gonna happen. Especially now the SNP have imploded
For me it’s 60%+ YES in the polls plus a generation has to have elapsed. Then Westminster should yield
But maybe @solarflare is right and the moment has gone almost forever. 2014 was it (with a potential second bite around 2017 post Brexit). Now the stars will not align for a long long time
Scottish independence is a bit like having a baby I reckon.
I'll throw it open to the audience to discuss whether or not they think that Humza Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are, collectively, capable of convincing the centre of Scottish public opinion that divorce from England is worth the ballache.
As @Leon says Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are already basically saying they, collectively, aren't capable of it.
The language is couched in a way as to try and maintain some sort of semblance of pro-indy perspective for the remaining dwindling pro-Yes-and-still-SNP hardcore, but the message is pretty clear that they think "it's going to take a while" i.e. we've no idea how to do it.
I note that there's a dearth of ideas on how to do it from the pro-Yes-and-but-not-SNP hardcore, aside from just not the way it's been done so far and sans woke.
It's not an unfair point. But to me it doesn't invalidate the fact that the SNP position here has been "it's coming, it's coming, it's almost here, we know what we are doing...ah actually no it's ages away and we need to go back to the drawing board".
Even Sturgeon (eventually, and belatedly) realised that at some point just continually asking Westminster for a S30 order and asking people to vote SNP on that basis wasn't going to cut the mustard forever and she had at least given some sort of thought as to what might have to come next.
The fact that her resignation handily took out the need for the so-called party "independence convention" which would set the strategy for the next WM GE and thus essentially reset the clock on the whole "election, then S30 request, then nothing" process is just a bonus for the continuity "we dunno what now" faction/wing of the SNP.
There is a clear path to independence. Problem is: it’s a long path
It involves a prolonged period of highly competent SNP government where Scotland prospers (certainly as compared to England) and the Scottish people feel confident enough to take on the very difficult job of divorce. At that point YES will start polling 60%+ and Westminster will have to yield. Of course then there is the issue of: if Scotland is doing so well why go to the hassle of secession, but that’s a different question
The attempt to reach Indy merely by wanting it a lot and by stoking anti London grievance has finally exhausted itself. Someone like Forbes could conceivably steer the new course I outline above. She looks patient. She’s young
That's not a path to independence. That's just time passing and vaguely hoping it might happen.
Lol. Go on then. Try and find a different one or a better one. I know you personally believe Westminster should grant a vote whenever the SNP demands one but that’s simply not gonna happen. Especially now the SNP have imploded
For me it’s 60%+ YES in the polls plus a generation has to have elapsed. Then Westminster should yield
But maybe @solarflare is right and the moment has gone almost forever. 2014 was it (with a potential second bite around 2017 post Brexit). Now the stars will not align for a long long time
Scottish independence is a bit like having a baby I reckon.
I'll throw it open to the audience to discuss whether or not they think that Humza Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are, collectively, capable of convincing the centre of Scottish public opinion that divorce from England is worth the ballache.
As @Leon says Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are already basically saying they, collectively, aren't capable of it.
The language is couched in a way as to try and maintain some sort of semblance of pro-indy perspective for the remaining dwindling pro-Yes-and-still-SNP hardcore, but the message is pretty clear that they think "it's going to take a while" i.e. we've no idea how to do it.
I note that there's a dearth of ideas on how to do it from the pro-Yes-and-but-not-SNP hardcore, aside from just not the way it's been done so far and sans woke.
It's not an unfair point. But to me it doesn't invalidate the fact that the SNP position here has been "it's coming, it's coming, it's almost here, we know what we are doing...ah actually no it's ages away and we need to go back to the drawing board".
Even Sturgeon (eventually, and belatedly) realised that at some point just continually asking Westminster for a S30 order and asking people to vote SNP on that basis wasn't going to cut the mustard forever and she had at least given some sort of thought as to what might have to come next.
The fact that her resignation handily took out the need for the so-called party "independence convention" which would set the strategy for the next WM GE and thus essentially reset the clock on the whole "election, then S30 request, then nothing" process is just a bonus for the continuity "we dunno what now" faction/wing of the SNP.
There is a clear path to independence. Problem is: it’s a long path
It involves a prolonged period of highly competent SNP government where Scotland prospers (certainly as compared to England) and the Scottish people feel confident enough to take on the very difficult job of divorce. At that point YES will start polling 60%+ and Westminster will have to yield. Of course then there is the issue of: if Scotland is doing so well why go to the hassle of secession, but that’s a different question
The attempt to reach Indy merely by wanting it a lot and by stoking anti London grievance has finally exhausted itself. Someone like Forbes could conceivably steer the new course I outline above. She looks patient. She’s young
That's not a path to independence. That's just time passing and vaguely hoping it might happen.
