Why on earth are you “pro Scottish independence”? Do you want to see the UK broken up? Why?
IIRC you are a staunch Remoaner. All the arguments against Brexit apply - tenfold - to Scottish separatism. For a start it would cause economic depression in Scotland, deep recession in the rUK, and grievous pain and chaos for millions of people, for a decade
How can you desire that?
I know several people who hold these twin positions - ardent Remainerism and pro Indy - and I’ve never understood how they can be so glibly reconciled
Some of us aren’t pro-independence so much as pro-self determination. I’ve spent decent chunks of my life in both Scotland and England and they have a very different culture. If the Scots really want to govern their own affairs then I would always support their right to choose to do so.
Sturgeon’s genius was in - for some time - holding the faultlines in Scottish nationalism together. The Tartan Tory wing and the Central Belties will always be uneasy bedfellows. That rapprochement is now over for the foreseeable and I think it’ll be another 15 years or more before someone emerges that can bring them together again. Hint, it won’t be Forbes.
I agree with much of this
I make one point: Scotland is entitled to a degree of self determination but the UK as a whole is entitled to look after its integrity as a nation and a union. The two must be carefully balanced
So Cameron was right to allow indyref1. But the British Parliament is now right to say: No, there won’t be another for a generation, you had your say and you chose to remain
That is too passive. The Union cannot rely just on the status quo, it must show that it is relevant and adds to the lives of all of the parts of the polity, including Scotland. The weakness of Unionism was that this was ignored for too long. A situation where Scottish Labour MPs give Labour a UK majority is something of a sweet spot in such scenarios and fundamentally undermines the moans of Nats who complain that we get Tory governments from the Union that few Scots (well, actually about 20%) have voted for.
I don’t disagree. I was merely pointing out that the UK also has rights of self determination as a whole nation. Which it is
And that is as it should be, because if Scotland ever did secede that would massively impact everyone else in Britain. Mainly for the worse in economic terms, at first, as it would guarantee chaos and investors would flee
Happily, last night’a result means Sindy is a very distant prospect. It won’t be revisited this decade at least (but yes, this is not an excuse for complacency)
We’ve had a few months of poor Tory polling but with Labour slipping a little vs Lib Dem and a small SNP recovery. But not tonight.
Public opinion is at least partly about backing the winner, and this result plus all the coverage of conference in the coming week, which will surely be more successful than the CPC just gone, has got to give them a boost. Up to high 40s for a while I reckon.
Yes, and the Betfair market in mid-Beds has moved again in expectation - Labour now as short as 1.82. I think the floating public mood has shifted from "the Tories are awful, time for a change" to "Labour seems OK, we may as well give them a try". It's a subtle shift, and not yet enthusiastic, but there's now a measure of genuine goodwill towards us, not merely for being non-Tories.
The polling and that by election result are absolutely awful for Sunak.
When will Tory backbenchers realise how useless he is as leader?
I suspect they know but view the other options as even more likely to result in electoral suicide.
The visible enthusiasm at Conference was for Truss, Braverman and Farage, and lukewarm at best elsewhere.
The Conservative Party has lost its mind.
It has been taken over by UKIP. In all but name. The Tory party as was is gone. Whether it will ever come back who knows. At the moment I doubt it. When even someone like @DavidL is losing faith, what hope is there.
The polling and that by election result are absolutely awful for Sunak.
When will Tory backbenchers realise how useless he is as leader?
I suspect they know but view the other options as even more likely to result in electoral suicide.
The visible enthusiasm at Conference was for Truss, Braverman and Farage, and lukewarm at best elsewhere.
The Conservative Party has lost its mind.
It has been taken over by UKIP. In all but name. The Tory party as was is gone. Whether it will ever come back who knows. At the moment I doubt it. When even someone like @DavidL is losing faith, what hope is there.
The parallels with Corbyn and Labour are too obvious. This is the fork in the road time.It seems the new fashion in political parties. It took Cameron and Hilton a long time and a lot of effort to get back to the centre and there's no doubt the Tories are in a worse state now than they were in then . If they go the Braverman route its possible they'll never recover in their present form and will actually split..
I think the split between the "closet racists and fruitcakes" and actual conservatives happened when Johnson removed most Conservatives from the Tory Party, The Populist Party on full display at Manchester, while it is still trading on being conservative, it clearly is not, and indeed is contemptuous of most conservative values.
A lot of conservatives are now politically homeless, but, as we see in the home counties, they are toying with the the idea of voting for the Liberal Democrats. There is merit in this, since new parties do not have a good track record, and people like Rory Stewart are supporting things like PR that will make them very welcome in the Lib Dems.
So, I think we will see growing support for Davey´s party, and continuing deflation of Tory support, as conservatives defect from one to the other.
Rory Stewart is perhaps an example of the sort of person who is a misfit in the current, rather nasty, Conservative party. He was perfectly happy, and perhaps almost a typical member of the Conservative party as it used to be.
Looks like a 20.35% swing from SNP to Lab. The SNP would lose all the seats they're defending against Labour on that swing.
Curtice just said Lab 42 seats SNP 6 on those numbers.
Basically a 2010 result in Scotland then? That'd do Labour. Gaining 41 seats from 2019 (goodness, did they only win 1 in 2019!) before we even get to England and Wales would mean a majority might just be on the cards for them.
But I doubt they'll get 41 in Scotland.... but 30 would do them well.
Person rents an Airbnb, doesn't move out and the landlord can't do a thing about it because the property doesn't have full permission...
During Covid we had a situation in Scotland where actions to eject non paying tenants were not allowed to proceed for the best part of 2 years. The consequences for the Scottish housing market, and in particular any investment in it were of course entirely predictable. But then, Scotland is pretty weird too.
Why on earth are you “pro Scottish independence”? Do you want to see the UK broken up? Why?
IIRC you are a staunch Remoaner. All the arguments against Brexit apply - tenfold - to Scottish separatism. For a start it would cause economic depression in Scotland, deep recession in the rUK, and grievous pain and chaos for millions of people, for a decade
How can you desire that?
I know several people who hold these twin positions - ardent Remainerism and pro Indy - and I’ve never understood how they can be so glibly reconciled
Some of us aren’t pro-independence so much as pro-self determination. I’ve spent decent chunks of my life in both Scotland and England and they have a very different culture. If the Scots really want to govern their own affairs then I would always support their right to choose to do so.
Sturgeon’s genius was in - for some time - holding the faultlines in Scottish nationalism together. The Tartan Tory wing and the Central Belties will always be uneasy bedfellows. That rapprochement is now over for the foreseeable and I think it’ll be another 15 years or more before someone emerges that can bring them together again. Hint, it won’t be Forbes.
I agree with much of this
I make one point: Scotland is entitled to a degree of self determination but the UK as a whole is entitled to look after its integrity as a nation and a union. The two must be carefully balanced
So Cameron was right to allow indyref1. But the British Parliament is now right to say: No, there won’t be another for a generation, you had your say and you chose to remain
The generation argument was utterly lame post-Brexit, Brexit marked the end of the generation we were in the EU and marked the start of a new era.
But if you want to go on a pure timescale era its increasingly lame too. By the end of the next Westminster Parliament it will have been 15 years since the last referendum which is coming up close towards a generation however you slice it.
Indeed its worth noting that at the the time of the IndyRef it was Millennials like myself that were the youngest generation of adults, now Millennials like myself are entering or in middle age and most of Gen Z are already adults.
Lots of reasons for the SNP to lose: financial chicanery, the Calmac ferries, really poor legislation - much of which has had to be withdrawn or challenged, waste of money, dancing to the tune of monomaniac lobbyists, failure to make good on promises, in-fighting, arrogance.
This is what is happening to the Tories. And will result in similar electoral misfortune.
Labour publicly learnt a lesson from the SNP's problems with the GRR Bill and made a change to their stated policy. That I think is one of Starmer's strengths. He doesn't simply say he will learn lessons. He actually shows this. It has been criticised as dreary triangulation by some or breaking promises by others. And there is a risk that he looks untrustworthy. But his willingness to change tack, say so publicly and say why is potentially heartening.
And @Heathener, women's rights are not inconsequential or irrelevant. You sound very gammon-like saying stuff like that. Much like the SNP's counsel this week saying that women's rights to associate freely with other women was "trivial". That was the word used. Trivial. With luck the end of the SNP will stop such condescending and offensive rubbish being uttered by them and their fellow travellers.
Yes, I think Starmers policy on Trans rights is a well balanced one on a very contentious issue that respects sex-based rights but avoids the repellent Trans-phobia on display last week. It is where I am on the issue, and it is also a position that most of the country can live with too.
Once again the focus is always on trans rights when it is not their rights which are the issue (they have exactly the same rights as everyone else). But the effect of giving them a privilege which no other group has on the rights of others.
Labour's position on women's right and the Equality Act is better than it was certainly. It needs clarifying in certain respects. There is a worrying silence about single sex services and associations which must be protected, for instance. https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/questions-questions/
It is largely a result of pressure from a lot of Labour women - young women - especially Labour Women's Declaration even though, shamefully, they have not been allowed a stand at the Labour conference. As for what the Tories announced this week, Barclay said that he would ensure single sex wards, a promise made in 2010 but since broken repeatedly. It is entirely supported by Labour. As for the PM's statement in his speech, this was announced by Kay Burley to be in breach of the EA. Which shows only that she - like many others - hasn't the first clue what the Act actually says.
Anyway in a week's time I shall be in Glasgow at a feminist conference. Lots of interesting international speakers. I shall report back!
I agree that there need to be sex related rights too, but really hate the Transphopia coming from the right.
I know two Trans people fairly well, one being Fox-jrs flat mate who I have known for a decade, the other a cousin who is non binary, but inclining to be a Trans-man.. Both have some mental health issues, and this is tangled up with their gender issues in complex ways, but ultimately they are good, kind people who need support from friends and family.
I know two - one male, one female (lesbian). Both with dysphoria. Both lovely people with very supportive family and friends. Both pretty disgusted with and opposed to the behaviour of trans activists. Both loathe the Tories for what they have allowed on their watch. Both despise Stonewall and my lesbian friend, married with 2 lovely boys, in particular is incensed with their approach to lesbians. She sees it as nothing less than homophobia. Quite a few of my lesbian friends have the same view. They think it utterly lazy thinking to view this as a problem of the right. Misogyny and homophobia - bigotry generally - are cross party. No one has a claim to virtue on this and thinking this is solely a problem of the right is the laziest of thinking.
That might well be the case, but it finds its most comfortable home on the right.
I’m really not sure that’s true
On the right I think you find more confusion and bewilderment. They don’t understand what the fight is even about
Eg it’s noticeable that the bitterest online trans arguments tend to be between LEFT wing feminist women - J K Rowling, Joanna Cherry - and the trans militants
I agree. Trans activists are desperate to find right wing opponents but have largely been met by a shrug and a distinct lack of interest. It is women's rights supporters that have taken up the cudgels which is why this is such an uncomfortable fight for the activists. The "rights" they are claiming trample on hard won rights for women and women are not happy about it, and rightly so.
Or those opponents who are sincerely motivated by women's rights are really acting as the dupes of bigots who are too canny openly to oppose trans rights as a matter of principle.
So J K Rowling is actually some willing dupe of a secret cabal of super clever anti-Trans Nazis?
Why on earth are you “pro Scottish independence”? Do you want to see the UK broken up? Why?
IIRC you are a staunch Remoaner. All the arguments against Brexit apply - tenfold - to Scottish separatism. For a start it would cause economic depression in Scotland, deep recession in the rUK, and grievous pain and chaos for millions of people, for a decade
How can you desire that?
I know several people who hold these twin positions - ardent Remainerism and pro Indy - and I’ve never understood how they can be so glibly reconciled
Countries/unions/empires end, new countries/unions/empires form. It was ever thus. The U.K. isn’t going to last forever. No political entity is. The map of Europe changes all the time.
The UK changed only 100 years ago, we can have another 100?
The U.K. has to deserve it. Does the U.K. deserve to survive in its current form, or at all? Views differ.
Anyway, it’s not up to me. I don’t see the quality of life of people in the Netherlands being particularly impacted by the formation of Belgium, or the Czechs by Slovakia, or indeed this country by the emergence of the Irish state. If they want to go let them. For us English to say “you need to stay for your own good” is paternalism at best, imperialism at worst.
I believe polling in both Czechia and Slovakia shows a majority regret the split.
Czechoslovakia was a rather artificial creation, combining the richest provinces of Austria and one of the poorest of Hungary, but did seem to work for a while.
But culturally and linguistically very similar. I suspect the regret about the split is the same sort of regret that drives nostalgia for the Iron Curtain, especially among the older, poorer and more rural elements of their society. These elements believe they were provided for better by communism. I don’t think the same enthusiasm is present in the young.
Person rents an Airbnb, doesn't move out and the landlord can't do a thing about it because the property doesn't have full permission...
During Covid we had a situation in Scotland where actions to eject non paying tenants were not allowed to proceed for the best part of 2 years. The consequences for the Scottish housing market, and in particular any investment in it were of course entirely predictable. But then, Scotland is pretty weird too.
The housing market is f***ed because of the quantity of houses and NIMBYism, all other reasons are utterly secondary.
Even if the Tory leadership's calamitous conga line continues and we somehow get Suella in charge, before Liz's Lazarus like return, then a barmy Boris comeback -and after his arrest a genius JRM Geronimo into the GE.. I'd still be pleased that I voted to keep Corbyn out in 2019
We’ve had a few months of poor Tory polling but with Labour slipping a little vs Lib Dem and a small SNP recovery. But not tonight.
Public opinion is at least partly about backing the winner, and this result plus all the coverage of conference in the coming week, which will surely be more successful than the CPC just gone, has got to give them a boost. Up to high 40s for a while I reckon.
Yes, and the Betfair market in mid-Beds has moved again in expectation - Labour now as short as 1.82. I think the floating public mood has shifted from "the Tories are awful, time for a change" to "Labour seems OK, we may as well give them a try". It's a subtle shift, and not yet enthusiastic, but there's now a measure of genuine goodwill towards us, not merely for being non-Tories.
Last night was a by-election, yet Labour's vote share was less in that seat than in 2010, a GE that Labour lost. So let's not get even that carried away; the story is more about the loss of credibility and electoral collapse of the SNP, and therefore doesn't really read across into E&W at all.
Even if the Tory leadership's calamitous conga line continues and we somehow get Suella in charge, before Liz's Lazarus like return, then a barmy Boris comeback -and after his arrest a genius JRM Geronimo into the GE.. I'd still be pleased that I voted to keep Corbyn out in 2019
Lots of reasons for the SNP to lose: financial chicanery, the Calmac ferries, really poor legislation - much of which has had to be withdrawn or challenged, waste of money, dancing to the tune of monomaniac lobbyists, failure to make good on promises, in-fighting, arrogance.
This is what is happening to the Tories. And will result in similar electoral misfortune.
Labour publicly learnt a lesson from the SNP's problems with the GRR Bill and made a change to their stated policy. That I think is one of Starmer's strengths. He doesn't simply say he will learn lessons. He actually shows this. It has been criticised as dreary triangulation by some or breaking promises by others. And there is a risk that he looks untrustworthy. But his willingness to change tack, say so publicly and say why is potentially heartening.
And @Heathener, women's rights are not inconsequential or irrelevant. You sound very gammon-like saying stuff like that. Much like the SNP's counsel this week saying that women's rights to associate freely with other women was "trivial". That was the word used. Trivial. With luck the end of the SNP will stop such condescending and offensive rubbish being uttered by them and their fellow travellers.
Yes, I think Starmers policy on Trans rights is a well balanced one on a very contentious issue that respects sex-based rights but avoids the repellent Trans-phobia on display last week. It is where I am on the issue, and it is also a position that most of the country can live with too.
Once again the focus is always on trans rights when it is not their rights which are the issue (they have exactly the same rights as everyone else). But the effect of giving them a privilege which no other group has on the rights of others.
Labour's position on women's right and the Equality Act is better than it was certainly. It needs clarifying in certain respects. There is a worrying silence about single sex services and associations which must be protected, for instance. https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/questions-questions/
It is largely a result of pressure from a lot of Labour women - young women - especially Labour Women's Declaration even though, shamefully, they have not been allowed a stand at the Labour conference. As for what the Tories announced this week, Barclay said that he would ensure single sex wards, a promise made in 2010 but since broken repeatedly. It is entirely supported by Labour. As for the PM's statement in his speech, this was announced by Kay Burley to be in breach of the EA. Which shows only that she - like many others - hasn't the first clue what the Act actually says.
Anyway in a week's time I shall be in Glasgow at a feminist conference. Lots of interesting international speakers. I shall report back!
I agree that there need to be sex related rights too, but really hate the Transphopia coming from the right.
I know two Trans people fairly well, one being Fox-jrs flat mate who I have known for a decade, the other a cousin who is non binary, but inclining to be a Trans-man.. Both have some mental health issues, and this is tangled up with their gender issues in complex ways, but ultimately they are good, kind people who need support from friends and family.
I know two - one male, one female (lesbian). Both with dysphoria. Both lovely people with very supportive family and friends. Both pretty disgusted with and opposed to the behaviour of trans activists. Both loathe the Tories for what they have allowed on their watch. Both despise Stonewall and my lesbian friend, married with 2 lovely boys, in particular is incensed with their approach to lesbians. She sees it as nothing less than homophobia. Quite a few of my lesbian friends have the same view. They think it utterly lazy thinking to view this as a problem of the right. Misogyny and homophobia - bigotry generally - are cross party. No one has a claim to virtue on this and thinking this is solely a problem of the right is the laziest of thinking.
That might well be the case, but it finds its most comfortable home on the right.
I’m really not sure that’s true
On the right I think you find more confusion and bewilderment. They don’t understand what the fight is even about
Eg it’s noticeable that the bitterest online trans arguments tend to be between LEFT wing feminist women - J K Rowling, Joanna Cherry - and the trans militants
I agree. Trans activists are desperate to find right wing opponents but have largely been met by a shrug and a distinct lack of interest. It is women's rights supporters that have taken up the cudgels which is why this is such an uncomfortable fight for the activists. The "rights" they are claiming trample on hard won rights for women and women are not happy about it, and rightly so.
Or those opponents who are sincerely motivated by women's rights are really acting as the dupes of bigots who are too canny openly to oppose trans rights as a matter of principle.