Lol. Go on then. Try and find a different one or a better one. I know you personally believe Westminster should grant a vote whenever the SNP demands one but that’s simply not gonna happen. Especially now the SNP have imploded
For me it’s 60%+ YES in the polls plus a generation has to have elapsed. Then Westminster should yield
But maybe @solarflare is right and the moment has gone almost forever. 2014 was it (with a potential second bite around 2017 post Brexit). Now the stars will not align for a long long time
Scottish independence is a bit like having a baby I reckon.
It’s a bit like having a baby where the would-be mother was born a biological man and does not actually have a uterus
I'll throw it open to the audience to discuss whether or not they think that Humza Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are, collectively, capable of convincing the centre of Scottish public opinion that divorce from England is worth the ballache.
As @Leon says Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are already basically saying they, collectively, aren't capable of it.
The language is couched in a way as to try and maintain some sort of semblance of pro-indy perspective for the remaining dwindling pro-Yes-and-still-SNP hardcore, but the message is pretty clear that they think "it's going to take a while" i.e. we've no idea how to do it.
I note that there's a dearth of ideas on how to do it from the pro-Yes-and-but-not-SNP hardcore, aside from just not the way it's been done so far and sans woke.
It's not an unfair point. But to me it doesn't invalidate the fact that the SNP position here has been "it's coming, it's coming, it's almost here, we know what we are doing...ah actually no it's ages away and we need to go back to the drawing board".
Even Sturgeon (eventually, and belatedly) realised that at some point just continually asking Westminster for a S30 order and asking people to vote SNP on that basis wasn't going to cut the mustard forever and she had at least given some sort of thought as to what might have to come next.
The fact that her resignation handily took out the need for the so-called party "independence convention" which would set the strategy for the next WM GE and thus essentially reset the clock on the whole "election, then S30 request, then nothing" process is just a bonus for the continuity "we dunno what now" faction/wing of the SNP.
There is a clear path to independence. Problem is: it’s a long path
It involves a prolonged period of highly competent SNP government where Scotland prospers (certainly as compared to England) and the Scottish people feel confident enough to take on the very difficult job of divorce. At that point YES will start polling 60%+ and Westminster will have to yield. Of course then there is the issue of: if Scotland is doing so well why go to the hassle of secession, but that’s a different question
The attempt to reach Indy merely by wanting it a lot and by stoking anti London grievance has finally exhausted itself. Someone like Forbes could conceivably steer the new course I outline above. She looks patient. She’s young
That's not a path to independence. That's just time passing and vaguely hoping it might happen.
Lol. Go on then. Try and find a different one or a better one. I know you personally believe Westminster should grant a vote whenever the SNP demands one but that’s simply not gonna happen. Especially now the SNP have imploded
For me it’s 60%+ YES in the polls plus a generation has to have elapsed. Then Westminster should yield
But maybe @solarflare is right and the moment has gone almost forever. 2014 was it (with a potential second bite around 2017 post Brexit). Now the stars will not align for a long long time
Scottish independence is a bit like having a baby I reckon.
I'll throw it open to the audience to discuss whether or not they think that Humza Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are, collectively, capable of convincing the centre of Scottish public opinion that divorce from England is worth the ballache.
As @Leon says Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are already basically saying they, collectively, aren't capable of it.
The language is couched in a way as to try and maintain some sort of semblance of pro-indy perspective for the remaining dwindling pro-Yes-and-still-SNP hardcore, but the message is pretty clear that they think "it's going to take a while" i.e. we've no idea how to do it.
I note that there's a dearth of ideas on how to do it from the pro-Yes-and-but-not-SNP hardcore, aside from just not the way it's been done so far and sans woke.
It's not an unfair point. But to me it doesn't invalidate the fact that the SNP position here has been "it's coming, it's coming, it's almost here, we know what we are doing...ah actually no it's ages away and we need to go back to the drawing board".
Even Sturgeon (eventually, and belatedly) realised that at some point just continually asking Westminster for a S30 order and asking people to vote SNP on that basis wasn't going to cut the mustard forever and she had at least given some sort of thought as to what might have to come next.
The fact that her resignation handily took out the need for the so-called party "independence convention" which would set the strategy for the next WM GE and thus essentially reset the clock on the whole "election, then S30 request, then nothing" process is just a bonus for the continuity "we dunno what now" faction/wing of the SNP.
There is a clear path to independence. Problem is: it’s a long path
It involves a prolonged period of highly competent SNP government where Scotland prospers (certainly as compared to England) and the Scottish people feel confident enough to take on the very difficult job of divorce. At that point YES will start polling 60%+ and Westminster will have to yield. Of course then there is the issue of: if Scotland is doing so well why go to the hassle of secession, but that’s a different question
The attempt to reach Indy merely by wanting it a lot and by stoking anti London grievance has finally exhausted itself. Someone like Forbes could conceivably steer the new course I outline above. She looks patient. She’s young
That's not a path to independence. That's just time passing and vaguely hoping it might happen.
Lol. Go on then. Try and find a different one or a better one. I know you personally believe Westminster should grant a vote whenever the SNP demands one but that’s simply not gonna happen. Especially now the SNP have imploded
For me it’s 60%+ YES in the polls plus a generation has to have elapsed. Then Westminster should yield
But maybe @solarflare is right and the moment has gone almost forever. 2014 was it (with a potential second bite around 2017 post Brexit). Now the stars will not align for a long long time
Scottish independence is a bit like having a baby I reckon.
It’s a bit like having a baby where the would-be mother was born a biological man and does not actually have a uterus
The only really reliable strategy seems to be teaching critical thinking skills.
For me, doing a research degree helped enormously.
It really drove home that I’m entitled to my own opinions, but I’m not entitled to my own facts.
Not aimed at you but I do find it hilarious - and deeply ironic - that some of those on the political front who proclaim the loudest about following the facts seem to get their knickers in a twist about the fact that a human with a penis is a man and can't be a woman.
What about someone born with female genitals that has surgery to have an artificial penis? What about someone born with both gender organs?
Still men
Someone born with both organs is a man?
And, by the way, this @WillG is completely correct that this is all a bit more complex than it looks.
Think chromosomes. XX - woman. XY - man. Right?
What about XXY? What about XO? What about those with XY gonadal dysgenesis, who have XY chromosomes, but no penis?
Even if we go straight to the science, it's a little more complex than it looks.
We can go to the nth degree about the exceptions but the general rule still holds - if a human has a penis, it's a man, and if they have female organs like the clitoris, they are a woman.
Yes, there are a very few people who have both characteristics but there always has been. That's no reason why the tail should wag the dog and that those very few exceptions get to determine how the whole of humanity is characterised.
The people who are in that position - unfortunately - are used as pawns by the lobby that says "if you are say you're a woman, you're a woman." The lobby is not interested in their well-being, they are seen as a useful tool to push the wider agenda.
Ultimately, this is very simple.
If someone wants me to address then with the "she/her" pronoun and they have a penis, then I should acede with their wishes. Because it is common courtesy. Just as if they called themselves MoonBeam Sunshines, I should call them MoonBeam Sunshines. It costs me nothing to be polite. Likewise, if they wish to wear a dress, or makeup, that is entirely their right.
If they wish to enter female only safe spaces (i.e. changing rooms) or enter sporting events, that should not be allowed.
This isn't complicated.
There's a deeply humerous twist that a man who complains about unusual pronouns, chose to name his children with Grimes: Exa Dark Sideræl and X Æ A-12.
Nice soundbite. Will be interesting to see if any answers are forthcoming, come manifesto time, to the following questions:
1. Government isn't responsible for day-to-day operational decisions by the police. Therefore, what confidence can we have that extra officers won't be assigned to sitting in front of computers looking to catch people who say reprehensible things on Facebook, rather than doing the donkey work of investigating the wide variety of crimes (virtually everything apart from writing nasty things and murder) in which they appear to show precious little interest? 2. Who is going to pay for the extra police via additional taxation? Will it be (a) rich old farts or (b) the working poor?
The thing about Labour is that they are all about measuring inputs rather than outputs. They say the statistic is damning. Well what do they commit to get it down to?
Unfortunately that criticism is usually answered by setting targets, such that meeting the target becomes the priority even if it leads to perverse incentives.
Difficult conversations are never easy in politics. Alastair Masser, a former Tory special adviser to the chief whip after the 2015 election, tells the new series of the Hacks and Flaks podcast how he had picked up complaints that a Conservative MP had “a body odour issue”. “We were all dancing around how to have this embarrassing, difficult conversation,” he says.
Ah, the poetry of cricket. … Steel drops down to sweep, gets hit in the Easter eggs, and ricochets the ball into the stumps. Parky’s 150th first-class wicket.
There will be more room for those stay at home holidays, after all.