I don't follow this one bit. If they are sincerely expressing their views how are they being duped even if we axcept the view a bigot is urging them on from a completely different motivation?
One can disagree with them entirely but if as you put it they are sincere they are not acting as anyone's dupes. That comes across like a false consciousness argument.
What is the alternative, they not say what they sincerely believe because a bigot will use it as cover?
Lots of reasons for the SNP to lose: financial chicanery, the Calmac ferries, really poor legislation - much of which has had to be withdrawn or challenged, waste of money, dancing to the tune of monomaniac lobbyists, failure to make good on promises, in-fighting, arrogance.
This is what is happening to the Tories. And will result in similar electoral misfortune.
Labour publicly learnt a lesson from the SNP's problems with the GRR Bill and made a change to their stated policy. That I think is one of Starmer's strengths. He doesn't simply say he will learn lessons. He actually shows this. It has been criticised as dreary triangulation by some or breaking promises by others. And there is a risk that he looks untrustworthy. But his willingness to change tack, say so publicly and say why is potentially heartening.
And @Heathener, women's rights are not inconsequential or irrelevant. You sound very gammon-like saying stuff like that. Much like the SNP's counsel this week saying that women's rights to associate freely with other women was "trivial". That was the word used. Trivial. With luck the end of the SNP will stop such condescending and offensive rubbish being uttered by them and their fellow travellers.
Yes, I think Starmers policy on Trans rights is a well balanced one on a very contentious issue that respects sex-based rights but avoids the repellent Trans-phobia on display last week. It is where I am on the issue, and it is also a position that most of the country can live with too.
Once again the focus is always on trans rights when it is not their rights which are the issue (they have exactly the same rights as everyone else). But the effect of giving them a privilege which no other group has on the rights of others.
Labour's position on women's right and the Equality Act is better than it was certainly. It needs clarifying in certain respects. There is a worrying silence about single sex services and associations which must be protected, for instance. https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/questions-questions/
It is largely a result of pressure from a lot of Labour women - young women - especially Labour Women's Declaration even though, shamefully, they have not been allowed a stand at the Labour conference. As for what the Tories announced this week, Barclay said that he would ensure single sex wards, a promise made in 2010 but since broken repeatedly. It is entirely supported by Labour. As for the PM's statement in his speech, this was announced by Kay Burley to be in breach of the EA. Which shows only that she - like many others - hasn't the first clue what the Act actually says.
Anyway in a week's time I shall be in Glasgow at a feminist conference. Lots of interesting international speakers. I shall report back!
I agree that there need to be sex related rights too, but really hate the Transphopia coming from the right.
I know two Trans people fairly well, one being Fox-jrs flat mate who I have known for a decade, the other a cousin who is non binary, but inclining to be a Trans-man.. Both have some mental health issues, and this is tangled up with their gender issues in complex ways, but ultimately they are good, kind people who need support from friends and family.
I know two - one male, one female (lesbian). Both with dysphoria. Both lovely people with very supportive family and friends. Both pretty disgusted with and opposed to the behaviour of trans activists. Both loathe the Tories for what they have allowed on their watch. Both despise Stonewall and my lesbian friend, married with 2 lovely boys, in particular is incensed with their approach to lesbians. She sees it as nothing less than homophobia. Quite a few of my lesbian friends have the same view. They think it utterly lazy thinking to view this as a problem of the right. Misogyny and homophobia - bigotry generally - are cross party. No one has a claim to virtue on this and thinking this is solely a problem of the right is the laziest of thinking.
That might well be the case, but it finds its most comfortable home on the right.
I’m really not sure that’s true
On the right I think you find more confusion and bewilderment. They don’t understand what the fight is even about
Eg it’s noticeable that the bitterest online trans arguments tend to be between LEFT wing feminist women - J K Rowling, Joanna Cherry - and the trans militants
I agree. Trans activists are desperate to find right wing opponents but have largely been met by a shrug and a distinct lack of interest. It is women's rights supporters that have taken up the cudgels which is why this is such an uncomfortable fight for the activists. The "rights" they are claiming trample on hard won rights for women and women are not happy about it, and rightly so.
Or those opponents who are sincerely motivated by women's rights are really acting as the dupes of bigots who are too canny openly to oppose trans rights as a matter of principle.
So J K Rowling is actually some willing dupe of a secret cabal of super clever anti-Trans Nazis?
Do you realise how that sounds?
Nutty as a fruitcake.
This thread makes me check that the comments haven't been jumbled by some blockquote foul-up.
Why on earth are you “pro Scottish independence”? Do you want to see the UK broken up? Why?
IIRC you are a staunch Remoaner. All the arguments against Brexit apply - tenfold - to Scottish separatism. For a start it would cause economic depression in Scotland, deep recession in the rUK, and grievous pain and chaos for millions of people, for a decade
How can you desire that?
I know several people who hold these twin positions - ardent Remainerism and pro Indy - and I’ve never understood how they can be so glibly reconciled
Some of us aren’t pro-independence so much as pro-self determination. I’ve spent decent chunks of my life in both Scotland and England and they have a very different culture. If the Scots really want to govern their own affairs then I would always support their right to choose to do so.
Sturgeon’s genius was in - for some time - holding the faultlines in Scottish nationalism together. The Tartan Tory wing and the Central Belties will always be uneasy bedfellows. That rapprochement is now over for the foreseeable and I think it’ll be another 15 years or more before someone emerges that can bring them together again. Hint, it won’t be Forbes.
I agree with much of this
I make one point: Scotland is entitled to a degree of self determination but the UK as a whole is entitled to look after its integrity as a nation and a union. The two must be carefully balanced
So Cameron was right to allow indyref1. But the British Parliament is now right to say: No, there won’t be another for a generation, you had your say and you chose to remain
The generation argument was utterly lame post-Brexit, Brexit marked the end of the generation we were in the EU and marked the start of a new era.
But if you want to go on a pure timescale era its increasingly lame too. By the end of the next Westminster Parliament it will have been 15 years since the last referendum which is coming up close towards a generation however you slice it.
Indeed its worth noting that at the the time of the IndyRef it was Millennials like myself that were the youngest generation of adults, now Millennials like myself are entering or in middle age and most of Gen Z are already adults.
I’m curious where you draw the line on the self determination thing. If Scotland must have the right to secede whenever it likes, how about wales? Or indeed the Shetland isles? They are culturally distinct and have been non Scottish in their time (and non British)
How about the Orkneys? Or Cornwall? Again distinct and independent in their time
Yorkshire? Cumbria? Kent? Hereford? You? Where does it end?
At some point a nation - Britain in this case - must be willing and able to defend its integrity and say STFU
If Sunak loses both English byelections, how long can he last?
I can see he may favour the Downfall approach of a relatively early election in the Spring to the risk of a summer political assassination.
I think he has done his last Conference speech as leader.
I agree on the latter, but still with an autumn election. You can just feel it, the Tories have given up and are positioning for opposition already, so assassination is pointless.
Conference cancelled as a GE is called in the summer for late October.
Why on earth are you “pro Scottish independence”? Do you want to see the UK broken up? Why?
IIRC you are a staunch Remoaner. All the arguments against Brexit apply - tenfold - to Scottish separatism. For a start it would cause economic depression in Scotland, deep recession in the rUK, and grievous pain and chaos for millions of people, for a decade
How can you desire that?
I know several people who hold these twin positions - ardent Remainerism and pro Indy - and I’ve never understood how they can be so glibly reconciled
I do, for t he same reason I voted for Brexit.
Yes the same arguments for Brexit apply. Which is why I voted for Brexit, and why I support Sindy.
I voted for Brexit on the grounds of democracy and sovereignty. Inside the EU Britain was governed by an unelected elite of Eurocrats in a foreign country
None of this applies to Scotland. Scotland is governed by the MPs we all elect to Westminster (in our national capital), who sit in an entirely democratic chamber with the power to propose, enact and repeal laws
If the Scots decide they loathe the government they, like all Britons, can kick them out at the next election. None of us was able to eject Ursula von der Leyen
And the 99.7% of us who aren't Tory members had no say in the imposition of the Trusster or Rishi.
I have no issue with parliament deciding who has the confidence of the House, that is their role, and we will get our say soon.
It's who they decide on and what that person does which matters.
There is no perfect way of doing these things. It was a point in comparison to the appointment of der Leyen.
I know, but it's not a very good one nonetheless. I agree that point gets overblown and overegged, but that stock retort just doesn't work for me since it requires the idea we should not be able to switch PMs without a GE, yet we've done that many many times. So it just falls flat.
If we had a proper constitution, not something that each successive government can change as it pleases (see FTPA), we could have written in it that if a PM changes mid-term there has to be a GE within 6 months. That would fix that issue.
I’m probably on balance more pleased that the SNP lost as Labour won, but it is a great result for them. It remains very hard to see Labour losing the next GE - everything is coming into alignment. There is even the - whisper it - potential for a full landslide blowout, I think.
I hope the conference next week gives me some cheer that they have what it takes to really sort the country out. I’m still a bit skeptical of that - but anything is better than the Tories right now and I’m sure many people must feel the same as me.
BTW the cancellation of HS2 also screws up (even more) the 4 train building firms in the UK
Philip Haigh @philatrail HS2 has 54 trains on order from Hitachi/Alstom in a £2bn deal. DfT is apparently now suggesting that deal is renegotiated for a smaller number of trains with an alternative option of trying to find work elsewhere for those not needed for HS2 services.
1. HS2's entire business model was designed around 400m train lengths. That surely is now in the bin as they won't fit at most stations (likely including the Poundland Euston) so already that's a 50% cut in vehicles 2. HS2 trains Will Not Tilt. Hitachi don't build tilting trains and its either Hitachi or their factory closes*. 3. What use is a bespoke fleet of HS-compatible non-tilting trains which slow the WCML down?
* I've posted previously that those tossers at the DfT should agree standard AT200 / AT300 specs with the Rail Delivery Group (i.e. fitted with seats with cushions, and with luggage racks) and then build a lot of them. We solve the overcrowding problems on the network by running longer trains.
If only that was the case - with the old 125s now removed from Cross Country routes the train I'm catching tomorrow to Bristol has 4 carriages when until last month it had 8.
I have a received seat and I'm getting on at an early stop - but I've still be told by others that it's likely I'll have to turf someone from my seat - the lack of capacity is very obvious...
Person rents an Airbnb, doesn't move out and the landlord can't do a thing about it because the property doesn't have full permission...
During Covid we had a situation in Scotland where actions to eject non paying tenants were not allowed to proceed for the best part of 2 years. The consequences for the Scottish housing market, and in particular any investment in it were of course entirely predictable. But then, Scotland is pretty weird too.
The housing market is f***ed because of the quantity of houses and NIMBYism, all other reasons are utterly secondary.
Maybe in England but not so much in Scotland. What is clear is that it is very difficult to make a business case here for investment in new housing for rent. The burdens that are put on landlords, the absurd hurdles that are put on recovering properties from non paying and anti-social tenants and the restrictions on rents make it very difficult for even Housing Associations to justify borrowing, let alone someone dreaming of a profit. The predictable consequence is a lack of supply.
BTW the cancellation of HS2 also screws up (even more) the 4 train building firms in the UK
Philip Haigh @philatrail HS2 has 54 trains on order from Hitachi/Alstom in a £2bn deal. DfT is apparently now suggesting that deal is renegotiated for a smaller number of trains with an alternative option of trying to find work elsewhere for those not needed for HS2 services.
1. HS2's entire business model was designed around 400m train lengths. That surely is now in the bin as they won't fit at most stations (likely including the Poundland Euston) so already that's a 50% cut in vehicles 2. HS2 trains Will Not Tilt. Hitachi don't build tilting trains and its either Hitachi or their factory closes*. 3. What use is a bespoke fleet of HS-compatible non-tilting trains which slow the WCML down?
* I've posted previously that those tossers at the DfT should agree standard AT200 / AT300 specs with the Rail Delivery Group (i.e. fitted with seats with cushions, and with luggage racks) and then build a lot of them. We solve the overcrowding problems on the network by running longer trains.
This has got the potential to end really badly.
Does anyone think that Team Rishi have worked through all the interlocking parts here and made sure that HS Two-thirds physically works as a scheme to move trains around the country?
Of course they haven't, because that's fiddly and boring.
Good thing we're not selling off the spare bits before we're sure we don't need them, eh?
It’s amazing to think that today it’s exactly two years and four months since the Hartlepool by-election took place. It’s a four hour drive and a million miles from there to Rutherglen.
Why on earth are you “pro Scottish independence”? Do you want to see the UK broken up? Why?
IIRC you are a staunch Remoaner. All the arguments against Brexit apply - tenfold - to Scottish separatism. For a start it would cause economic depression in Scotland, deep recession in the rUK, and grievous pain and chaos for millions of people, for a decade
How can you desire that?
I know several people who hold these twin positions - ardent Remainerism and pro Indy - and I’ve never understood how they can be so glibly reconciled
I do, for t he same reason I voted for Brexit.
Yes the same arguments for Brexit apply. Which is why I voted for Brexit, and why I support Sindy.
I voted for Brexit on the grounds of democracy and sovereignty. Inside the EU Britain was governed by an unelected elite of Eurocrats in a foreign country
None of this applies to Scotland. Scotland is governed by the MPs we all elect to Westminster (in our national capital), who sit in an entirely democratic chamber with the power to propose, enact and repeal laws
If the Scots decide they loathe the government they, like all Britons, can kick them out at the next election. None of us was able to eject Ursula von der Leyen
If the Scots consider themselves Scots not Brits and that England is another country, then on the exact same grounds of democracy and sovereignty as Brexit they should be an independent sovereign country.
Similarly if an English/British individual wanted to be in a country called Europe then there's no democracy or sovereignty reasons they shouldn't have voted Remain, but the EU really needs reforming to better become a single country with a more powerful demos, Parliament and elected Government.
Personally I consider myself English. I think we'd be better off as an independent England, but if the Scots or Welsh or NI want to tag along with us it doesn't matter too much that I'd make it a priority issue, but if I were Scottish it absolutely would be a priority issue.
Your post encapsulates a major problem: why do you feel the need to define your nationality at all?
Of course, we all do it because we are forced to at times (e.g. on official and not so official forms) but generally I feel nationality is an unhelpful concept developed over centuries to control and coerce people. There is nothing physical that defines one's 'nation'.
I think we've all been brain-washed to believe nationality is an essential part of our being when it isn't.
(Citizenship however is different: a set of rights and responsibilities that people acquire through chance or design, upon which society depends.)
I couldn't disagree with you more.
Citizenship of a nation and nationality are intertwined, you can't have one without the other.
John Lennon's "imagine there's no country" is not something to aspire to its utterly dystopian.
We need a nation because there's much that the nation state provides and nothing can better provide for it - democracy, the rule of law, courts, welfare, taxes, police, security, national education, national health.
Without a nation, there's no National Health Service.
What there should not be is a nation that you're born to and can never change. That's ethnicity not nationality. People should be perfectly able to emigrate if they want to, and if another nation wants to accept them they should be able to immigrate into that nation and ultimately acquire citizenship of that nation too.
BTW the cancellation of HS2 also screws up (even more) the 4 train building firms in the UK
Philip Haigh @philatrail HS2 has 54 trains on order from Hitachi/Alstom in a £2bn deal. DfT is apparently now suggesting that deal is renegotiated for a smaller number of trains with an alternative option of trying to find work elsewhere for those not needed for HS2 services.
1. HS2's entire business model was designed around 400m train lengths. That surely is now in the bin as they won't fit at most stations (likely including the Poundland Euston) so already that's a 50% cut in vehicles 2. HS2 trains Will Not Tilt. Hitachi don't build tilting trains and its either Hitachi or their factory closes*. 3. What use is a bespoke fleet of HS-compatible non-tilting trains which slow the WCML down?
* I've posted previously that those tossers at the DfT should agree standard AT200 / AT300 specs with the Rail Delivery Group (i.e. fitted with seats with cushions, and with luggage racks) and then build a lot of them. We solve the overcrowding problems on the network by running longer trains.
This has got the potential to end really badly.
Does anyone think that Team Rishi have worked through all the interlocking parts here and made sure that HS Two-thirds physically works as a scheme to move trains around the country?
Of course they haven't, because that's fiddly and boring.
Good thing we're not selling off the spare bits before we're sure we don't need them, eh?
As pointed out by others, the truly terrible logo for “network north” (clearly designed in 5 minutes by a spad unaware of AI image generators) does not inspire confidence that the HS2 cancellation was “carefully worked through”
For that alone the Tories need to be gone. They aren’t even basically competent any more. Enough. Let Sir Kir Royale have his majority and let’s see what he can do
I’m not hopeful but the Tories are hopeLESS, as things stand
A chill gets me out of bed though hardly full of the joys of autumn.
A strong result for Labour before their Conference and a good step on the road for the party on its journey back to power. The prospect of re-establishing its presence in Scottish politics (no one is talking about a Conservative wipeout as in 1997 it seems).is a step toward building that voting coalition and majority.
As with other by-elections (bar Uxbridge), the Conservative vote disintegrated (the LDs did little better) to Labour or stayed at home,
Labour now has its Conference and for the first time in many years it's in the position of being taken seriously - we know there will be a strong business presence for example. Doubtless the Mail, Express and others will try to whip the slightest hint of dissent or disagreement with Starmer into some frenetic sceptre of chaos and division but those commentators who lavished praise on Braverman and Sunak's efforts this week can hardly be expected (or trusted) to give a reasonable and objective analysis of Starmer or Reeves.
Starmer may be Blair without the charisma but he's realised, like Blair, Labour never wins when it is too radical (it did in 1945 under unique circumstances). The route to power lies in reassuring the disillusioned or angry ex-Conservative voters and that re-assurance has to go on right up to Polling Day. Things won't change too much but they will be done "better". This week, Sunak has written his version of the infamous Liam Byrne note from 2010 and that will temper expectations and give Starmer a nice big target to aim at both next week and for years to come.
Next week will be all about re-assurance - if there is a hint of second term radicalism, it will stay hidden for now. It's all about getting the election won and then getting on with Government. Part of that re-assurance will be to not sound hubristic - Starmer knows the Conservatives aren't finished and they will fight and claw and cling on to the very end - it won't be edifying and the country will suffer but that's how politics works.
Some of us feel that the circumstances of now are closer to 1945 than any other election in the intervening period. There is room for Starmer to be more radical. The tragedy is really his apparent disinclination to take the opportunity.