French and German tourists turn their back on Brexit Britain https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/apr/08/french-and-german-tourists-turn-their-back-on-brexit-britain … School groups are particularly badly affected because if one or two children in a class of 30 do not have passports, teachers will elect to travel to Ireland or Malta for English language trips instead. Children with non-EU passports, such as refugees, will also need a £95 visa to enter the UK.
Research by the Tourism Alliance last year found there had been an 83% drop in schoolchildren and students visiting the UK, leading to a loss of £875m and 14,500 jobs.
About 28 million people in Germany have passports, according to a 2007 parliamentary answer, out of a population of 83 million. In France, about 32 million passports have been issued in the last 10 years, out of a population of 67 million...
The newspaper gave it almost two full pages, though in their Northwest section, rather than their Sports section. Perhaps I'll have to read the newspaper's description of the game some time, since what I have read, in "Murder Must Advertise" and "Tinker Tailor", left me puzzled.
(There have been amateur cricket clubs in this area for years.)
That’s a considerably fairer ad than the previous two.
Yes that’s entirely legitimate. But they started with the ugly racist one. I guess it got the attention they wanted but ewwww
I wonder how many of these are lined up? Part of my instinctive conservatism is that they are more competent more often. And for all that Rishi is an improvement on what came before, his government isn't a complete improvement.
As for the first, I get the ugliness, but the racism of the trope was amplified by Rishi and Suella trying to tie child abuse to Muslims, so it's a bit karmic.
Like batting against a fast bowler, get it right and the momentum of the attack helps you score.
I'll throw it open to the audience to discuss whether or not they think that Humza Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are, collectively, capable of convincing the centre of Scottish public opinion that divorce from England is worth the ballache.
As @Leon says Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are already basically saying they, collectively, aren't capable of it.
The language is couched in a way as to try and maintain some sort of semblance of pro-indy perspective for the remaining dwindling pro-Yes-and-still-SNP hardcore, but the message is pretty clear that they think "it's going to take a while" i.e. we've no idea how to do it.
I note that there's a dearth of ideas on how to do it from the pro-Yes-and-but-not-SNP hardcore, aside from just not the way it's been done so far and sans woke.
It's not an unfair point. But to me it doesn't invalidate the fact that the SNP position here has been "it's coming, it's coming, it's almost here, we know what we are doing...ah actually no it's ages away and we need to go back to the drawing board".
Even Sturgeon (eventually, and belatedly) realised that at some point just continually asking Westminster for a S30 order and asking people to vote SNP on that basis wasn't going to cut the mustard forever and she had at least given some sort of thought as to what might have to come next.
The fact that her resignation handily took out the need for the so-called party "independence convention" which would set the strategy for the next WM GE and thus essentially reset the clock on the whole "election, then S30 request, then nothing" process is just a bonus for the continuity "we dunno what now" faction/wing of the SNP.
There is a clear path to independence. Problem is: it’s a long path
It involves a prolonged period of highly competent SNP government where Scotland prospers (certainly as compared to England) and the Scottish people feel confident enough to take on the very difficult job of divorce. At that point YES will start polling 60%+ and Westminster will have to yield. Of course then there is the issue of: if Scotland is doing so well why go to the hassle of secession, but that’s a different question
The attempt to reach Indy merely by wanting it a lot and by stoking anti London grievance has finally exhausted itself. Someone like Forbes could conceivably steer the new course I outline above. She looks patient. She’s young
That's not a path to independence. That's just time passing and vaguely hoping it might happen.
Lol. Go on then. Try and find a different one or a better one. I know you personally believe Westminster should grant a vote whenever the SNP demands one but that’s simply not gonna happen. Especially now the SNP have imploded
For me it’s 60%+ YES in the polls plus a generation has to have elapsed. Then Westminster should yield
But maybe @solarflare is right and the moment has gone almost forever. 2014 was it (with a potential second bite around 2017 post Brexit). Now the stars will not align for a long long time
Should be granted if there's a Holyrood mandate. That's basic democracy. Which you're supposedly a big fan of. In fact not supposedly, you damn well are.
As for the best argument for the SNP to make for Sindy it's another thing you're in thrall to. National sovereignty. Eg the UK had this in the EU but that it was pooled to an extent was something you found so intolerable it caused you to want out.
So, how much more powerful is the case to establish it where it doesn't even exist to be pooled in the first place? You can see this, I imagine, if you think honestly about it. You would undoubtedly be pro if you were Scottish. You'd be a right wing anti woke Nat like Malcolm.