I suspect because he fears (perhaps with a lot of justification) that his support is very wide but also very shallow.
Why on earth are you “pro Scottish independence”? Do you want to see the UK broken up? Why?
IIRC you are a staunch Remoaner. All the arguments against Brexit apply - tenfold - to Scottish separatism. For a start it would cause economic depression in Scotland, deep recession in the rUK, and grievous pain and chaos for millions of people, for a decade
How can you desire that?
I know several people who hold these twin positions - ardent Remainerism and pro Indy - and I’ve never understood how they can be so glibly reconciled
Some of us aren’t pro-independence so much as pro-self determination. I’ve spent decent chunks of my life in both Scotland and England and they have a very different culture. If the Scots really want to govern their own affairs then I would always support their right to choose to do so.
Sturgeon’s genius was in - for some time - holding the faultlines in Scottish nationalism together. The Tartan Tory wing and the Central Belties will always be uneasy bedfellows. That rapprochement is now over for the foreseeable and I think it’ll be another 15 years or more before someone emerges that can bring them together again. Hint, it won’t be Forbes.
I agree with much of this
I make one point: Scotland is entitled to a degree of self determination but the UK as a whole is entitled to look after its integrity as a nation and a union. The two must be carefully balanced
So Cameron was right to allow indyref1. But the British Parliament is now right to say: No, there won’t be another for a generation, you had your say and you chose to remain
The generation argument was utterly lame post-Brexit, Brexit marked the end of the generation we were in the EU and marked the start of a new era.
But if you want to go on a pure timescale era its increasingly lame too. By the end of the next Westminster Parliament it will have been 15 years since the last referendum which is coming up close towards a generation however you slice it.
Indeed its worth noting that at the the time of the IndyRef it was Millennials like myself that were the youngest generation of adults, now Millennials like myself are entering or in middle age and most of Gen Z are already adults.
I’m curious where you draw the line on the self determination thing. If Scotland must have the right to secede whenever it likes, how about wales? Or indeed the Shetland isles? They are culturally distinct and have been non Scottish in their time (and non British)
How about the Orkneys? Or Cornwall? Again distinct and independent in their time
Yorkshire? Cumbria? Kent? Hereford? You? Where does it end?
At some point a nation - Britain in this case - must be willing and able to defend its integrity and say STFU
Britain isn't a nation - it is several. That is the problem. Either we accept and respect that there are 4 nations (and other mini nations like the Kernow) or we scrap all of it and reform ourselves as a single entity.
Scotland is distinct from England is distinct from Wales etc etc. If they are distinct enough to have their own laws, education systems, football leagues, international sporting representation etc then they are distinct enough to become a clearly defined national group in a way that none of your other examples are.
It’s amazing to think that today it’s exactly two years and four months since the Hartlepool by-election took place. It’s a four hour drive and a million miles from there to Rutherglen.
I honestly believe that if Boris had been in some way capable of staying out of personal scandal and sticking to lockdown rules, we would be looking at a 1992 election result for the Tories next year.
We actually need to be pretty glad he was found out, because the country really can’t afford about 5-6 years of the Tories right now.
Why on earth are you “pro Scottish independence”? Do you want to see the UK broken up? Why?
IIRC you are a staunch Remoaner. All the arguments against Brexit apply - tenfold - to Scottish separatism. For a start it would cause economic depression in Scotland, deep recession in the rUK, and grievous pain and chaos for millions of people, for a decade
How can you desire that?
I know several people who hold these twin positions - ardent Remainerism and pro Indy - and I’ve never understood how they can be so glibly reconciled
I do, for t he same reason I voted for Brexit.
Yes the same arguments for Brexit apply. Which is why I voted for Brexit, and why I support Sindy.
I voted for Brexit on the grounds of democracy and sovereignty. Inside the EU Britain was governed by an unelected elite of Eurocrats in a foreign country
None of this applies to Scotland. Scotland is governed by the MPs we all elect to Westminster (in our national capital), who sit in an entirely democratic chamber with the power to propose, enact and repeal laws
If the Scots decide they loathe the government they, like all Britons, can kick them out at the next election. None of us was able to eject Ursula von der Leyen
And the 99.7% of us who aren't Tory members had no say in the imposition of the Trusster or Rishi.
I have no issue with parliament deciding who has the confidence of the House, that is their role, and we will get our say soon.
It's who they decide on and what that person does which matters.
There is no perfect way of doing these things. It was a point in comparison to the appointment of der Leyen.
I know, but it's not a very good one nonetheless. I agree that point gets overblown and overegged, but that stock retort just doesn't work for me since it requires the idea we should not be able to switch PMs without a GE, yet we've done that many many times. So it just falls flat.
If we had a proper constitution, not something that each successive government can change as it pleases (see FTPA), we could have written in it that if a PM changes mid-term there has to be a GE within 6 months. That would fix that issue.
That might be a good idea, but I do push back at the 'proper constitution' bit. Like most such arguments I think it assumes a codified constitution solves more problems than it does (a bit like how PR may be a good idea - I think so - but some people suggest it will magically improve the quality of our politicians somehow too).
FTPA is an interesting point, since your suggestion (which I'd support as a law) is akin to what the Act was attempting, by codifying more rules around election timing rather than relying on convention and governmental whim. Yet it was bypassed easily and both main parties were going to junk it. Why would it being in a constitution prevent that from happening? You could make things harder to change, but they still could be.
Lots of reasons for the SNP to lose: financial chicanery, the Calmac ferries, really poor legislation - much of which has had to be withdrawn or challenged, waste of money, dancing to the tune of monomaniac lobbyists, failure to make good on promises, in-fighting, arrogance.
This is what is happening to the Tories. And will result in similar electoral misfortune.
Labour publicly learnt a lesson from the SNP's problems with the GRR Bill and made a change to their stated policy. That I think is one of Starmer's strengths. He doesn't simply say he will learn lessons. He actually shows this. It has been criticised as dreary triangulation by some or breaking promises by others. And there is a risk that he looks untrustworthy. But his willingness to change tack, say so publicly and say why is potentially heartening.
And @Heathener, women's rights are not inconsequential or irrelevant. You sound very gammon-like saying stuff like that. Much like the SNP's counsel this week saying that women's rights to associate freely with other women was "trivial". That was the word used. Trivial. With luck the end of the SNP will stop such condescending and offensive rubbish being uttered by them and their fellow travellers.
Yes, I think Starmers policy on Trans rights is a well balanced one on a very contentious issue that respects sex-based rights but avoids the repellent Trans-phobia on display last week. It is where I am on the issue, and it is also a position that most of the country can live with too.
Once again the focus is always on trans rights when it is not their rights which are the issue (they have exactly the same rights as everyone else). But the effect of giving them a privilege which no other group has on the rights of others.
Labour's position on women's right and the Equality Act is better than it was certainly. It needs clarifying in certain respects. There is a worrying silence about single sex services and associations which must be protected, for instance. https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/questions-questions/
It is largely a result of pressure from a lot of Labour women - young women - especially Labour Women's Declaration even though, shamefully, they have not been allowed a stand at the Labour conference. As for what the Tories announced this week, Barclay said that he would ensure single sex wards, a promise made in 2010 but since broken repeatedly. It is entirely supported by Labour. As for the PM's statement in his speech, this was announced by Kay Burley to be in breach of the EA. Which shows only that she - like many others - hasn't the first clue what the Act actually says.
Anyway in a week's time I shall be in Glasgow at a feminist conference. Lots of interesting international speakers. I shall report back!
I agree that there need to be sex related rights too, but really hate the Transphopia coming from the right.
I know two Trans people fairly well, one being Fox-jrs flat mate who I have known for a decade, the other a cousin who is non binary, but inclining to be a Trans-man.. Both have some mental health issues, and this is tangled up with their gender issues in complex ways, but ultimately they are good, kind people who need support from friends and family.
I know two - one male, one female (lesbian). Both with dysphoria. Both lovely people with very supportive family and friends. Both pretty disgusted with and opposed to the behaviour of trans activists. Both loathe the Tories for what they have allowed on their watch. Both despise Stonewall and my lesbian friend, married with 2 lovely boys, in particular is incensed with their approach to lesbians. She sees it as nothing less than homophobia. Quite a few of my lesbian friends have the same view. They think it utterly lazy thinking to view this as a problem of the right. Misogyny and homophobia - bigotry generally - are cross party. No one has a claim to virtue on this and thinking this is solely a problem of the right is the laziest of thinking.
So let's apply the toilet sieve.
You know one male trans person (presumably FTM?). Does this person poo in the men's loos or the women's loos? Do you approve of their choice?
You know one female trans person (presumably MTF?). Does this person poo in the men's loos or the women's loos? Do you approve of their choice?
Because ultimately this is what it all boils down to.
(I'm not sure which pronouns you use for trans people so I'll guess. You're gender critical so you may be using the TIM/TIF convention. I'm old school so I use the MTF/FTM convention. If you referred to the MTF as male and the FTM as female you'll have to point it out)
Why on earth are you “pro Scottish independence”? Do you want to see the UK broken up? Why?
IIRC you are a staunch Remoaner. All the arguments against Brexit apply - tenfold - to Scottish separatism. For a start it would cause economic depression in Scotland, deep recession in the rUK, and grievous pain and chaos for millions of people, for a decade
How can you desire that?
I know several people who hold these twin positions - ardent Remainerism and pro Indy - and I’ve never understood how they can be so glibly reconciled
Some of us aren’t pro-independence so much as pro-self determination. I’ve spent decent chunks of my life in both Scotland and England and they have a very different culture. If the Scots really want to govern their own affairs then I would always support their right to choose to do so.
Sturgeon’s genius was in - for some time - holding the faultlines in Scottish nationalism together. The Tartan Tory wing and the Central Belties will always be uneasy bedfellows. That rapprochement is now over for the foreseeable and I think it’ll be another 15 years or more before someone emerges that can bring them together again. Hint, it won’t be Forbes.
I agree with much of this
I make one point: Scotland is entitled to a degree of self determination but the UK as a whole is entitled to look after its integrity as a nation and a union. The two must be carefully balanced
So Cameron was right to allow indyref1. But the British Parliament is now right to say: No, there won’t be another for a generation, you had your say and you chose to remain
The generation argument was utterly lame post-Brexit, Brexit marked the end of the generation we were in the EU and marked the start of a new era.
But if you want to go on a pure timescale era its increasingly lame too. By the end of the next Westminster Parliament it will have been 15 years since the last referendum which is coming up close towards a generation however you slice it.
Indeed its worth noting that at the the time of the IndyRef it was Millennials like myself that were the youngest generation of adults, now Millennials like myself are entering or in middle age and most of Gen Z are already adults.
I’m curious where you draw the line on the self determination thing. If Scotland must have the right to secede whenever it likes, how about wales? Or indeed the Shetland isles? They are culturally distinct and have been non Scottish in their time (and non British)
How about the Orkneys? Or Cornwall? Again distinct and independent in their time
Yorkshire? Cumbria? Kent? Hereford? You? Where does it end?
At some point a nation - Britain in this case - must be willing and able to defend its integrity and say STFU
Britain isn't a nation - it is several. That is the problem. Either we accept and respect that there are 4 nations (and other mini nations like the Kernow) or we scrap all of it and reform ourselves as a single entity.
Scotland is distinct from England is distinct from Wales etc etc. If they are distinct enough to have their own laws, education systems, football leagues, international sporting representation etc then they are distinct enough to become a clearly defined national group in a way that none of your other examples are.
But what if a majority of people in Cornwall or Northumberland or Shetland feel they ARE a nation and want independence? Who are you to stop them?
Lots of reasons for the SNP to lose: financial chicanery, the Calmac ferries, really poor legislation - much of which has had to be withdrawn or challenged, waste of money, dancing to the tune of monomaniac lobbyists, failure to make good on promises, in-fighting, arrogance.
This is what is happening to the Tories. And will result in similar electoral misfortune.
Labour publicly learnt a lesson from the SNP's problems with the GRR Bill and made a change to their stated policy. That I think is one of Starmer's strengths. He doesn't simply say he will learn lessons. He actually shows this. It has been criticised as dreary triangulation by some or breaking promises by others. And there is a risk that he looks untrustworthy. But his willingness to change tack, say so publicly and say why is potentially heartening.
And @Heathener, women's rights are not inconsequential or irrelevant. You sound very gammon-like saying stuff like that. Much like the SNP's counsel this week saying that women's rights to associate freely with other women was "trivial". That was the word used. Trivial. With luck the end of the SNP will stop such condescending and offensive rubbish being uttered by them and their fellow travellers.
Yes, I think Starmers policy on Trans rights is a well balanced one on a very contentious issue that respects sex-based rights but avoids the repellent Trans-phobia on display last week. It is where I am on the issue, and it is also a position that most of the country can live with too.
Once again the focus is always on trans rights when it is not their rights which are the issue (they have exactly the same rights as everyone else). But the effect of giving them a privilege which no other group has on the rights of others.
Labour's position on women's right and the Equality Act is better than it was certainly. It needs clarifying in certain respects. There is a worrying silence about single sex services and associations which must be protected, for instance. https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/questions-questions/
It is largely a result of pressure from a lot of Labour women - young women - especially Labour Women's Declaration even though, shamefully, they have not been allowed a stand at the Labour conference. As for what the Tories announced this week, Barclay said that he would ensure single sex wards, a promise made in 2010 but since broken repeatedly. It is entirely supported by Labour. As for the PM's statement in his speech, this was announced by Kay Burley to be in breach of the EA. Which shows only that she - like many others - hasn't the first clue what the Act actually says.
Anyway in a week's time I shall be in Glasgow at a feminist conference. Lots of interesting international speakers. I shall report back!
I agree that there need to be sex related rights too, but really hate the Transphopia coming from the right.
I know two Trans people fairly well, one being Fox-jrs flat mate who I have known for a decade, the other a cousin who is non binary, but inclining to be a Trans-man.. Both have some mental health issues, and this is tangled up with their gender issues in complex ways, but ultimately they are good, kind people who need support from friends and family.
I know two - one male, one female (lesbian). Both with dysphoria. Both lovely people with very supportive family and friends. Both pretty disgusted with and opposed to the behaviour of trans activists. Both loathe the Tories for what they have allowed on their watch. Both despise Stonewall and my lesbian friend, married with 2 lovely boys, in particular is incensed with their approach to lesbians. She sees it as nothing less than homophobia. Quite a few of my lesbian friends have the same view. They think it utterly lazy thinking to view this as a problem of the right. Misogyny and homophobia - bigotry generally - are cross party. No one has a claim to virtue on this and thinking this is solely a problem of the right is the laziest of thinking.
That might well be the case, but it finds its most comfortable home on the right.
I’m really not sure that’s true
On the right I think you find more confusion and bewilderment. They don’t understand what the fight is even about
Eg it’s noticeable that the bitterest online trans arguments tend to be between LEFT wing feminist women - J K Rowling, Joanna Cherry - and the trans militants
I agree. Trans activists are desperate to find right wing opponents but have largely been met by a shrug and a distinct lack of interest. It is women's rights supporters that have taken up the cudgels which is why this is such an uncomfortable fight for the activists. The "rights" they are claiming trample on hard won rights for women and women are not happy about it, and rightly so.
I was responding to this from Cyclefree: "Misogyny and homophobia - bigotry generally - are cross party..", so your point, and Leon's don't really address mine.
So after chapping (according to them) thousands of doors, having dozens of southern Lab MPs press the Rutherglen flesh, unleashing the 20 watt Starmer charisma and benefitting from several thousand tactical Tory votes, SLab received fewer votes in this constituency than they did in every election this century, including the two they lost? I guess it indicates the lukewarm ceiling of Labour support in Scotland. The more interesting questions are how many indy/SNP supporters sat on their hands, and if/when they might stop doing so.
Bit churlish TUD. Byelections generally get a lower turnout than GE, and while I agree that they cannot be generalised too far, this is a triumph for Starmer.
I support Scottish independence, though rightly with no say in the matter, but the SNP are a mess at the moment. I am sure they will be back in an electable state at some point.
There looks to be the sort of backlash against a tired and divided regime north of the border as much as there is south of it. The same is true of the unusual local election results against the Lab in Leicester in May*. Voters have had enough and want change.
*I think Khan will limp home in London like Soulsby did in Leicester as mayor, but losing assembly seats next year for similar reasons.
Would it be churlish to enquire as to the nature of the change that's being offered by Starwar, or is it just down to the colour of the rosette?
I am no Starmer fan, and have no great hopes for him as PM. I won't be voting Labour, for a number of reasons next GE, but neither do I fear him getting in unlike if Sunak scrapes home.
I think the SNP fightback needs to centre on competent and honest government in Holyrood. Without that the cause of independence cannot win.
The SNP have been in office at Holyrood for 16 years. If they had used those years to transform Scotland's economy, attract business investment and well-paid jobs, then they could have built the sort of consensus for independence that couldn't be obstructed.
Instead their strategy was to play political games, draw dividing lines and aim for a 50%+1 mandate.
Unionists politicians have been, and remain, weak and uninspiring. The SNP appear to have blown it - but Unionist politicians are likely to give them another chance.
Assuming Starmer does lead the next Westminster government, I believe that he will prove unequal to the problems facing Britain, and rapidly become unpopular. In the absence of any other effective opposition, we could easily see the SNP revitalised very soon.
A chill gets me out of bed though hardly full of the joys of autumn.
A strong result for Labour before their Conference and a good step on the road for the party on its journey back to power. The prospect of re-establishing its presence in Scottish politics (no one is talking about a Conservative wipeout as in 1997 it seems).is a step toward building that voting coalition and majority.
As with other by-elections (bar Uxbridge), the Conservative vote disintegrated (the LDs did little better) to Labour or stayed at home,
Labour now has its Conference and for the first time in many years it's in the position of being taken seriously - we know there will be a strong business presence for example. Doubtless the Mail, Express and others will try to whip the slightest hint of dissent or disagreement with Starmer into some frenetic sceptre of chaos and division but those commentators who lavished praise on Braverman and Sunak's efforts this week can hardly be expected (or trusted) to give a reasonable and objective analysis of Starmer or Reeves.
Starmer may be Blair without the charisma but he's realised, like Blair, Labour never wins when it is too radical (it did in 1945 under unique circumstances). The route to power lies in reassuring the disillusioned or angry ex-Conservative voters and that re-assurance has to go on right up to Polling Day. Things won't change too much but they will be done "better". This week, Sunak has written his version of the infamous Liam Byrne note from 2010 and that will temper expectations and give Starmer a nice big target to aim at both next week and for years to come.
Next week will be all about re-assurance - if there is a hint of second term radicalism, it will stay hidden for now. It's all about getting the election won and then getting on with Government. Part of that re-assurance will be to not sound hubristic - Starmer knows the Conservatives aren't finished and they will fight and claw and cling on to the very end - it won't be edifying and the country will suffer but that's how politics works.
Some of us feel that the circumstances of now are closer to 1945 than any other election in the intervening period. There is room for Starmer to be more radical. The tragedy is really his apparent disinclination to take the opportunity.
I suspect because he fears (perhaps with a lot of justification) that his support is very wide but also very shallow.
Correct.
I think he does have some room for manoeuvre and should be bolder, but he needs to spend his political capital really, really cleverly.
The next GE is going to be the Tories throwing a bucketload of mud at Starmer and hoping something sticks. He can’t afford to have something unravel like Mrs May’s care policy, for instance, because it’s very easy to see how a commanding lead in the polls narrows significantly by polling day if your opponents seize the narrative.
It’s amazing to think that today it’s exactly two years and four months since the Hartlepool by-election took place. It’s a four hour drive and a million miles from there to Rutherglen.
I honestly believe that if Boris had been in some way capable of staying out of personal scandal and sticking to lockdown rules, we would be looking at a 1992 election result for the Tories next year.
We actually need to be pretty glad he was found out, because the country really can’t afford about 5-6 years of the Tories right now.
I agree Boris's win should have been very hard to overturn in one go, 1992 should be most likely. As it is reverse landslide is more probable, which he will probably like.
BTW the cancellation of HS2 also screws up (even more) the 4 train building firms in the UK
Philip Haigh @philatrail HS2 has 54 trains on order from Hitachi/Alstom in a £2bn deal. DfT is apparently now suggesting that deal is renegotiated for a smaller number of trains with an alternative option of trying to find work elsewhere for those not needed for HS2 services.
1. HS2's entire business model was designed around 400m train lengths. That surely is now in the bin as they won't fit at most stations (likely including the Poundland Euston) so already that's a 50% cut in vehicles 2. HS2 trains Will Not Tilt. Hitachi don't build tilting trains and its either Hitachi or their factory closes*. 3. What use is a bespoke fleet of HS-compatible non-tilting trains which slow the WCML down?
* I've posted previously that those tossers at the DfT should agree standard AT200 / AT300 specs with the Rail Delivery Group (i.e. fitted with seats with cushions, and with luggage racks) and then build a lot of them. We solve the overcrowding problems on the network by running longer trains.
This has got the potential to end really badly.
Does anyone think that Team Rishi have worked through all the interlocking parts here and made sure that HS Two-thirds physically works as a scheme to move trains around the country?
Of course they haven't, because that's fiddly and boring.
Good thing we're not selling off the spare bits before we're sure we don't need them, eh?
As pointed out by others, the truly terrible logo for “network north” (clearly designed in 5 minutes by a spad unaware of AI image generators) does not inspire confidence that the HS2 cancellation was “carefully worked through”
For that alone the Tories need to be gone. They aren’t even basically competent any more. Enough. Let Sir Kir Royale have his majority and let’s see what he can do
I’m not hopeful but the Tories are hopeLESS, as things stand
Has anyone else pointed out that there are more road schemes listed in the Network North policy paper in the South East and South West than in the North East, North West, and Yorkshire and Humberside together?
Lots of reasons for the SNP to lose: financial chicanery, the Calmac ferries, really poor legislation - much of which has had to be withdrawn or challenged, waste of money, dancing to the tune of monomaniac lobbyists, failure to make good on promises, in-fighting, arrogance.
This is what is happening to the Tories. And will result in similar electoral misfortune.
Labour publicly learnt a lesson from the SNP's problems with the GRR Bill and made a change to their stated policy. That I think is one of Starmer's strengths. He doesn't simply say he will learn lessons. He actually shows this. It has been criticised as dreary triangulation by some or breaking promises by others. And there is a risk that he looks untrustworthy. But his willingness to change tack, say so publicly and say why is potentially heartening.
And @Heathener, women's rights are not inconsequential or irrelevant. You sound very gammon-like saying stuff like that. Much like the SNP's counsel this week saying that women's rights to associate freely with other women was "trivial". That was the word used. Trivial. With luck the end of the SNP will stop such condescending and offensive rubbish being uttered by them and their fellow travellers.
Yes, I think Starmers policy on Trans rights is a well balanced one on a very contentious issue that respects sex-based rights but avoids the repellent Trans-phobia on display last week. It is where I am on the issue, and it is also a position that most of the country can live with too.
Once again the focus is always on trans rights when it is not their rights which are the issue (they have exactly the same rights as everyone else). But the effect of giving them a privilege which no other group has on the rights of others.
Labour's position on women's right and the Equality Act is better than it was certainly. It needs clarifying in certain respects. There is a worrying silence about single sex services and associations which must be protected, for instance. https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/questions-questions/
It is largely a result of pressure from a lot of Labour women - young women - especially Labour Women's Declaration even though, shamefully, they have not been allowed a stand at the Labour conference. As for what the Tories announced this week, Barclay said that he would ensure single sex wards, a promise made in 2010 but since broken repeatedly. It is entirely supported by Labour. As for the PM's statement in his speech, this was announced by Kay Burley to be in breach of the EA. Which shows only that she - like many others - hasn't the first clue what the Act actually says.
Anyway in a week's time I shall be in Glasgow at a feminist conference. Lots of interesting international speakers. I shall report back!
I agree that there need to be sex related rights too, but really hate the Transphopia coming from the right.
I know two Trans people fairly well, one being Fox-jrs flat mate who I have known for a decade, the other a cousin who is non binary, but inclining to be a Trans-man.. Both have some mental health issues, and this is tangled up with their gender issues in complex ways, but ultimately they are good, kind people who need support from friends and family.
I know two - one male, one female (lesbian). Both with dysphoria. Both lovely people with very supportive family and friends. Both pretty disgusted with and opposed to the behaviour of trans activists. Both loathe the Tories for what they have allowed on their watch. Both despise Stonewall and my lesbian friend, married with 2 lovely boys, in particular is incensed with their approach to lesbians. She sees it as nothing less than homophobia. Quite a few of my lesbian friends have the same view. They think it utterly lazy thinking to view this as a problem of the right. Misogyny and homophobia - bigotry generally - are cross party. No one has a claim to virtue on this and thinking this is solely a problem of the right is the laziest of thinking.
That might well be the case, but it finds its most comfortable home on the right.
I’m really not sure that’s true
On the right I think you find more confusion and bewilderment. They don’t understand what the fight is even about
Eg it’s noticeable that the bitterest online trans arguments tend to be between LEFT wing feminist women - J K Rowling, Joanna Cherry - and the trans militants
I agree. Trans activists are desperate to find right wing opponents but have largely been met by a shrug and a distinct lack of interest. It is women's rights supporters that have taken up the cudgels which is why this is such an uncomfortable fight for the activists. The "rights" they are claiming trample on hard won rights for women and women are not happy about it, and rightly so.
Or those opponents who are sincerely motivated by women's rights are really acting as the dupes of bigots who are too canny openly to oppose trans rights as a matter of principle.
So J K Rowling is actually some willing dupe of a secret cabal of super clever anti-Trans Nazis?
Do you realise how that sounds?
Be honest: you've evinced worse conspiracy theories on PB
Why on earth are you “pro Scottish independence”? Do you want to see the UK broken up? Why?
IIRC you are a staunch Remoaner. All the arguments against Brexit apply - tenfold - to Scottish separatism. For a start it would cause economic depression in Scotland, deep recession in the rUK, and grievous pain and chaos for millions of people, for a decade
How can you desire that?
I know several people who hold these twin positions - ardent Remainerism and pro Indy - and I’ve never understood how they can be so glibly reconciled
I do, for t he same reason I voted for Brexit.
Yes the same arguments for Brexit apply. Which is why I voted for Brexit, and why I support Sindy.
I voted for Brexit on the grounds of democracy and sovereignty. Inside the EU Britain was governed by an unelected elite of Eurocrats in a foreign country
None of this applies to Scotland. Scotland is governed by the MPs we all elect to Westminster (in our national capital), who sit in an entirely democratic chamber with the power to propose, enact and repeal laws
If the Scots decide they loathe the government they, like all Britons, can kick them out at the next election. None of us was able to eject Ursula von der Leyen
If the Scots consider themselves Scots not Brits and that England is another country, then on the exact same grounds of democracy and sovereignty as Brexit they should be an independent sovereign country.
Similarly if an English/British individual wanted to be in a country called Europe then there's no democracy or sovereignty reasons they shouldn't have voted Remain, but the EU really needs reforming to better become a single country with a more powerful demos, Parliament and elected Government.
Personally I consider myself English. I think we'd be better off as an independent England, but if the Scots or Welsh or NI want to tag along with us it doesn't matter too much that I'd make it a priority issue, but if I were Scottish it absolutely would be a priority issue.
Your post encapsulates a major problem: why do you feel the need to define your nationality at all?
Of course, we all do it because we are forced to at times (e.g. on official and not so official forms) but generally I feel nationality is an unhelpful concept developed over centuries to control and coerce people. There is nothing physical that defines one's 'nation'.
I think we've all been brain-washed to believe nationality is an essential part of our being when it isn't.
(Citizenship however is different: a set of rights and responsibilities that people acquire through chance or design, upon which society depends.)
Without a nation, there's no National Health Service.
BTW the cancellation of HS2 also screws up (even more) the 4 train building firms in the UK
Philip Haigh @philatrail HS2 has 54 trains on order from Hitachi/Alstom in a £2bn deal. DfT is apparently now suggesting that deal is renegotiated for a smaller number of trains with an alternative option of trying to find work elsewhere for those not needed for HS2 services.
1. HS2's entire business model was designed around 400m train lengths. That surely is now in the bin as they won't fit at most stations (likely including the Poundland Euston) so already that's a 50% cut in vehicles 2. HS2 trains Will Not Tilt. Hitachi don't build tilting trains and its either Hitachi or their factory closes*. 3. What use is a bespoke fleet of HS-compatible non-tilting trains which slow the WCML down?
* I've posted previously that those tossers at the DfT should agree standard AT200 / AT300 specs with the Rail Delivery Group (i.e. fitted with seats with cushions, and with luggage racks) and then build a lot of them. We solve the overcrowding problems on the network by running longer trains.
If only that was the case - with the old 125s now removed from Cross Country routes the train I'm catching tomorrow to Bristol has 4 carriages when until last month it had 8.
I have a received seat and I'm getting on at an early stop - but I've still be told by others that it's likely I'll have to turf someone from my seat - the lack of capacity is very obvious...
Much is made of the bits of fleets of either very old trains being retired or the occasional new fleet built badly. they are distractions from the real problem which is a catastrophic lack of a fleet plan.
Post-privatisation the industry knew what it was doing. A clear structure meant that investing in rolling stock was a managed risk which the private sector undertook.
Then the DfT started meddling, speccing trains for individual franchises (like Transpennine or Thameslink) which are under-specced and grotesquely expensive due to civil servants not knowing how to negotiate.
As an example, the DfT-mandated AT300s for Great Western (Class 800) - not at the spec required by the operator and at vast cost. Great Western later negotiate an add-on fleet (Class 802) to a suitable spec at much lower cost.
The AT300 family isn't perfect, but it could be improved, and they are becoming ubiquitous. So we need the Rail Delivery Group spec for a train suitable for inter-operator use. Seats with padding and leg room, luggage space, enhanced trolley space. And build hundreds of them.
BTW the cancellation of HS2 also screws up (even more) the 4 train building firms in the UK
Philip Haigh @philatrail HS2 has 54 trains on order from Hitachi/Alstom in a £2bn deal. DfT is apparently now suggesting that deal is renegotiated for a smaller number of trains with an alternative option of trying to find work elsewhere for those not needed for HS2 services.
1. HS2's entire business model was designed around 400m train lengths. That surely is now in the bin as they won't fit at most stations (likely including the Poundland Euston) so already that's a 50% cut in vehicles 2. HS2 trains Will Not Tilt. Hitachi don't build tilting trains and its either Hitachi or their factory closes*. 3. What use is a bespoke fleet of HS-compatible non-tilting trains which slow the WCML down?
* I've posted previously that those tossers at the DfT should agree standard AT200 / AT300 specs with the Rail Delivery Group (i.e. fitted with seats with cushions, and with luggage racks) and then build a lot of them. We solve the overcrowding problems on the network by running longer trains.
If only that was the case - with the old 125s now removed from Cross Country routes the train I'm catching tomorrow to Bristol has 4 carriages when until last month it had 8.
I have a received seat and I'm getting on at an early stop - but I've still be told by others that it's likely I'll have to turf someone from my seat - the lack of capacity is very obvious...
Much is made of the bits of fleets of either very old trains being retired or the occasional new fleet built badly. they are distractions from the real problem which is a catastrophic lack of a fleet plan.
Post-privatisation the industry knew what it was doing. A clear structure meant that investing in rolling stock was a managed risk which the private sector undertook.
Then the DfT started meddling, speccing trains for individual franchises (like Transpennine or Thameslink) which are under-specced and grotesquely expensive due to civil servants not knowing how to negotiate.
As an example, the DfT-mandated AT300s for Great Western (Class 800) - not at the spec required by the operator and at vast cost. Great Western later negotiate an add-on fleet (Class 802) to a suitable spec at much lower cost.
The AT300 family isn't perfect, but it could be improved, and they are becoming ubiquitous. So we need the Rail Delivery Group spec for a train suitable for inter-operator use. Seats with padding and leg room, luggage space, enhanced trolley space. And build hundreds of them.
Would this have been the case if privatisation hadn't happend. Since the offending party is the DfT it seems likely it would.
Why on earth are you “pro Scottish independence”? Do you want to see the UK broken up? Why?
IIRC you are a staunch Remoaner. All the arguments against Brexit apply - tenfold - to Scottish separatism. For a start it would cause economic depression in Scotland, deep recession in the rUK, and grievous pain and chaos for millions of people, for a decade
How can you desire that?
I know several people who hold these twin positions - ardent Remainerism and pro Indy - and I’ve never understood how they can be so glibly reconciled
I do, for t he same reason I voted for Brexit.
Yes the same arguments for Brexit apply. Which is why I voted for Brexit, and why I support Sindy.
I voted for Brexit on the grounds of democracy and sovereignty. Inside the EU Britain was governed by an unelected elite of Eurocrats in a foreign country
None of this applies to Scotland. Scotland is governed by the MPs we all elect to Westminster (in our national capital), who sit in an entirely democratic chamber with the power to propose, enact and repeal laws
If the Scots decide they loathe the government they, like all Britons, can kick them out at the next election. None of us was able to eject Ursula von der Leyen
And the 99.7% of us who aren't Tory members had no say in the imposition of the Trusster or Rishi.
I have no issue with parliament deciding who has the confidence of the House, that is their role, and we will get our say soon.
It's who they decide on and what that person does which matters.
There is no perfect way of doing these things. It was a point in comparison to the appointment of der Leyen.
I know, but it's not a very good one nonetheless. I agree that point gets overblown and overegged, but that stock retort just doesn't work for me since it requires the idea we should not be able to switch PMs without a GE, yet we've done that many many times. So it just falls flat.
If we had a proper constitution, not something that each successive government can change as it pleases (see FTPA), we could have written in it that if a PM changes mid-term there has to be a GE within 6 months. That would fix that issue.
That might be a good idea, but I do push back at the 'proper constitution' bit. Like most such arguments I think it assumes a codified constitution solves more problems than it does (a bit like how PR may be a good idea - I think so - but some people suggest it will magically improve the quality of our politicians somehow too).
FTPA is an interesting point, since your suggestion (which I'd support as a law) is akin to what the Act was attempting, by codifying more rules around election timing rather than relying on convention and governmental whim. Yet it was bypassed easily and both main parties were going to junk it. Why would it being in a constitution prevent that from happening? You could make things harder to change, but they still could be.
Good point
Everyone used to admire the US Constitution but it doesn’t look so good now, with the right to bear arms proving “problematic” and the politicisation of the judiciary becoming evermore poisonous
There is a flexible genius in an unwritten constitution like ours. We could easily replace it with something written and WORSE
Lots of reasons for the SNP to lose: financial chicanery, the Calmac ferries, really poor legislation - much of which has had to be withdrawn or challenged, waste of money, dancing to the tune of monomaniac lobbyists, failure to make good on promises, in-fighting, arrogance.
This is what is happening to the Tories. And will result in similar electoral misfortune.
Labour publicly learnt a lesson from the SNP's problems with the GRR Bill and made a change to their stated policy. That I think is one of Starmer's strengths. He doesn't simply say he will learn lessons. He actually shows this. It has been criticised as dreary triangulation by some or breaking promises by others. And there is a risk that he looks untrustworthy. But his willingness to change tack, say so publicly and say why is potentially heartening.
And @Heathener, women's rights are not inconsequential or irrelevant. You sound very gammon-like saying stuff like that. Much like the SNP's counsel this week saying that women's rights to associate freely with other women was "trivial". That was the word used. Trivial. With luck the end of the SNP will stop such condescending and offensive rubbish being uttered by them and their fellow travellers.
Yes, I think Starmers policy on Trans rights is a well balanced one on a very contentious issue that respects sex-based rights but avoids the repellent Trans-phobia on display last week. It is where I am on the issue, and it is also a position that most of the country can live with too.
Once again the focus is always on trans rights when it is not their rights which are the issue (they have exactly the same rights as everyone else). But the effect of giving them a privilege which no other group has on the rights of others.
Labour's position on women's right and the Equality Act is better than it was certainly. It needs clarifying in certain respects. There is a worrying silence about single sex services and associations which must be protected, for instance. https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/questions-questions/
It is largely a result of pressure from a lot of Labour women - young women - especially Labour Women's Declaration even though, shamefully, they have not been allowed a stand at the Labour conference. As for what the Tories announced this week, Barclay said that he would ensure single sex wards, a promise made in 2010 but since broken repeatedly. It is entirely supported by Labour. As for the PM's statement in his speech, this was announced by Kay Burley to be in breach of the EA. Which shows only that she - like many others - hasn't the first clue what the Act actually says.