I hesitate to mention this, given the high emotions on the subject, but when I was a kid, if you said someone was trying to "pass", you usually meant a light-skinned black person was trying to become white. (And it sometimes worked.)
Later, I observed that some women I worked with would try to "pass" as men in business letters by using initials for their first and middle names in their signatures. (And it sometimes worked.)
In both cases, the people "passing" were trying to improve their status.
When the "trans" phenomena began here in the United States, it's my impression that most of those who were rejecting their biological sex were boys. But then "trans" became a category of its own, and now, as far as I can tell, most are girls who want to become "trans", not boys.
I love international cricket but struggle to engage with the County Championship. There is a limited pool of talent and England call ups can seriously weaken some of these teams, as well as the viewing spectacle. But it is more accessible now so we shall see.
As for the Hundred, what a terrible idea that was.
I think the biggest issue for country cricket is lack of exposure. There are plenty of excellent cricketers outside the national set up, and lots of overseas talent too. The ECB just needed to push the T20 blast onto BBC to make some of the players more widely known. The 4 day champs is always a harder sell. When I’m retired I hope to go to a fair bit of cricket, but right now there is no time in my life.
The BBC should act as an incubator for UK sports leagues. Give the BBC a 20% equity share in cricket T20, a 10 year contract and in exchange pay whatever sky would be paying. The exposure will make the T20 competition worth billions by the time the deal is up, it can be then sold back to Sky et al as well as international markets.
There is an Indian elephant in the room, which renders such ideas unlikely. Even test cricket is being crowded out.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2023/apr/08/the-indian-premier-league-is-a-brilliant-thing-but-is-killing-test-cricket …Back in England the Ashes will soon be upon us, five Tests across six weeks with the promise of renewal and fresh eyes. For all the death-in-life stuff of an April start, this is still the beginning of something. But it is also the beginning of the end. It is tempting to glaze over a little whenever anyone starts to talk about the end of Test cricket. This is a sport that thrives on dying, that seems to have been dying, with a robust sense of theatre, since the day it was born. But this thing is actually happening now. That ice shelf really is shearing off right in front of us. Welcome to the last great summer of Tests.
Just take a look at the future tours programme. From February 2027 to mid 2031 there are six combined white ball world cups and five IPLs. In the same four-year period just six five Test series are due to take place anywhere in the world. South Africa have just two three-Test series scheduled between now and 2031, when Kagiso Rabada will be 35…
T20 is clearly the long term future but that article is too pessimistic about Tests. I think ODIs will get squeezed out before tests. As for where the best cricket will be played, again long term it is clearly going to be India as they have most interest, most players, most fans and can generate the most revenue to attract the worlds elite. That doesn't mean there is not space for lower level competitions to be worth a lot of money if they are well managed.
A T20 match involves 40 overs of cricket. A Test match that goes the full five days would be > 400 overs of cricket. It's not simply a shorter format of the game, it's a completely different game.
The risk is that what was known as cricket has created it's own destroyer, like a cuckoo in the nest. I think that would be a great shame.
I think that this is seriously pessimistic and that there is room for all 3 formats. T20 cricket has improved cricket enormously. You only have to look at the strike rates of the current England team, the incredible improvement in fielding and the greater variety used by almost every bowler. The intensity it brings has bled into the longer formats as have the skill levels.
ODIs are probably my favourite, given that my visits to England cricket tend to be one day affairs. There is so much room for the match to swing back and forward, that intensity is still there and there is a very full day of cricket for your money, normally with a result at the end of it. Again, score rates of 300+ are clearly a direct result of the skills learned from the shorter version but you also see the rebuilding and pacing of the test arena as well.
Test cricket, provided it is competitive, is just magical. A fantastic accumulation of both athleticism and strategy. To see a bowler on the top of his game steaming in like a Broad, Anderson or Brett Lee is such a delight with the only limitations being his own stamina and the options open to his captain. The skill with which a Root manipulates a field to find easy, low risk runs. its like sport and chess combined.
All 3 formats benefit enormously from happy, enthusiastic, drunk but almost universally amiable crowds. That is my reservations about the County Championship. Where does the atmosphere come from in those games?
County Championship crowds have improved in recent years. I think there's potential there to continue to do better.
In terms of my pessimism it's a case of looking at the trends and following the money. The IPL will soon expand to cover three months. The massive amount of money the IPL has is being used to invest in other T20 franchise leagues - in South Africa, in the US, in the Middle East somewhere. The direction of travel is not to have T20 co-exist alongside the other two forms of the game, but for T20 - and franchise T20 at that - to cannibalise all other forms of the game.