Anyway in a week's time I shall be in Glasgow at a feminist conference. Lots of interesting international speakers. I shall report back!
I agree that there need to be sex related rights too, but really hate the Transphopia coming from the right.
I know two Trans people fairly well, one being Fox-jrs flat mate who I have known for a decade, the other a cousin who is non binary, but inclining to be a Trans-man.. Both have some mental health issues, and this is tangled up with their gender issues in complex ways, but ultimately they are good, kind people who need support from friends and family.
I know two - one male, one female (lesbian). Both with dysphoria. Both lovely people with very supportive family and friends. Both pretty disgusted with and opposed to the behaviour of trans activists. Both loathe the Tories for what they have allowed on their watch. Both despise Stonewall and my lesbian friend, married with 2 lovely boys, in particular is incensed with their approach to lesbians. She sees it as nothing less than homophobia. Quite a few of my lesbian friends have the same view. They think it utterly lazy thinking to view this as a problem of the right. Misogyny and homophobia - bigotry generally - are cross party. No one has a claim to virtue on this and thinking this is solely a problem of the right is the laziest of thinking.
That might well be the case, but it finds its most comfortable home on the right.
I’m really not sure that’s true
On the right I think you find more confusion and bewilderment. They don’t understand what the fight is even about
Eg it’s noticeable that the bitterest online trans arguments tend to be between LEFT wing feminist women - J K Rowling, Joanna Cherry - and the trans militants
I agree. Trans activists are desperate to find right wing opponents but have largely been met by a shrug and a distinct lack of interest. It is women's rights supporters that have taken up the cudgels which is why this is such an uncomfortable fight for the activists. The "rights" they are claiming trample on hard won rights for women and women are not happy about it, and rightly so.
I was responding to this from Cyclefree: "Misogyny and homophobia - bigotry generally - are cross party..", so your point, and Leon's don't really address mine.
I was responding to: "That might well be the case, but it finds its most comfortable home on the right." Was that not your comment? I apologise if I have misread the previous comments, it can be hard to tell sometimes.
FWIW I agree with @Cyclefree : no part of the political spectrum is free from bigots.
Highest ever BE swing against the SNP. (Includes GEs too maybe ?) Largest swing to Labour in Scotland (If you ignore some Ind. Labour -> Labour swings involving an incumbent back in the 40s and 50s) Certainly the largest SNP -> Labour swing in any election (I think).
All in all a night that must have exceeded all Labour's expectations.
Why on earth are you “pro Scottish independence”? Do you want to see the UK broken up? Why?
IIRC you are a staunch Remoaner. All the arguments against Brexit apply - tenfold - to Scottish separatism. For a start it would cause economic depression in Scotland, deep recession in the rUK, and grievous pain and chaos for millions of people, for a decade
How can you desire that?
I know several people who hold these twin positions - ardent Remainerism and pro Indy - and I’ve never understood how they can be so glibly reconciled
Some of us aren’t pro-independence so much as pro-self determination. I’ve spent decent chunks of my life in both Scotland and England and they have a very different culture. If the Scots really want to govern their own affairs then I would always support their right to choose to do so.
Sturgeon’s genius was in - for some time - holding the faultlines in Scottish nationalism together. The Tartan Tory wing and the Central Belties will always be uneasy bedfellows. That rapprochement is now over for the foreseeable and I think it’ll be another 15 years or more before someone emerges that can bring them together again. Hint, it won’t be Forbes.
I agree with much of this
I make one point: Scotland is entitled to a degree of self determination but the UK as a whole is entitled to look after its integrity as a nation and a union. The two must be carefully balanced
So Cameron was right to allow indyref1. But the British Parliament is now right to say: No, there won’t be another for a generation, you had your say and you chose to remain
The generation argument was utterly lame post-Brexit, Brexit marked the end of the generation we were in the EU and marked the start of a new era.
But if you want to go on a pure timescale era its increasingly lame too. By the end of the next Westminster Parliament it will have been 15 years since the last referendum which is coming up close towards a generation however you slice it.
Indeed its worth noting that at the the time of the IndyRef it was Millennials like myself that were the youngest generation of adults, now Millennials like myself are entering or in middle age and most of Gen Z are already adults.
I’m curious where you draw the line on the self determination thing. If Scotland must have the right to secede whenever it likes, how about wales? Or indeed the Shetland isles? They are culturally distinct and have been non Scottish in their time (and non British)
How about the Orkneys? Or Cornwall? Again distinct and independent in their time
Yorkshire? Cumbria? Kent? Hereford? You? Where does it end?
At some point a nation - Britain in this case - must be willing and able to defend its integrity and say STFU
Britain isn't a nation - it is several. That is the problem. Either we accept and respect that there are 4 nations (and other mini nations like the Kernow) or we scrap all of it and reform ourselves as a single entity.
Scotland is distinct from England is distinct from Wales etc etc. If they are distinct enough to have their own laws, education systems, football leagues, international sporting representation etc then they are distinct enough to become a clearly defined national group in a way that none of your other examples are.
Own laws you say? Federated nations with large state powers are not nations then?
I think this the UK is not a nation idea is a bit nonsensical. It is a nation because its treated as one, that's all a nation is. It is a union of somewhat distinct areas but that's hardly unique, even if our sporting arrangements often are.
The question I think is not whether the UK is Nation and must either break up if not or consolidate if it it is, but whether the nation as formulated still works.
Many say no. I disagree but I can understand why they say that, and it cannot be held together indefinitely if enough think that in distinct areas.
But it's a bit like the mostly now retired jibe about British identity being artificial. So is every national identity on earth, we're all just human beings, but for periods of decades to hundreds of years we come together to believe in an artificial construction.
Places like England and Scotland are probably pretty unusual in having relatively firm identity for so long
A year today we could be chewing over a Labour landslide and debating where the Tories go next (oblivion, hopefully).
If the stars align, 2024 could see the great reversal of 3 big electoral trends all at once. I'll not get my hopes up too much, but it's conceivable based on current polling.
1. The rolling back of the 2019 Tory Brexit caliphate and Labour's reconquista of the Red Wall. 2. The reversal of the 2015 SNP avalanche 3. The recapture of the Lib Dem Wessex heartlands after Cameron's illegal annexation in 2015
The last few elections, including 2017, have been miserable affairs for a voter like me. The occasional good effort at locals doesn't really compensate. Several times in succession I've found myself sitting up alone at 4am, strong drink in hand, wondering why I hadn't just got early night. Surely everyone needs a happy election once in a while.
Lots of reasons for the SNP to lose: financial chicanery, the Calmac ferries, really poor legislation - much of which has had to be withdrawn or challenged, waste of money, dancing to the tune of monomaniac lobbyists, failure to make good on promises, in-fighting, arrogance.
This is what is happening to the Tories. And will result in similar electoral misfortune.
Labour publicly learnt a lesson from the SNP's problems with the GRR Bill and made a change to their stated policy. That I think is one of Starmer's strengths. He doesn't simply say he will learn lessons. He actually shows this. It has been criticised as dreary triangulation by some or breaking promises by others. And there is a risk that he looks untrustworthy. But his willingness to change tack, say so publicly and say why is potentially heartening.
And @Heathener, women's rights are not inconsequential or irrelevant. You sound very gammon-like saying stuff like that. Much like the SNP's counsel this week saying that women's rights to associate freely with other women was "trivial". That was the word used. Trivial. With luck the end of the SNP will stop such condescending and offensive rubbish being uttered by them and their fellow travellers.
Yes, I think Starmers policy on Trans rights is a well balanced one on a very contentious issue that respects sex-based rights but avoids the repellent Trans-phobia on display last week. It is where I am on the issue, and it is also a position that most of the country can live with too.
Once again the focus is always on trans rights when it is not their rights which are the issue (they have exactly the same rights as everyone else). But the effect of giving them a privilege which no other group has on the rights of others.
Labour's position on women's right and the Equality Act is better than it was certainly. It needs clarifying in certain respects. There is a worrying silence about single sex services and associations which must be protected, for instance. https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/questions-questions/
It is largely a result of pressure from a lot of Labour women - young women - especially Labour Women's Declaration even though, shamefully, they have not been allowed a stand at the Labour conference. As for what the Tories announced this week, Barclay said that he would ensure single sex wards, a promise made in 2010 but since broken repeatedly. It is entirely supported by Labour. As for the PM's statement in his speech, this was announced by Kay Burley to be in breach of the EA. Which shows only that she - like many others - hasn't the first clue what the Act actually says.
Anyway in a week's time I shall be in Glasgow at a feminist conference. Lots of interesting international speakers. I shall report back!
I agree that there need to be sex related rights too, but really hate the Transphopia coming from the right.
I know two Trans people fairly well, one being Fox-jrs flat mate who I have known for a decade, the other a cousin who is non binary, but inclining to be a Trans-man.. Both have some mental health issues, and this is tangled up with their gender issues in complex ways, but ultimately they are good, kind people who need support from friends and family.
I know two - one male, one female (lesbian). Both with dysphoria. Both lovely people with very supportive family and friends. Both pretty disgusted with and opposed to the behaviour of trans activists. Both loathe the Tories for what they have allowed on their watch. Both despise Stonewall and my lesbian friend, married with 2 lovely boys, in particular is incensed with their approach to lesbians. She sees it as nothing less than homophobia. Quite a few of my lesbian friends have the same view. They think it utterly lazy thinking to view this as a problem of the right. Misogyny and homophobia - bigotry generally - are cross party. No one has a claim to virtue on this and thinking this is solely a problem of the right is the laziest of thinking.
That might well be the case, but it finds its most comfortable home on the right.
I’m really not sure that’s true
On the right I think you find more confusion and bewilderment. They don’t understand what the fight is even about
Eg it’s noticeable that the bitterest online trans arguments tend to be between LEFT wing feminist women - J K Rowling, Joanna Cherry - and the trans militants
I agree. Trans activists are desperate to find right wing opponents but have largely been met by a shrug and a distinct lack of interest. It is women's rights supporters that have taken up the cudgels which is why this is such an uncomfortable fight for the activists. The "rights" they are claiming trample on hard won rights for women and women are not happy about it, and rightly so.
Or those opponents who are sincerely motivated by women's rights are really acting as the dupes of bigots who are too canny openly to oppose trans rights as a matter of principle.
So J K Rowling is actually some willing dupe of a secret cabal of super clever anti-Trans Nazis?
Do you realise how that sounds?
To channel Titania McGrath:
"Whenever I point out that JK Rowling is an evil transphobe, her defenders always ask for “evidence”.
But Rowling’s tactic is to not attack trans people in order to make it look as though she is not attacking trans people.
OMG just realised the Tories lost their deposit in Rutherglen...
With a very good candidate too. But members of the Conservative and Unionist party were always going to vote tactically here: I certainly would have done.
BTW the cancellation of HS2 also screws up (even more) the 4 train building firms in the UK
Philip Haigh @philatrail HS2 has 54 trains on order from Hitachi/Alstom in a £2bn deal. DfT is apparently now suggesting that deal is renegotiated for a smaller number of trains with an alternative option of trying to find work elsewhere for those not needed for HS2 services.
1. HS2's entire business model was designed around 400m train lengths. That surely is now in the bin as they won't fit at most stations (likely including the Poundland Euston) so already that's a 50% cut in vehicles 2. HS2 trains Will Not Tilt. Hitachi don't build tilting trains and its either Hitachi or their factory closes*. 3. What use is a bespoke fleet of HS-compatible non-tilting trains which slow the WCML down?
* I've posted previously that those tossers at the DfT should agree standard AT200 / AT300 specs with the Rail Delivery Group (i.e. fitted with seats with cushions, and with luggage racks) and then build a lot of them. We solve the overcrowding problems on the network by running longer trains.
If only that was the case - with the old 125s now removed from Cross Country routes the train I'm catching tomorrow to Bristol has 4 carriages when until last month it had 8.
I have a received seat and I'm getting on at an early stop - but I've still be told by others that it's likely I'll have to turf someone from my seat - the lack of capacity is very obvious...
Much is made of the bits of fleets of either very old trains being retired or the occasional new fleet built badly. they are distractions from the real problem which is a catastrophic lack of a fleet plan.
Post-privatisation the industry knew what it was doing. A clear structure meant that investing in rolling stock was a managed risk which the private sector undertook.
Then the DfT started meddling, speccing trains for individual franchises (like Transpennine or Thameslink) which are under-specced and grotesquely expensive due to civil servants not knowing how to negotiate.
As an example, the DfT-mandated AT300s for Great Western (Class 800) - not at the spec required by the operator and at vast cost. Great Western later negotiate an add-on fleet (Class 802) to a suitable spec at much lower cost.
The AT300 family isn't perfect, but it could be improved, and they are becoming ubiquitous. So we need the Rail Delivery Group spec for a train suitable for inter-operator use. Seats with padding and leg room, luggage space, enhanced trolley space. And build hundreds of them.
You aren't getting luggage space - every seat is required to meet passenger numbers.
If you were trying to count the number of ways cancelling HS2 has screwed multiple things up you would run out of fingers and toes before the list even got going...
Someone elsewhere this morning said this is Government by localized focus group with ideas decided upon on the basis of how a few (usually relatively insane because they attend focus groups) people in that constituency / constituencies respond.
BTW the cancellation of HS2 also screws up (even more) the 4 train building firms in the UK
Philip Haigh @philatrail HS2 has 54 trains on order from Hitachi/Alstom in a £2bn deal. DfT is apparently now suggesting that deal is renegotiated for a smaller number of trains with an alternative option of trying to find work elsewhere for those not needed for HS2 services.
It's abundantly clear that there has been essentially no planning for scrapping HS2 or what to do with the funds released (assuming you even buy that view of things). It's a lazy and dishonest way to go about governing even if you agree with the intent.
OMG just realised the Tories lost their deposit in Rutherglen...
Come the next election I wonder if we see asymmetric tactical voting in Scotland. Erstwhile Tories tactical voting en masse for Labour candidates, but Labour supporters not returning the favour.
A chill gets me out of bed though hardly full of the joys of autumn.
A strong result for Labour before their Conference and a good step on the road for the party on its journey back to power. The prospect of re-establishing its presence in Scottish politics (no one is talking about a Conservative wipeout as in 1997 it seems).is a step toward building that voting coalition and majority.
As with other by-elections (bar Uxbridge), the Conservative vote disintegrated (the LDs did little better) to Labour or stayed at home,
Labour now has its Conference and for the first time in many years it's in the position of being taken seriously - we know there will be a strong business presence for example. Doubtless the Mail, Express and others will try to whip the slightest hint of dissent or disagreement with Starmer into some frenetic sceptre of chaos and division but those commentators who lavished praise on Braverman and Sunak's efforts this week can hardly be expected (or trusted) to give a reasonable and objective analysis of Starmer or Reeves.
Starmer may be Blair without the charisma but he's realised, like Blair, Labour never wins when it is too radical (it did in 1945 under unique circumstances). The route to power lies in reassuring the disillusioned or angry ex-Conservative voters and that re-assurance has to go on right up to Polling Day. Things won't change too much but they will be done "better". This week, Sunak has written his version of the infamous Liam Byrne note from 2010 and that will temper expectations and give Starmer a nice big target to aim at both next week and for years to come.
Next week will be all about re-assurance - if there is a hint of second term radicalism, it will stay hidden for now. It's all about getting the election won and then getting on with Government. Part of that re-assurance will be to not sound hubristic - Starmer knows the Conservatives aren't finished and they will fight and claw and cling on to the very end - it won't be edifying and the country will suffer but that's how politics works.
Some of us feel that the circumstances of now are closer to 1945 than any other election in the intervening period. There is room for Starmer to be more radical. The tragedy is really his apparent disinclination to take the opportunity.
I suspect because he fears (perhaps with a lot of justification) that his support is very wide but also very shallow.
Correct.
I think he does have some room for manoeuvre and should be bolder, but he needs to spend his political capital really, really cleverly.
The next GE is going to be the Tories throwing a bucketload of mud at Starmer and hoping something sticks. He can’t afford to have something unravel like Mrs May’s care policy, for instance, because it’s very easy to see how a commanding lead in the polls narrows significantly by polling day if your opponents seize the narrative.
Starmer is a prosecutor by both training and inclination, and plays the long game. He finished off Johnson by his questions that led to lying in parliament. There was a long slow fuse that led to Johnon leaving parliament.
There is a purpose to his every move, and he has been setting up heffalump traps for Sunak everywhere. Starmer also doesn't fight a battle of his choice unless a decisive advantage.
Britain would benefit from a much more strategic approach to government. Certainly transforming Labour within 3 years from Corbynite shambles to a government in waiting is a remarkable feat.
Whether such a plodding strategic approach can survive the fast moving world of government is yet to be seen.
Why on earth are you “pro Scottish independence”? Do you want to see the UK broken up? Why?
IIRC you are a staunch Remoaner. All the arguments against Brexit apply - tenfold - to Scottish separatism. For a start it would cause economic depression in Scotland, deep recession in the rUK, and grievous pain and chaos for millions of people, for a decade
How can you desire that?
I know several people who hold these twin positions - ardent Remainerism and pro Indy - and I’ve never understood how they can be so glibly reconciled
Some of us aren’t pro-independence so much as pro-self determination. I’ve spent decent chunks of my life in both Scotland and England and they have a very different culture. If the Scots really want to govern their own affairs then I would always support their right to choose to do so.
Sturgeon’s genius was in - for some time - holding the faultlines in Scottish nationalism together. The Tartan Tory wing and the Central Belties will always be uneasy bedfellows. That rapprochement is now over for the foreseeable and I think it’ll be another 15 years or more before someone emerges that can bring them together again. Hint, it won’t be Forbes.
I agree with much of this
I make one point: Scotland is entitled to a degree of self determination but the UK as a whole is entitled to look after its integrity as a nation and a union. The two must be carefully balanced
So Cameron was right to allow indyref1. But the British Parliament is now right to say: No, there won’t be another for a generation, you had your say and you chose to remain
The generation argument was utterly lame post-Brexit, Brexit marked the end of the generation we were in the EU and marked the start of a new era.
But if you want to go on a pure timescale era its increasingly lame too. By the end of the next Westminster Parliament it will have been 15 years since the last referendum which is coming up close towards a generation however you slice it.
Indeed its worth noting that at the the time of the IndyRef it was Millennials like myself that were the youngest generation of adults, now Millennials like myself are entering or in middle age and most of Gen Z are already adults.
I’m curious where you draw the line on the self determination thing. If Scotland must have the right to secede whenever it likes, how about wales? Or indeed the Shetland isles? They are culturally distinct and have been non Scottish in their time (and non British)
How about the Orkneys? Or Cornwall? Again distinct and independent in their time
Yorkshire? Cumbria? Kent? Hereford? You? Where does it end?
At some point a nation - Britain in this case - must be willing and able to defend its integrity and say STFU
Britain isn't a nation - it is several. That is the problem. Either we accept and respect that there are 4 nations (and other mini nations like the Kernow) or we scrap all of it and reform ourselves as a single entity.
Scotland is distinct from England is distinct from Wales etc etc. If they are distinct enough to have their own laws, education systems, football leagues, international sporting representation etc then they are distinct enough to become a clearly defined national group in a way that none of your other examples are.
But what if a majority of people in Cornwall or Northumberland or Shetland feel they ARE a nation and want independence? Who are you to stop them?
Let them. For a state to work in the medium to long term it has to be the natural expression of the settled will of the majority of its people. The UK worked for a long time because it was that expression. Now it seems that the individual countries are becoming a better expression of that will and as such the UK will probably dissolve in the next 50 years.
If, in the future, another part of England or Scotland felt that those countries were no longer 'of use' then the same process would hopefully happen. The alternative is people being forced to live under an artificial construct they hold no loyalty or love for. Or worse actively hate.
The same applies the other way round of course. If the settled will of the people of Europe (the people not the politicians) is for a country called Europe then that is what should be created.
Why on earth are you “pro Scottish independence”? Do you want to see the UK broken up? Why?
IIRC you are a staunch Remoaner. All the arguments against Brexit apply - tenfold - to Scottish separatism. For a start it would cause economic depression in Scotland, deep recession in the rUK, and grievous pain and chaos for millions of people, for a decade
How can you desire that?
I know several people who hold these twin positions - ardent Remainerism and pro Indy - and I’ve never understood how they can be so glibly reconciled
I do, for t he same reason I voted for Brexit.
Yes the same arguments for Brexit apply. Which is why I voted for Brexit, and why I support Sindy.
I voted for Brexit on the grounds of democracy and sovereignty. Inside the EU Britain was governed by an unelected elite of Eurocrats in a foreign country
None of this applies to Scotland. Scotland is governed by the MPs we all elect to Westminster (in our national capital), who sit in an entirely democratic chamber with the power to propose, enact and repeal laws
If the Scots decide they loathe the government they, like all Britons, can kick them out at the next election. None of us was able to eject Ursula von der Leyen
And the 99.7% of us who aren't Tory members had no say in the imposition of the Trusster or Rishi.
I have no issue with parliament deciding who has the confidence of the House, that is their role, and we will get our say soon.
It's who they decide on and what that person does which matters.
There is no perfect way of doing these things. It was a point in comparison to the appointment of der Leyen.
I know, but it's not a very good one nonetheless. I agree that point gets overblown and overegged, but that stock retort just doesn't work for me since it requires the idea we should not be able to switch PMs without a GE, yet we've done that many many times. So it just falls flat.
If we had a proper constitution, not something that each successive government can change as it pleases (see FTPA), we could have written in it that if a PM changes mid-term there has to be a GE within 6 months. That would fix that issue.
That might be a good idea, but I do push back at the 'proper constitution' bit. Like most such arguments I think it assumes a codified constitution solves more problems than it does (a bit like how PR may be a good idea - I think so - but some people suggest it will magically improve the quality of our politicians somehow too).
FTPA is an interesting point, since your suggestion (which I'd support as a law) is akin to what the Act was attempting, by codifying more rules around election timing rather than relying on convention and governmental whim. Yet it was bypassed easily and both main parties were going to junk it. Why would it being in a constitution prevent that from happening? You could make things harder to change, but they still could be.
Good point
Everyone used to admire the US Constitution but it doesn’t look so good now, with the right to bear arms proving “problematic” and the politicisation of the judiciary becoming evermore poisonous
There is a flexible genius in an unwritten constitution like ours. We could easily replace it with something written and WORSE
Yes, it's so flexible that Parliament could do exactly that almost overnight.
Lots of reasons for the SNP to lose: financial chicanery, the Calmac ferries, really poor legislation - much of which has had to be withdrawn or challenged, waste of money, dancing to the tune of monomaniac lobbyists, failure to make good on promises, in-fighting, arrogance.
This is what is happening to the Tories. And will result in similar electoral misfortune.
Labour publicly learnt a lesson from the SNP's problems with the GRR Bill and made a change to their stated policy. That I think is one of Starmer's strengths. He doesn't simply say he will learn lessons. He actually shows this. It has been criticised as dreary triangulation by some or breaking promises by others. And there is a risk that he looks untrustworthy. But his willingness to change tack, say so publicly and say why is potentially heartening.
And @Heathener, women's rights are not inconsequential or irrelevant. You sound very gammon-like saying stuff like that. Much like the SNP's counsel this week saying that women's rights to associate freely with other women was "trivial". That was the word used. Trivial. With luck the end of the SNP will stop such condescending and offensive rubbish being uttered by them and their fellow travellers.
Yes, I think Starmers policy on Trans rights is a well balanced one on a very contentious issue that respects sex-based rights but avoids the repellent Trans-phobia on display last week. It is where I am on the issue, and it is also a position that most of the country can live with too.
Once again the focus is always on trans rights when it is not their rights which are the issue (they have exactly the same rights as everyone else). But the effect of giving them a privilege which no other group has on the rights of others.
Labour's position on women's right and the Equality Act is better than it was certainly. It needs clarifying in certain respects. There is a worrying silence about single sex services and associations which must be protected, for instance. https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/questions-questions/
It is largely a result of pressure from a lot of Labour women - young women - especially Labour Women's Declaration even though, shamefully, they have not been allowed a stand at the Labour conference. As for what the Tories announced this week, Barclay said that he would ensure single sex wards, a promise made in 2010 but since broken repeatedly. It is entirely supported by Labour. As for the PM's statement in his speech, this was announced by Kay Burley to be in breach of the EA. Which shows only that she - like many others - hasn't the first clue what the Act actually says.
Anyway in a week's time I shall be in Glasgow at a feminist conference. Lots of interesting international speakers. I shall report back!
I agree that there need to be sex related rights too, but really hate the Transphopia coming from the right.
I know two Trans people fairly well, one being Fox-jrs flat mate who I have known for a decade, the other a cousin who is non binary, but inclining to be a Trans-man.. Both have some mental health issues, and this is tangled up with their gender issues in complex ways, but ultimately they are good, kind people who need support from friends and family.
I know two - one male, one female (lesbian). Both with dysphoria. Both lovely people with very supportive family and friends. Both pretty disgusted with and opposed to the behaviour of trans activists. Both loathe the Tories for what they have allowed on their watch. Both despise Stonewall and my lesbian friend, married with 2 lovely boys, in particular is incensed with their approach to lesbians. She sees it as nothing less than homophobia. Quite a few of my lesbian friends have the same view. They think it utterly lazy thinking to view this as a problem of the right. Misogyny and homophobia - bigotry generally - are cross party. No one has a claim to virtue on this and thinking this is solely a problem of the right is the laziest of thinking.
That might well be the case, but it finds its most comfortable home on the right.
I’m really not sure that’s true
On the right I think you find more confusion and bewilderment. They don’t understand what the fight is even about
Eg it’s noticeable that the bitterest online trans arguments tend to be between LEFT wing feminist women - J K Rowling, Joanna Cherry - and the trans militants
I agree. Trans activists are desperate to find right wing opponents but have largely been met by a shrug and a distinct lack of interest. It is women's rights supporters that have taken up the cudgels which is why this is such an uncomfortable fight for the activists. The "rights" they are claiming trample on hard won rights for women and women are not happy about it, and rightly so.
Or those opponents who are sincerely motivated by women's rights are really acting as the dupes of bigots who are too canny openly to oppose trans rights as a matter of principle.
So J K Rowling is actually some willing dupe of a secret cabal of super clever anti-Trans Nazis?
Do you realise how that sounds?
To channel Titania McGrath:
"Whenever I point out that JK Rowling is an evil transphobe, her defenders always ask for “evidence”.
But Rowling’s tactic is to not attack trans people in order to make it look as though she is not attacking trans people.
It’s the oldest trick in the book."
@Chris expressed it clumsily, but I think there is a role that the right wing are playing in this.
Inflexible idealists on both sides are clashing over incompatible rights. That’s primarily left of centre infighting. But I do think the government and other right of centre commentators are making strategic ‘wedge’ interventions to amplify the disagreements and deliberately make it more toxic for either side to agree a compromise ie ‘culture wars’ crap.
As an aside @Foxy and @cyclefree thank you for an exchange upthread that was, as is rarely the case these days, more heat than light. I consistently learn from what you two write, even when disagreeing with each other.
ETA: there are of course plenty of people across the political spectrum who are expressing their views with integrity and flexibility. They just get less air time.
BTW the cancellation of HS2 also screws up (even more) the 4 train building firms in the UK
Philip Haigh @philatrail HS2 has 54 trains on order from Hitachi/Alstom in a £2bn deal. DfT is apparently now suggesting that deal is renegotiated for a smaller number of trains with an alternative option of trying to find work elsewhere for those not needed for HS2 services.
1. HS2's entire business model was designed around 400m train lengths. That surely is now in the bin as they won't fit at most stations (likely including the Poundland Euston) so already that's a 50% cut in vehicles 2. HS2 trains Will Not Tilt. Hitachi don't build tilting trains and its either Hitachi or their factory closes*. 3. What use is a bespoke fleet of HS-compatible non-tilting trains which slow the WCML down?
* I've posted previously that those tossers at the DfT should agree standard AT200 / AT300 specs with the Rail Delivery Group (i.e. fitted with seats with cushions, and with luggage racks) and then build a lot of them. We solve the overcrowding problems on the network by running longer trains.
If only that was the case - with the old 125s now removed from Cross Country routes the train I'm catching tomorrow to Bristol has 4 carriages when until last month it had 8.
I have a received seat and I'm getting on at an early stop - but I've still be told by others that it's likely I'll have to turf someone from my seat - the lack of capacity is very obvious...
Much is made of the bits of fleets of either very old trains being retired or the occasional new fleet built badly. they are distractions from the real problem which is a catastrophic lack of a fleet plan.
Post-privatisation the industry knew what it was doing. A clear structure meant that investing in rolling stock was a managed risk which the private sector undertook.
Then the DfT started meddling, speccing trains for individual franchises (like Transpennine or Thameslink) which are under-specced and grotesquely expensive due to civil servants not knowing how to negotiate.
As an example, the DfT-mandated AT300s for Great Western (Class 800) - not at the spec required by the operator and at vast cost. Great Western later negotiate an add-on fleet (Class 802) to a suitable spec at much lower cost.
The AT300 family isn't perfect, but it could be improved, and they are becoming ubiquitous. So we need the Rail Delivery Group spec for a train suitable for inter-operator use. Seats with padding and leg room, luggage space, enhanced trolley space. And build hundreds of them.
And even then GWR were told they couldn't diverge too much from the DfT spec with their own 802s. Hence the complete waste of half a carriage, on a fleet of 100 trains, on the kitchens used for just 6 (six) weekday services.
Lots of reasons for the SNP to lose: financial chicanery, the Calmac ferries, really poor legislation - much of which has had to be withdrawn or challenged, waste of money, dancing to the tune of monomaniac lobbyists, failure to make good on promises, in-fighting, arrogance.
This is what is happening to the Tories. And will result in similar electoral misfortune.
Labour publicly learnt a lesson from the SNP's problems with the GRR Bill and made a change to their stated policy. That I think is one of Starmer's strengths. He doesn't simply say he will learn lessons. He actually shows this. It has been criticised as dreary triangulation by some or breaking promises by others. And there is a risk that he looks untrustworthy. But his willingness to change tack, say so publicly and say why is potentially heartening.
And @Heathener, women's rights are not inconsequential or irrelevant. You sound very gammon-like saying stuff like that. Much like the SNP's counsel this week saying that women's rights to associate freely with other women was "trivial". That was the word used. Trivial. With luck the end of the SNP will stop such condescending and offensive rubbish being uttered by them and their fellow travellers.
Yes, I think Starmers policy on Trans rights is a well balanced one on a very contentious issue that respects sex-based rights but avoids the repellent Trans-phobia on display last week. It is where I am on the issue, and it is also a position that most of the country can live with too.
Once again the focus is always on trans rights when it is not their rights which are the issue (they have exactly the same rights as everyone else). But the effect of giving them a privilege which no other group has on the rights of others.
Labour's position on women's right and the Equality Act is better than it was certainly. It needs clarifying in certain respects. There is a worrying silence about single sex services and associations which must be protected, for instance. https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/questions-questions/
It is largely a result of pressure from a lot of Labour women - young women - especially Labour Women's Declaration even though, shamefully, they have not been allowed a stand at the Labour conference. As for what the Tories announced this week, Barclay said that he would ensure single sex wards, a promise made in 2010 but since broken repeatedly. It is entirely supported by Labour. As for the PM's statement in his speech, this was announced by Kay Burley to be in breach of the EA. Which shows only that she - like many others - hasn't the first clue what the Act actually says.
Anyway in a week's time I shall be in Glasgow at a feminist conference. Lots of interesting international speakers. I shall report back!
I agree that there need to be sex related rights too, but really hate the Transphopia coming from the right.
I know two Trans people fairly well, one being Fox-jrs flat mate who I have known for a decade, the other a cousin who is non binary, but inclining to be a Trans-man.. Both have some mental health issues, and this is tangled up with their gender issues in complex ways, but ultimately they are good, kind people who need support from friends and family.
I know two - one male, one female (lesbian). Both with dysphoria. Both lovely people with very supportive family and friends. Both pretty disgusted with and opposed to the behaviour of trans activists. Both loathe the Tories for what they have allowed on their watch. Both despise Stonewall and my lesbian friend, married with 2 lovely boys, in particular is incensed with their approach to lesbians. She sees it as nothing less than homophobia. Quite a few of my lesbian friends have the same view. They think it utterly lazy thinking to view this as a problem of the right. Misogyny and homophobia - bigotry generally - are cross party. No one has a claim to virtue on this and thinking this is solely a problem of the right is the laziest of thinking.
That might well be the case, but it finds its most comfortable home on the right.
I’m really not sure that’s true
On the right I think you find more confusion and bewilderment. They don’t understand what the fight is even about
Eg it’s noticeable that the bitterest online trans arguments tend to be between LEFT wing feminist women - J K Rowling, Joanna Cherry - and the trans militants
I agree. Trans activists are desperate to find right wing opponents but have largely been met by a shrug and a distinct lack of interest. It is women's rights supporters that have taken up the cudgels which is why this is such an uncomfortable fight for the activists. The "rights" they are claiming trample on hard won rights for women and women are not happy about it, and rightly so.
Or those opponents who are sincerely motivated by women's rights are really acting as the dupes of bigots who are too canny openly to oppose trans rights as a matter of principle.
So J K Rowling is actually some willing dupe of a secret cabal of super clever anti-Trans Nazis?
Do you realise how that sounds?
To channel Titania McGrath:
"Whenever I point out that JK Rowling is an evil transphobe, her defenders always ask for “evidence”.
But Rowling’s tactic is to not attack trans people in order to make it look as though she is not attacking trans people.
BTW the cancellation of HS2 also screws up (even more) the 4 train building firms in the UK
Philip Haigh @philatrail HS2 has 54 trains on order from Hitachi/Alstom in a £2bn deal. DfT is apparently now suggesting that deal is renegotiated for a smaller number of trains with an alternative option of trying to find work elsewhere for those not needed for HS2 services.
It's abundantly clear that there has been essentially no planning for scrapping HS2 or what to do with the funds released (assuming you even buy that view of things). It's a lazy and dishonest way to go about governing even if you agree with the intent.
Thing is it's capital expenditure using money that would be borrowed - so outside of HS2 it actually doesn't exist.
Which is what most people fail to grasp and why all the replacement schemes are disappearing back to dreams so quickly - the money doesn't exist.
Oh and the plans for Euston are now not even enough to run HS2 to Birmingham successfully
A year today we could be chewing over a Labour landslide and debating where the Tories go next (oblivion, hopefully).
If the stars align, 2024 could see the great reversal of 3 big electoral trends all at once. I'll not get my hopes up too much, but it's conceivable based on current polling.
1. The rolling back of the 2019 Tory Brexit caliphate and Labour's reconquista of the Red Wall. 2. The reversal of the 2015 SNP avalanche 3. The recapture of the Lib Dem Wessex heartlands after Cameron's illegal annexation in 2015
The last few elections, including 2017, have been miserable affairs for a voter like me. The occasional good effort at locals doesn't really compensate. Several times in succession I've found myself sitting up alone at 4am, strong drink in hand, wondering why I hadn't just got early night. Surely everyone needs a happy election once in a while.
The basic problem is that whoever you vote for the politicians always win. As such I never celebrate any election result (The Brexit vote being the rare exception)
In 2015 I was a young Conservative Intern who helped a relatively unknown Prospective Parliamentary Candidate get elected in North Yorkshire with 27,744 votes.
BTW the cancellation of HS2 also screws up (even more) the 4 train building firms in the UK
Philip Haigh @philatrail HS2 has 54 trains on order from Hitachi/Alstom in a £2bn deal. DfT is apparently now suggesting that deal is renegotiated for a smaller number of trains with an alternative option of trying to find work elsewhere for those not needed for HS2 services.
1. HS2's entire business model was designed around 400m train lengths. That surely is now in the bin as they won't fit at most stations (likely including the Poundland Euston) so already that's a 50% cut in vehicles 2. HS2 trains Will Not Tilt. Hitachi don't build tilting trains and its either Hitachi or their factory closes*. 3. What use is a bespoke fleet of HS-compatible non-tilting trains which slow the WCML down?
* I've posted previously that those tossers at the DfT should agree standard AT200 / AT300 specs with the Rail Delivery Group (i.e. fitted with seats with cushions, and with luggage racks) and then build a lot of them. We solve the overcrowding problems on the network by running longer trains.
If only that was the case - with the old 125s now removed from Cross Country routes the train I'm catching tomorrow to Bristol has 4 carriages when until last month it had 8.