If the Hundred succeeds then it's possible the cricket calendar will end up with ten months of the IPL, or IPL-associated franchise competitions, one month of the Hundred and one month of the Big Bash in Australia.
The question then is whether first-class cricket can survive as a professional sport once T20 has spun off into its own world. It will certainly be much diminished compared to the present situation, but there's just a chance of professional first-class cricket surviving in England and Australia - but the County Championship will have to stop being so apologetic about itself and sell itself better if it is to pay its way.
The only really reliable strategy seems to be teaching critical thinking skills.
For me, doing a research degree helped enormously.
It really drove home that I’m entitled to my own opinions, but I’m not entitled to my own facts.
Not aimed at you but I do find it hilarious - and deeply ironic - that some of those on the political front who proclaim the loudest about following the facts seem to get their knickers in a twist about the fact that a human with a penis is a man and can't be a woman.
What about someone born with female genitals that has surgery to have an artificial penis? What about someone born with both gender organs?
Still men
Someone born with both organs is a man?
And, by the way, this @WillG is completely correct that this is all a bit more complex than it looks.
Think chromosomes. XX - woman. XY - man. Right?
What about XXY? What about XO? What about those with XY gonadal dysgenesis, who have XY chromosomes, but no penis?
Even if we go straight to the science, it's a little more complex than it looks.
You are dancing on the head of a pin. Apart from a very very few abnormalities a man is a man and a woman is a woman. You can use whatever fantasical fantasies you wish but facts are facts I am afraid.
Comments
Most Scottish voters opposed leaving the EU, and will presumably feel vindicated by the many problems that the decision has created. Now it's up to the SNP to convince those self-same voters that removing Scotland from a souped-up free trade area that it only entered in 1973 was a catastrophe that should be reversed as quickly as possible (through Scotland applying to re-join the EU as a state in its own right,) whereas unpicking a full-blown political and economic union that has existed since 1707 will be a piece of cake and obviously beneficial.
This kind of doublethink is an easy sell to the, at a guess, one third or so of the Scottish electorate who are conviction secessionists and want rid of the Union now and at virtually any price. However, the prospect of years of Scexit negotiations - against a backdrop of lengthy and heated arguments over trade, borders and money - is a harder sell for the muddy middle of floating voters who are persuadable in both directions, and whom pro-independence campaigners have to win over in sufficient numbers to get what they want.
I'll throw it open to the audience to discuss whether or not they think that Humza Yousaf and the brilliant minds with which he has surrounded himself are, collectively, capable of convincing the centre of Scottish public opinion that divorce from England is worth the ballache.
ODIs are probably my favourite, given that my visits to England cricket tend to be one day affairs. There is so much room for the match to swing back and forward, that intensity is still there and there is a very full day of cricket for your money, normally with a result at the end of it. Again, score rates of 300+ are clearly a direct result of the skills learned from the shorter version but you also see the rebuilding and pacing of the test arena as well.
Test cricket, provided it is competitive, is just magical. A fantastic accumulation of both athleticism and strategy. To see a bowler on the top of his game steaming in like a Broad, Anderson or Brett Lee is such a delight with the only limitations being his own stamina and the options open to his captain. The skill with which a Root manipulates a field to find easy, low risk runs. its like sport and chess combined.
All 3 formats benefit enormously from happy, enthusiastic, drunk but almost universally amiable crowds. That is my reservations about the County Championship. Where does the atmosphere come from in those games?
The language is couched in a way as to try and maintain some sort of semblance of pro-indy perspective for the remaining dwindling pro-Yes-and-still-SNP hardcore, but the message is pretty clear that they think "it's going to take a while" i.e. we've no idea how to do it.
Also fine leg and deep fine leg and backward short leg - just while we're at it.
Ok, ok, I'm walking.
Boris's genius, if that is the word, was to recognise this did not matter and the fact of Brexit, or Scottish independence, can be steamrollered through and the long term left to take care of itself.
Even Sturgeon (eventually, and belatedly) realised that at some point just continually asking Westminster for a S30 order and asking people to vote SNP on that basis wasn't going to cut the mustard forever and she had at least given some sort of thought as to what might have to come next.
The fact that her resignation handily took out the need for the so-called party "independence convention" which would set the strategy for the next WM GE and thus essentially reset the clock on the whole "election, then S30 request, then nothing" process is just a bonus for the continuity "we dunno what now" faction/wing of the SNP.
Presumably something more complicated happened. Perhaps another exemption was invoked initially, and after an internal review they are now claiming the information isn't held? On the basis of the report one can only guess.