I have a received seat and I'm getting on at an early stop - but I've still be told by others that it's likely I'll have to turf someone from my seat - the lack of capacity is very obvious...
Much is made of the bits of fleets of either very old trains being retired or the occasional new fleet built badly. they are distractions from the real problem which is a catastrophic lack of a fleet plan.
Post-privatisation the industry knew what it was doing. A clear structure meant that investing in rolling stock was a managed risk which the private sector undertook.
Then the DfT started meddling, speccing trains for individual franchises (like Transpennine or Thameslink) which are under-specced and grotesquely expensive due to civil servants not knowing how to negotiate.
As an example, the DfT-mandated AT300s for Great Western (Class 800) - not at the spec required by the operator and at vast cost. Great Western later negotiate an add-on fleet (Class 802) to a suitable spec at much lower cost.
The AT300 family isn't perfect, but it could be improved, and they are becoming ubiquitous. So we need the Rail Delivery Group spec for a train suitable for inter-operator use. Seats with padding and leg room, luggage space, enhanced trolley space. And build hundreds of them.
Would this have been the case if privatisation hadn't happend. Since the offending party is the DfT it seems likely it would.
Yes. BR specced trains, not the DfT. Two examples - Network SouthEast created the Networker to replace various types of commuter trains and built hundreds of them. Provincial the same with Sprinters.
The thing with the US constitution is that it is predicated on the key players fundamentally being conciliatory enough to work together to achieve common ground. The system completely seizes up and creates further grievance when this doesn’t happen, as seen now and arguably also before the Civil War.
When it works, it works great. When it doesn’t, it REALLY doesn’t.
Why on earth are you “pro Scottish independence”? Do you want to see the UK broken up? Why?
IIRC you are a staunch Remoaner. All the arguments against Brexit apply - tenfold - to Scottish separatism. For a start it would cause economic depression in Scotland, deep recession in the rUK, and grievous pain and chaos for millions of people, for a decade
How can you desire that?
I know several people who hold these twin positions - ardent Remainerism and pro Indy - and I’ve never understood how they can be so glibly reconciled
Some of us aren’t pro-independence so much as pro-self determination. I’ve spent decent chunks of my life in both Scotland and England and they have a very different culture. If the Scots really want to govern their own affairs then I would always support their right to choose to do so.
Sturgeon’s genius was in - for some time - holding the faultlines in Scottish nationalism together. The Tartan Tory wing and the Central Belties will always be uneasy bedfellows. That rapprochement is now over for the foreseeable and I think it’ll be another 15 years or more before someone emerges that can bring them together again. Hint, it won’t be Forbes.
I agree with much of this
I make one point: Scotland is entitled to a degree of self determination but the UK as a whole is entitled to look after its integrity as a nation and a union. The two must be carefully balanced
So Cameron was right to allow indyref1. But the British Parliament is now right to say: No, there won’t be another for a generation, you had your say and you chose to remain
The generation argument was utterly lame post-Brexit, Brexit marked the end of the generation we were in the EU and marked the start of a new era.
But if you want to go on a pure timescale era its increasingly lame too. By the end of the next Westminster Parliament it will have been 15 years since the last referendum which is coming up close towards a generation however you slice it.
Indeed its worth noting that at the the time of the IndyRef it was Millennials like myself that were the youngest generation of adults, now Millennials like myself are entering or in middle age and most of Gen Z are already adults.
I’m curious where you draw the line on the self determination thing. If Scotland must have the right to secede whenever it likes, how about wales? Or indeed the Shetland isles? They are culturally distinct and have been non Scottish in their time (and non British)
How about the Orkneys? Or Cornwall? Again distinct and independent in their time
Yorkshire? Cumbria? Kent? Hereford? You? Where does it end?
At some point a nation - Britain in this case - must be willing and able to defend its integrity and say STFU
Britain isn't a nation - it is several. That is the problem. Either we accept and respect that there are 4 nations (and other mini nations like the Kernow) or we scrap all of it and reform ourselves as a single entity.
Scotland is distinct from England is distinct from Wales etc etc. If they are distinct enough to have their own laws, education systems, football leagues, international sporting representation etc then they are distinct enough to become a clearly defined national group in a way that none of your other examples are.
Own laws you say? Federated nations with large state powers are not nations then?
I think this the UK is not a nation idea is a bit nonsensical. It is a nation because its treated as one, that's all a nation is. It is a union of somewhat distinct areas but that's hardly unique, even if our sporting arrangements often are.
The question I think is not whether the UK is Nation and must either break up if not or consolidate if it it is, but whether the nation as formulated still works.
Many say no. I disagree but I can understand why they say that, and it cannot be held together indefinitely if enough think that in distinct areas.
But it's a bit like the mostly now retired jibe about British identity being artificial. So is every national identity on earth, we're all just human beings, but for periods of decades to hundreds of years we come together to believe in an artificial construction.
Places like England and Scotland are probably pretty unusual in having relatively firm identity for so long
Yes. All nationalities are confections in the end. A willed dream of unity
But there IS a willed dream of Britishness. Of Britain. And it definitely exists
Go to a massive multinational event abroad and the Brits - Scots, Londoners, Geordies and Cornish - will cluster together. Because they are British and have a shared British culture and shared British jokes. The Scots don’t hang out with the Germans and Bulgarians because they “feel more European”
The nationality most likely to group WITH us is the Aussies, in my experience (and this works both ways)
Lots of reasons for the SNP to lose: financial chicanery, the Calmac ferries, really poor legislation - much of which has had to be withdrawn or challenged, waste of money, dancing to the tune of monomaniac lobbyists, failure to make good on promises, in-fighting, arrogance.
This is what is happening to the Tories. And will result in similar electoral misfortune.
Labour publicly learnt a lesson from the SNP's problems with the GRR Bill and made a change to their stated policy. That I think is one of Starmer's strengths. He doesn't simply say he will learn lessons. He actually shows this. It has been criticised as dreary triangulation by some or breaking promises by others. And there is a risk that he looks untrustworthy. But his willingness to change tack, say so publicly and say why is potentially heartening.
And @Heathener, women's rights are not inconsequential or irrelevant. You sound very gammon-like saying stuff like that. Much like the SNP's counsel this week saying that women's rights to associate freely with other women was "trivial". That was the word used. Trivial. With luck the end of the SNP will stop such condescending and offensive rubbish being uttered by them and their fellow travellers.
Yes, I think Starmers policy on Trans rights is a well balanced one on a very contentious issue that respects sex-based rights but avoids the repellent Trans-phobia on display last week. It is where I am on the issue, and it is also a position that most of the country can live with too.
Once again the focus is always on trans rights when it is not their rights which are the issue (they have exactly the same rights as everyone else). But the effect of giving them a privilege which no other group has on the rights of others.
Labour's position on women's right and the Equality Act is better than it was certainly. It needs clarifying in certain respects. There is a worrying silence about single sex services and associations which must be protected, for instance. https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/questions-questions/
It is largely a result of pressure from a lot of Labour women - young women - especially Labour Women's Declaration even though, shamefully, they have not been allowed a stand at the Labour conference. As for what the Tories announced this week, Barclay said that he would ensure single sex wards, a promise made in 2010 but since broken repeatedly. It is entirely supported by Labour. As for the PM's statement in his speech, this was announced by Kay Burley to be in breach of the EA. Which shows only that she - like many others - hasn't the first clue what the Act actually says.
Anyway in a week's time I shall be in Glasgow at a feminist conference. Lots of interesting international speakers. I shall report back!
I agree that there need to be sex related rights too, but really hate the Transphopia coming from the right.
I know two Trans people fairly well, one being Fox-jrs flat mate who I have known for a decade, the other a cousin who is non binary, but inclining to be a Trans-man.. Both have some mental health issues, and this is tangled up with their gender issues in complex ways, but ultimately they are good, kind people who need support from friends and family.
I know two - one male, one female (lesbian). Both with dysphoria. Both lovely people with very supportive family and friends. Both pretty disgusted with and opposed to the behaviour of trans activists. Both loathe the Tories for what they have allowed on their watch. Both despise Stonewall and my lesbian friend, married with 2 lovely boys, in particular is incensed with their approach to lesbians. She sees it as nothing less than homophobia. Quite a few of my lesbian friends have the same view. They think it utterly lazy thinking to view this as a problem of the right. Misogyny and homophobia - bigotry generally - are cross party. No one has a claim to virtue on this and thinking this is solely a problem of the right is the laziest of thinking.
So let's apply the toilet sieve.
You know one male trans person (presumably FTM?). Does this person poo in the men's loos or the women's loos? Do you approve of their choice?
You know one female trans person (presumably MTF?). Does this person poo in the men's loos or the women's loos? Do you approve of their choice?
Because ultimately this is what it all boils down to.
(I'm not sure which pronouns you use for trans people so I'll guess. You're gender critical so you may be using the TIM/TIF convention. I'm old school so I use the MTF/FTM convention. If you referred to the MTF as male and the FTM as female you'll have to point it out)
One is male with dysphoria. Married. One is a lesbian with dysphoria. My lesbian friend uses the woman's loo. She has gender dysphoria. She is not a man and does not consider herself one. She struggles with her dysphoria but has learnt to live with it and is very glad that she grew up before the push to tell boyish girls that they should be transitioned into boys as opposed to just being non-conforming girls. I have heard this from other lesbian friends of mine who don't fit a stereotypical and rather old-fashioned view of what a girl should be.
I have a lot of sympathy with this myself. I was not at all a girly girl growing up but had a lot of Italian female relatives very intent on turning me into just such a person, against which I rather rebelled.
She looks very mannish to some. I can't see it myself as I think she has a lovely warm face. But she has been challenged sometimes in women's loosand is perfectly fine with this because she understands why some women might do this. She considers it wrong to make women worried about doing this.
When I talk to them I use their names. It is perfectly obvious how I talk about them. The only other trans person I know is a lawyer at a firm I have worked with. Male to female and has done the whole surgical transition. Quite a few years ago now. Supported by the firm and no-one bats an eyelid. Quite a good lawyer too. Admire the bravery. It cannot be easy doing it. There is a colleague in my husband's chambers also. He simply wears women's clothes from time to time. He has not changed his name or anything. So no idea whether he would consider himself trans.
The only point I would make is that none of them are in any way supportive of the moves to take away women's rights to single sex spaces/ services / associations. They just want to be left to get on with their lives. An ambition I fully support.
Why then are so many male trans activists so determined to attack women and their rights?
Why on earth are you “pro Scottish independence”? Do you want to see the UK broken up? Why?
IIRC you are a staunch Remoaner. All the arguments against Brexit apply - tenfold - to Scottish separatism. For a start it would cause economic depression in Scotland, deep recession in the rUK, and grievous pain and chaos for millions of people, for a decade
How can you desire that?
I know several people who hold these twin positions - ardent Remainerism and pro Indy - and I’ve never understood how they can be so glibly reconciled
Some of us aren’t pro-independence so much as pro-self determination. I’ve spent decent chunks of my life in both Scotland and England and they have a very different culture. If the Scots really want to govern their own affairs then I would always support their right to choose to do so.
Sturgeon’s genius was in - for some time - holding the faultlines in Scottish nationalism together. The Tartan Tory wing and the Central Belties will always be uneasy bedfellows. That rapprochement is now over for the foreseeable and I think it’ll be another 15 years or more before someone emerges that can bring them together again. Hint, it won’t be Forbes.
I agree with much of this
I make one point: Scotland is entitled to a degree of self determination but the UK as a whole is entitled to look after its integrity as a nation and a union. The two must be carefully balanced
So Cameron was right to allow indyref1. But the British Parliament is now right to say: No, there won’t be another for a generation, you had your say and you chose to remain
The generation argument was utterly lame post-Brexit, Brexit marked the end of the generation we were in the EU and marked the start of a new era.
But if you want to go on a pure timescale era its increasingly lame too. By the end of the next Westminster Parliament it will have been 15 years since the last referendum which is coming up close towards a generation however you slice it.
Indeed its worth noting that at the the time of the IndyRef it was Millennials like myself that were the youngest generation of adults, now Millennials like myself are entering or in middle age and most of Gen Z are already adults.
I’m curious where you draw the line on the self determination thing. If Scotland must have the right to secede whenever it likes, how about wales? Or indeed the Shetland isles? They are culturally distinct and have been non Scottish in their time (and non British)
How about the Orkneys? Or Cornwall? Again distinct and independent in their time
Yorkshire? Cumbria? Kent? Hereford? You? Where does it end?
At some point a nation - Britain in this case - must be willing and able to defend its integrity and say STFU
The answer to this seems really obvious to me. Any geographical area has every right to seek independence as long as its independence wouldn't cause absurdity to its neighbours. That is, it must be capable of stable self-governance, of controlling its internal affairs without parasitism on the surrounding community.
What do I mean by this? Simply that if a majority of people in an area want independence and can sustain themselves without making claims on their neighbours, then it must be allowed.
Examples: Scotland, obviously. There are plenty of independent countries smaller and poorer than Scotland that get by just fine. Scottish independence would not pose special burden on England. We would be able to have a social, defence, foreign policy, transport and hygiene infrastructure, police, judicial, medical services and all the rest of it. The relevant question is, would they be better and do people want it, not whether it's even possible at all. Christiania: no. It's a tiny area, which doesn't really have an economy beyond a couple of cafes and a lot of drug pushers who don't even live there. The commune is car-free... so all the people who live there just park in the neighbouring streets. It has no means to provide itself water or sewerage systems and is wholly parasitic on the Danish state. Therefore it doesn't matter whether a majority there think it should be independent. It would be too great a burden on the Danish state to allow it.
As for Cornwall or other county-sized geographies... this is at the interface of viability. I think, for example, Shetland could do it. So as far as I'm concerned its none of my business. But if Turriff & District wanted to go its own way then it would be too burdensome on Troupe or Central Buchan for it to be allowed.
If you want a precise red line that says here is ok, 1mm that way is silly, then you won't get it. This isn't an exact science. But that shouldn't put us off from saying that yes, Scottish or Shetland independence is a matter of preference, whereas independence for numbers 22-38 Cambourne Grove is obviously silly.
Why on earth are you “pro Scottish independence”? Do you want to see the UK broken up? Why?
IIRC you are a staunch Remoaner. All the arguments against Brexit apply - tenfold - to Scottish separatism. For a start it would cause economic depression in Scotland, deep recession in the rUK, and grievous pain and chaos for millions of people, for a decade
How can you desire that?
I know several people who hold these twin positions - ardent Remainerism and pro Indy - and I’ve never understood how they can be so glibly reconciled
I do, for t he same reason I voted for Brexit.
Yes the same arguments for Brexit apply. Which is why I voted for Brexit, and why I support Sindy.
I voted for Brexit on the grounds of democracy and sovereignty. Inside the EU Britain was governed by an unelected elite of Eurocrats in a foreign country
None of this applies to Scotland. Scotland is governed by the MPs we all elect to Westminster (in our national capital), who sit in an entirely democratic chamber with the power to propose, enact and repeal laws
If the Scots decide they loathe the government they, like all Britons, can kick them out at the next election. None of us was able to eject Ursula von der Leyen
And the 99.7% of us who aren't Tory members had no say in the imposition of the Trusster or Rishi.
I have no issue with parliament deciding who has the confidence of the House, that is their role, and we will get our say soon.
It's who they decide on and what that person does which matters.
There is no perfect way of doing these things. It was a point in comparison to the appointment of der Leyen.
I know, but it's not a very good one nonetheless. I agree that point gets overblown and overegged, but that stock retort just doesn't work for me since it requires the idea we should not be able to switch PMs without a GE, yet we've done that many many times. So it just falls flat.
If we had a proper constitution, not something that each successive government can change as it pleases (see FTPA), we could have written in it that if a PM changes mid-term there has to be a GE within 6 months. That would fix that issue.
That might be a good idea, but I do push back at the 'proper constitution' bit. Like most such arguments I think it assumes a codified constitution solves more problems than it does (a bit like how PR may be a good idea - I think so - but some people suggest it will magically improve the quality of our politicians somehow too).
FTPA is an interesting point, since your suggestion (which I'd support as a law) is akin to what the Act was attempting, by codifying more rules around election timing rather than relying on convention and governmental whim. Yet it was bypassed easily and both main parties were going to junk it. Why would it being in a constitution prevent that from happening? You could make things harder to change, but they still could be.
Good point
Everyone used to admire the US Constitution but it doesn’t look so good now, with the right to bear arms proving “problematic” and the politicisation of the judiciary becoming evermore poisonous
There is a flexible genius in an unwritten constitution like ours. We could easily replace it with something written and WORSE
I'm not sure who "everyone" is - even the Founding Slaveowners had huge doubts about it when they conclude it - read any history of the Constitutional Convention and it's clear from their letters at the time that most thought it was a very flawed document. There are endless stupidities: it's much too difficult amend, the screwy electoral college, the idiotic Presidential system, the over-powerful judiciary, the separation of powers which means that coherent government is often impossible, etc etc.
The only good thing about it is that its incredible vagueness and confusion has made it possible for the courts to get around its silliest features. But there's no way you'd design anything like it if you started from scratch.
The polling and that by election result are absolutely awful for Sunak.
When will Tory backbenchers realise how useless he is as leader?
I suspect they know but view the other options as even more likely to result in electoral suicide.
The visible enthusiasm at Conference was for Truss, Braverman and Farage, and lukewarm at best elsewhere.
The Conservative Party has lost its mind.
The problem with Sunak is he was deemed more acceptable by the chattering classes.....who aren't ever going to vote for him.
If he wanted to be acceptable to "the chattering classes" then he needed to drop the Culture War stuff. He did the opposite.
He is trying to poison British politics, and thoroughly deserves electoral humiliation.
This might reflect my stupidity but I really cannot tell what Rishi Sunak and the government more widely are trying to do, let alone which voters they are chasing.
BTW the cancellation of HS2 also screws up (even more) the 4 train building firms in the UK
Philip Haigh @philatrail HS2 has 54 trains on order from Hitachi/Alstom in a £2bn deal. DfT is apparently now suggesting that deal is renegotiated for a smaller number of trains with an alternative option of trying to find work elsewhere for those not needed for HS2 services.
1. HS2's entire business model was designed around 400m train lengths. That surely is now in the bin as they won't fit at most stations (likely including the Poundland Euston) so already that's a 50% cut in vehicles 2. HS2 trains Will Not Tilt. Hitachi don't build tilting trains and its either Hitachi or their factory closes*. 3. What use is a bespoke fleet of HS-compatible non-tilting trains which slow the WCML down?