It involves a prolonged period of highly competent SNP government where Scotland prospers (certainly as compared to England) and the Scottish people feel confident enough to take on the very difficult job of divorce. At that point YES will start polling 60%+ and Westminster will have to yield. Of course then there is the issue of: if Scotland is doing so well why go to the hassle of secession, but that’s a different question
The attempt to reach Indy merely by wanting it a lot and by stoking anti London grievance has finally exhausted itself. Someone like Forbes could conceivably steer the new course I outline above. She looks patient. She’s young
(b) hermaphrodite, which happens naturally but is very rare.
(1) Getting their own house in order, in terms of transparency and good governance
(2) Constructing a coherent social democratic platform, rooted in the core issues of economic inequality and lack of opportunity for the poor - rather than hitting not only their political opponents but also the great mass of Scottish public opinion over the head with extreme niche posturing on culture wars rubbish
(3) Working out a coherent plan to sell independence to Scotland's floating voters, which means one that resolves and clarifies the issues of bankrolling the state, Scotland's currency, trade and the border with England in a plausible fashion that stands up to scrutiny, and with which a majority of the people can live
The last point is achievable, but they need to accept firstly that it's going to entail making a lot of ordinary voters (particularly wealthier voters,) and not just a handful of Evil Tories, furious; and secondly, that selling independence is going to be a harder job than selling Brexit. The Leave campaign won because it had three things on its side: a substantial and enthusiastic core of secessionists; a Union which it wished to break that wasn't loved by most of the electorate; and a convincing and popular argument - the infamous claim about NHS funding - that it successfully weaponised to bring over the waverers. The SNP has the first two, but the fallout from Brexit has salted the earth for them on the third point: they're going to need a really convincing prospectus to get Scotland to vote for a divorce. The contemporary equivalent of a bumbling blond buffoon on a bus ain't going to cut it.
https://twitter.com/uklabour/status/1644714653807788032?s=46
1. Government isn't responsible for day-to-day operational decisions by the police. Therefore, what confidence can we have that extra officers won't be assigned to sitting in front of computers looking to catch people who say reprehensible things on Facebook, rather than doing the donkey work of investigating the wide variety of crimes (virtually everything apart from writing nasty things and murder) in which they appear to show precious little interest?
2. Who is going to pay for the extra police via additional taxation? Will it be (a) rich old farts or (b) the working poor?
There's no real reason to believe WM will yield at 60% any more than they would at 50%. It was this expected sense of "fair play" that ultimately did Sturgeon in in my view, because at best she couldn't come up with a credible answer to "now is not the time". All WM ever needed to do was repeat that and the SNP couldn't come up with a response.
The problem with the SNP "gradualist" approach is that it tried to make the assumption that everyone "Yes" will continue to be so for ever more and moreover will continue to be specifically "Yes" for the SNP and only the SNP, allowing them an uninterrupted electoral period of god knows how long whilst they go off and gradually try to win over the people who aren't Yes.
In reality you only bring your broad church together for a relatively limited period of time. It might still be multiple electoral cycles, as the SNP did so up until now, but people eventually get bored, drift away, splinter off, move on, think their view of what independence looks like is different from that of the party, get irritated at continually voting for a party that nominally stands for the thing they want but isn't making discernible progress towards it and (apparently) is actively focusing on other things it wants instead.
[Add to the mix the specific SNP failures here of actively shutting down internal dissent against itself, so refusing to consider alternative approaches, plus whatever apparently needs to be investigated by the police.]
What that all means is you have a relatively narrow window in reality to make it happen, so that when that window comes along, you've got to be pretty damn proactive about it. The SNP got that window once, leading to 2014. Arguably they got that window again basically just up until Sturgeon resigned, when they had all the advantages they were ever going to get, and they failed to use it. So essentially in my eyes they've blown it, hugely. Missed as near as dammit an open goal.
Anyway. I still believe in the principle of an independent Scotland. But I can no longer believe the SNP is the vehicle that will bring that situation about, certainly not in its current state.
And, by the way, this @WillG is completely correct that this is all a bit more complex than it looks.
Think chromosomes. XX - woman. XY - man. Right?
What about XXY? What about XO? What about those with XY gonadal dysgenesis, who have XY chromosomes, but no penis?
Even if we go straight to the science, it's a little more complex than it looks.
Yes, there are a very few people who have both characteristics but there always has been. That's no reason why the tail should wag the dog and that those very few exceptions get to determine how the whole of humanity is characterised.
The people who are in that position - unfortunately - are used as pawns by the lobby that says "if you are say you're a woman, you're a woman." The lobby is not interested in their well-being, they are seen as a useful tool to push the wider agenda.
“Then the deputy chief whip Anne Milton – who was a ‘route-one communicator’ – said, ‘Look I will do it’. And she just sat this person down and said ‘You stink. You are a grown up, you know where to buy deodorant. You know how to put it on off you go’.” How refreshing.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/07/solar-panels-have-come-to-torment-britains-most-famous-subu/ (£££)
For me it’s 60%+ YES in the polls plus a generation has to have elapsed. Then Westminster should yield
But maybe @solarflare is right and the moment has gone almost forever. 2014 was it (with a potential second bite around 2017 post Brexit). Now the stars will not align for a long long time
No?
Edge and corner cases matter. They may be rare, but our society has thankfully learnt to accept the rare cases as being valid and valued. I don't like this talk that 'very rare' (*) cases don't matter.
(*) Which is debatable, depending on the figures used.
If someone wants me to address then with the "she/her" pronoun and they have a penis, then I should acede with their wishes. Because it is common courtesy. Just as if they called themselves MoonBeam Sunshines, I should call them MoonBeam Sunshines. It costs me nothing to be polite. Likewise, if they wish to wear a dress, or makeup, that is entirely their right.
If they wish to enter female only safe spaces (i.e. changing rooms) or enter sporting events, that should not be allowed.
This isn't complicated.
Someone who has had gender reassignment surgery should be allowed to use the other changing rooms.
(Are you JK Rowling?)
… Steel drops down to sweep, gets hit in the Easter eggs, and ricochets the ball into the stumps. Parky’s 150th first-class wicket.
French and German tourists turn their back on Brexit Britain
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/apr/08/french-and-german-tourists-turn-their-back-on-brexit-britain
… School groups are particularly badly affected because if one or two children in a class of 30 do not have passports, teachers will elect to travel to Ireland or Malta for English language trips instead. Children with non-EU passports, such as refugees, will also need a £95 visa to enter the UK.
Research by the Tourism Alliance last year found there had been an 83% drop in schoolchildren and students visiting the UK, leading to a loss of £875m and 14,500 jobs.
About 28 million people in Germany have passports, according to a 2007 parliamentary answer, out of a population of 83 million. In France, about 32 million passports have been issued in the last 10 years, out of a population of 67 million...
The newspaper gave it almost two full pages, though in their Northwest section, rather than their Sports section. Perhaps I'll have to read the newspaper's description of the game some time, since what I have read, in "Murder Must Advertise" and "Tinker Tailor", left me puzzled.
(There have been amateur cricket clubs in this area for years.)
As for the first, I get the ugliness, but the racism of the trope was amplified by Rishi and Suella trying to tie child abuse to Muslims, so it's a bit karmic.
Like batting against a fast bowler, get it right and the momentum of the attack helps you score.
THIS THEAD IS ALL OUT.
As for the best argument for the SNP to make for Sindy it's another thing you're in thrall to. National sovereignty. Eg the UK had this in the EU but that it was pooled to an extent was something you found so intolerable it caused you to want out.
So, how much more powerful is the case to establish it where it doesn't even exist to be pooled in the first place? You can see this, I imagine, if you think honestly about it. You would undoubtedly be pro if you were Scottish. You'd be a right wing anti woke Nat like Malcolm.
Later, I observed that some women I worked with would try to "pass" as men in business letters by using initials for their first and middle names in their signatures. (And it sometimes worked.)
In both cases, the people "passing" were trying to improve their status.
When the "trans" phenomena began here in the United States, it's my impression that most of those who were rejecting their biological sex were boys. But then "trans" became a category of its own, and now, as far as I can tell, most are girls who want to become "trans", not boys.
In terms of my pessimism it's a case of looking at the trends and following the money. The IPL will soon expand to cover three months. The massive amount of money the IPL has is being used to invest in other T20 franchise leagues - in South Africa, in the US, in the Middle East somewhere. The direction of travel is not to have T20 co-exist alongside the other two forms of the game, but for T20 - and franchise T20 at that - to cannibalise all other forms of the game.
If the Hundred succeeds then it's possible the cricket calendar will end up with ten months of the IPL, or IPL-associated franchise competitions, one month of the Hundred and one month of the Big Bash in Australia.
The question then is whether first-class cricket can survive as a professional sport once T20 has spun off into its own world. It will certainly be much diminished compared to the present situation, but there's just a chance of professional first-class cricket surviving in England and Australia - but the County Championship will have to stop being so apologetic about itself and sell itself better if it is to pay its way.