* I've posted previously that those tossers at the DfT should agree standard AT200 / AT300 specs with the Rail Delivery Group (i.e. fitted with seats with cushions, and with luggage racks) and then build a lot of them. We solve the overcrowding problems on the network by running longer trains.
If only that was the case - with the old 125s now removed from Cross Country routes the train I'm catching tomorrow to Bristol has 4 carriages when until last month it had 8.
I have a received seat and I'm getting on at an early stop - but I've still be told by others that it's likely I'll have to turf someone from my seat - the lack of capacity is very obvious...
Much is made of the bits of fleets of either very old trains being retired or the occasional new fleet built badly. they are distractions from the real problem which is a catastrophic lack of a fleet plan.
Post-privatisation the industry knew what it was doing. A clear structure meant that investing in rolling stock was a managed risk which the private sector undertook.
Then the DfT started meddling, speccing trains for individual franchises (like Transpennine or Thameslink) which are under-specced and grotesquely expensive due to civil servants not knowing how to negotiate.
As an example, the DfT-mandated AT300s for Great Western (Class 800) - not at the spec required by the operator and at vast cost. Great Western later negotiate an add-on fleet (Class 802) to a suitable spec at much lower cost.
The AT300 family isn't perfect, but it could be improved, and they are becoming ubiquitous. So we need the Rail Delivery Group spec for a train suitable for inter-operator use. Seats with padding and leg room, luggage space, enhanced trolley space. And build hundreds of them.
Would this have been the case if privatisation hadn't happend. Since the offending party is the DfT it seems likely it would.
Yes. BR specced trains, not the DfT. Two examples - Network SouthEast created the Networker to replace various types of commuter trains and built hundreds of them. Provincial the same with Sprinters.
BR specced trains, but the DfT and the treasury were heavily involved. AIUI BR has to get 'permission' before they purchased any stock from both; they has trouble getting permission for even the APT-P's, and even the first Sprinters in were fought against by the treasury - until it was pointed out that the state of the old first-generation DMUs was such that they were becoming increasingly costly to maintain.
Though asbestos in them was also a problem, and apparently that was an argument that got the funding over the line.
Why on earth are you “pro Scottish independence”? Do you want to see the UK broken up? Why?
IIRC you are a staunch Remoaner. All the arguments against Brexit apply - tenfold - to Scottish separatism. For a start it would cause economic depression in Scotland, deep recession in the rUK, and grievous pain and chaos for millions of people, for a decade
How can you desire that?
I know several people who hold these twin positions - ardent Remainerism and pro Indy - and I’ve never understood how they can be so glibly reconciled
Some of us aren’t pro-independence so much as pro-self determination. I’ve spent decent chunks of my life in both Scotland and England and they have a very different culture. If the Scots really want to govern their own affairs then I would always support their right to choose to do so.
Sturgeon’s genius was in - for some time - holding the faultlines in Scottish nationalism together. The Tartan Tory wing and the Central Belties will always be uneasy bedfellows. That rapprochement is now over for the foreseeable and I think it’ll be another 15 years or more before someone emerges that can bring them together again. Hint, it won’t be Forbes.
I agree with much of this
I make one point: Scotland is entitled to a degree of self determination but the UK as a whole is entitled to look after its integrity as a nation and a union. The two must be carefully balanced
So Cameron was right to allow indyref1. But the British Parliament is now right to say: No, there won’t be another for a generation, you had your say and you chose to remain
The generation argument was utterly lame post-Brexit, Brexit marked the end of the generation we were in the EU and marked the start of a new era.
But if you want to go on a pure timescale era its increasingly lame too. By the end of the next Westminster Parliament it will have been 15 years since the last referendum which is coming up close towards a generation however you slice it.
Indeed its worth noting that at the the time of the IndyRef it was Millennials like myself that were the youngest generation of adults, now Millennials like myself are entering or in middle age and most of Gen Z are already adults.
I’m curious where you draw the line on the self determination thing. If Scotland must have the right to secede whenever it likes, how about wales? Or indeed the Shetland isles? They are culturally distinct and have been non Scottish in their time (and non British)
How about the Orkneys? Or Cornwall? Again distinct and independent in their time
Yorkshire? Cumbria? Kent? Hereford? You? Where does it end?
At some point a nation - Britain in this case - must be willing and able to defend its integrity and say STFU
Britain isn't a nation - it is several. That is the problem. Either we accept and respect that there are 4 nations (and other mini nations like the Kernow) or we scrap all of it and reform ourselves as a single entity.
Scotland is distinct from England is distinct from Wales etc etc. If they are distinct enough to have their own laws, education systems, football leagues, international sporting representation etc then they are distinct enough to become a clearly defined national group in a way that none of your other examples are.
But what if a majority of people in Cornwall or Northumberland or Shetland feel they ARE a nation and want independence? Who are you to stop them?
Let them. For a state to work in the medium to long term it has to be the natural expression of the settled will of the majority of its people. The UK worked for a long time because it was that expression. Now it seems that the individual countries are becoming a better expression of that will and as such the UK will probably dissolve in the next 50 years.
If, in the future, another part of England or Scotland felt that those countries were no longer 'of use' then the same process would hopefully happen. The alternative is people being forced to live under an artificial construct they hold no loyalty or love for. Or worse actively hate.
The same applies the other way round of course. If the settled will of the people of Europe (the people not the politicians) is for a country called Europe then that is what should be created.
I agree with most of that except…I think culturally we tend towards the easy option a little too much at the moment. As a Cornish person myself I can see the emotional appeal of independence whilst also recognising it would be fairly disastrous. It is almost exclusively a negative choice (not wanting to be associated with the wider uk) rather than a positive choice (a vision for an independent Cornwall).
So a settled will for independence in Cornwall might be something we come to a little too easily whilst not thinking through the consequences.
I think collectively we make these sorts of negative decisions too often at present cf Brexit, rates of divorce, when in many cases (but not all) we should be more willing to live in the messy compromise of the present.
Of course, believing in democracy, I still think we should respect that settled will, even if I’m uneasy about how it comes about.
The basic problem is that whoever you vote for the politicians always win. As such I never celebrate any election result (The Brexit vote being the rare exception)
Brexit was perhaps the single greatest example of the politicians winning in living memory.
BoZo got the Crown, and the people got shafted (and continue to suffer)
A year today we could be chewing over a Labour landslide and debating where the Tories go next (oblivion, hopefully).
If the stars align, 2024 could see the great reversal of 3 big electoral trends all at once. I'll not get my hopes up too much, but it's conceivable based on current polling.
1. The rolling back of the 2019 Tory Brexit caliphate and Labour's reconquista of the Red Wall. 2. The reversal of the 2015 SNP avalanche 3. The recapture of the Lib Dem Wessex heartlands after Cameron's illegal annexation in 2015
The last few elections, including 2017, have been miserable affairs for a voter like me. The occasional good effort at locals doesn't really compensate. Several times in succession I've found myself sitting up alone at 4am, strong drink in hand, wondering why I hadn't just got early night. Surely everyone needs a happy election once in a while.
The basic problem is that whoever you vote for the politicians always win. As such I never celebrate any election result (The Brexit vote being the rare exception)
Yes there's no doubt that the politicians always win and theat the country always gets what it votes for, to be sure
Lots of reasons for the SNP to lose: financial chicanery, the Calmac ferries, really poor legislation - much of which has had to be withdrawn or challenged, waste of money, dancing to the tune of monomaniac lobbyists, failure to make good on promises, in-fighting, arrogance.
This is what is happening to the Tories. And will result in similar electoral misfortune.
Labour publicly learnt a lesson from the SNP's problems with the GRR Bill and made a change to their stated policy. That I think is one of Starmer's strengths. He doesn't simply say he will learn lessons. He actually shows this. It has been criticised as dreary triangulation by some or breaking promises by others. And there is a risk that he looks untrustworthy. But his willingness to change tack, say so publicly and say why is potentially heartening.
And @Heathener, women's rights are not inconsequential or irrelevant. You sound very gammon-like saying stuff like that. Much like the SNP's counsel this week saying that women's rights to associate freely with other women was "trivial". That was the word used. Trivial. With luck the end of the SNP will stop such condescending and offensive rubbish being uttered by them and their fellow travellers.
Yes, I think Starmers policy on Trans rights is a well balanced one on a very contentious issue that respects sex-based rights but avoids the repellent Trans-phobia on display last week. It is where I am on the issue, and it is also a position that most of the country can live with too.
Once again the focus is always on trans rights when it is not their rights which are the issue (they have exactly the same rights as everyone else). But the effect of giving them a privilege which no other group has on the rights of others.
Labour's position on women's right and the Equality Act is better than it was certainly. It needs clarifying in certain respects. There is a worrying silence about single sex services and associations which must be protected, for instance. https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/questions-questions/
It is largely a result of pressure from a lot of Labour women - young women - especially Labour Women's Declaration even though, shamefully, they have not been allowed a stand at the Labour conference. As for what the Tories announced this week, Barclay said that he would ensure single sex wards, a promise made in 2010 but since broken repeatedly. It is entirely supported by Labour. As for the PM's statement in his speech, this was announced by Kay Burley to be in breach of the EA. Which shows only that she - like many others - hasn't the first clue what the Act actually says.
Anyway in a week's time I shall be in Glasgow at a feminist conference. Lots of interesting international speakers. I shall report back!
I agree that there need to be sex related rights too, but really hate the Transphopia coming from the right.
I know two Trans people fairly well, one being Fox-jrs flat mate who I have known for a decade, the other a cousin who is non binary, but inclining to be a Trans-man.. Both have some mental health issues, and this is tangled up with their gender issues in complex ways, but ultimately they are good, kind people who need support from friends and family.
I know two - one male, one female (lesbian). Both with dysphoria. Both lovely people with very supportive family and friends. Both pretty disgusted with and opposed to the behaviour of trans activists. Both loathe the Tories for what they have allowed on their watch. Both despise Stonewall and my lesbian friend, married with 2 lovely boys, in particular is incensed with their approach to lesbians. She sees it as nothing less than homophobia. Quite a few of my lesbian friends have the same view. They think it utterly lazy thinking to view this as a problem of the right. Misogyny and homophobia - bigotry generally - are cross party. No one has a claim to virtue on this and thinking this is solely a problem of the right is the laziest of thinking.
That might well be the case, but it finds its most comfortable home on the right.
I’m really not sure that’s true
On the right I think you find more confusion and bewilderment. They don’t understand what the fight is even about
Eg it’s noticeable that the bitterest online trans arguments tend to be between LEFT wing feminist women - J K Rowling, Joanna Cherry - and the trans militants
I agree. Trans activists are desperate to find right wing opponents but have largely been met by a shrug and a distinct lack of interest. It is women's rights supporters that have taken up the cudgels which is why this is such an uncomfortable fight for the activists. The "rights" they are claiming trample on hard won rights for women and women are not happy about it, and rightly so.
Or those opponents who are sincerely motivated by women's rights are really acting as the dupes of bigots who are too canny openly to oppose trans rights as a matter of principle.
So J K Rowling is actually some willing dupe of a secret cabal of super clever anti-Trans Nazis?
Do you realise how that sounds?
To channel Titania McGrath:
"Whenever I point out that JK Rowling is an evil transphobe, her defenders always ask for “evidence”.
But Rowling’s tactic is to not attack trans people in order to make it look as though she is not attacking trans people.
It’s the oldest trick in the book."
@Chris expressed it clumsily, but I think there is a role that the right wing are playing in this.
Inflexible idealists on both sides are clashing over incompatible rights. That’s primarily left of centre infighting. But I do think the government and other right of centre commentators are making strategic ‘wedge’ interventions to amplify the disagreements and deliberately make it more toxic for either side to agree a compromise ie ‘culture wars’ crap.
As an aside @Foxy and @cyclefree thank you for an exchange upthread that was, as is rarely the case these days, more heat than light. I consistently learn from what you two write, even when disagreeing with each other.
ETA: there are of course plenty of people across the political spectrum who are expressing their views with integrity and flexibility. They just get less air time.
There may be a "role" the "right wing" are playing in this but this side of the debate is a broad church across a group of people who have a wide range of views. There is an attempt from the pro trans fanatics, as opposed to those who are moderate, to simply say those who are gender critical are the "far right", it is not very helpful at all.
The polling and that by election result are absolutely awful for Sunak.
When will Tory backbenchers realise how useless he is as leader?
I suspect they know but view the other options as even more likely to result in electoral suicide.
The visible enthusiasm at Conference was for Truss, Braverman and Farage, and lukewarm at best elsewhere.
The Conservative Party has lost its mind.
The problem with Sunak is he was deemed more acceptable by the chattering classes.....who aren't ever going to vote for him.
If he wanted to be acceptable to "the chattering classes" then he needed to drop the Culture War stuff. He did the opposite.
He is trying to poison British politics, and thoroughly deserves electoral humiliation.
This might reflect my stupidity but I really cannot tell what Rishi Sunak and the government more widely are trying to do, let alone which voters they are chasing.
The basic problem is that whoever you vote for the politicians always win. As such I never celebrate any election result (The Brexit vote being the rare exception)
Brexit was perhaps the single greatest example of the politicians winning in living memory.
BoZo got the Crown, and the people got shafted (and continue to suffer)
BTW the cancellation of HS2 also screws up (even more) the 4 train building firms in the UK
Philip Haigh @philatrail HS2 has 54 trains on order from Hitachi/Alstom in a £2bn deal. DfT is apparently now suggesting that deal is renegotiated for a smaller number of trains with an alternative option of trying to find work elsewhere for those not needed for HS2 services.
It's abundantly clear that there has been essentially no planning for scrapping HS2 or what to do with the funds released (assuming you even buy that view of things). It's a lazy and dishonest way to go about governing even if you agree with the intent.
Also, what about rectification of the groundworks, and fulfilment of environmental promises?
Lots of reasons for the SNP to lose: financial chicanery, the Calmac ferries, really poor legislation - much of which has had to be withdrawn or challenged, waste of money, dancing to the tune of monomaniac lobbyists, failure to make good on promises, in-fighting, arrogance.
This is what is happening to the Tories. And will result in similar electoral misfortune.
Labour publicly learnt a lesson from the SNP's problems with the GRR Bill and made a change to their stated policy. That I think is one of Starmer's strengths. He doesn't simply say he will learn lessons. He actually shows this. It has been criticised as dreary triangulation by some or breaking promises by others. And there is a risk that he looks untrustworthy. But his willingness to change tack, say so publicly and say why is potentially heartening.
And @Heathener, women's rights are not inconsequential or irrelevant. You sound very gammon-like saying stuff like that. Much like the SNP's counsel this week saying that women's rights to associate freely with other women was "trivial". That was the word used. Trivial. With luck the end of the SNP will stop such condescending and offensive rubbish being uttered by them and their fellow travellers.
Yes, I think Starmers policy on Trans rights is a well balanced one on a very contentious issue that respects sex-based rights but avoids the repellent Trans-phobia on display last week. It is where I am on the issue, and it is also a position that most of the country can live with too.
Once again the focus is always on trans rights when it is not their rights which are the issue (they have exactly the same rights as everyone else). But the effect of giving them a privilege which no other group has on the rights of others.
Labour's position on women's right and the Equality Act is better than it was certainly. It needs clarifying in certain respects. There is a worrying silence about single sex services and associations which must be protected, for instance. https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/questions-questions/
It is largely a result of pressure from a lot of Labour women - young women - especially Labour Women's Declaration even though, shamefully, they have not been allowed a stand at the Labour conference. As for what the Tories announced this week, Barclay said that he would ensure single sex wards, a promise made in 2010 but since broken repeatedly. It is entirely supported by Labour. As for the PM's statement in his speech, this was announced by Kay Burley to be in breach of the EA. Which shows only that she - like many others - hasn't the first clue what the Act actually says.
Anyway in a week's time I shall be in Glasgow at a feminist conference. Lots of interesting international speakers. I shall report back!
I agree that there need to be sex related rights too, but really hate the Transphopia coming from the right.
I know two Trans people fairly well, one being Fox-jrs flat mate who I have known for a decade, the other a cousin who is non binary, but inclining to be a Trans-man.. Both have some mental health issues, and this is tangled up with their gender issues in complex ways, but ultimately they are good, kind people who need support from friends and family.
I know two - one male, one female (lesbian). Both with dysphoria. Both lovely people with very supportive family and friends. Both pretty disgusted with and opposed to the behaviour of trans activists. Both loathe the Tories for what they have allowed on their watch. Both despise Stonewall and my lesbian friend, married with 2 lovely boys, in particular is incensed with their approach to lesbians. She sees it as nothing less than homophobia. Quite a few of my lesbian friends have the same view. They think it utterly lazy thinking to view this as a problem of the right. Misogyny and homophobia - bigotry generally - are cross party. No one has a claim to virtue on this and thinking this is solely a problem of the right is the laziest of thinking.
That might well be the case, but it finds its most comfortable home on the right.
I’m really not sure that’s true
On the right I think you find more confusion and bewilderment. They don’t understand what the fight is even about
Eg it’s noticeable that the bitterest online trans arguments tend to be between LEFT wing feminist women - J K Rowling, Joanna Cherry - and the trans militants
I agree. Trans activists are desperate to find right wing opponents but have largely been met by a shrug and a distinct lack of interest. It is women's rights supporters that have taken up the cudgels which is why this is such an uncomfortable fight for the activists. The "rights" they are claiming trample on hard won rights for women and women are not happy about it, and rightly so.
Or those opponents who are sincerely motivated by women's rights are really acting as the dupes of bigots who are too canny openly to oppose trans rights as a matter of principle.
So J K Rowling is actually some willing dupe of a secret cabal of super clever anti-Trans Nazis?
Do you realise how that sounds?
To channel Titania McGrath:
"Whenever I point out that JK Rowling is an evil transphobe, her defenders always ask for “evidence”.
But Rowling’s tactic is to not attack trans people in order to make it look as though she is not attacking trans people.
It’s the oldest trick in the book."
@Chris expressed it clumsily, but I think there is a role that the right wing are playing in this.
Inflexible idealists on both sides are clashing over incompatible rights. That’s primarily left of centre infighting. But I do think the government and other right of centre commentators are making strategic ‘wedge’ interventions to amplify the disagreements and deliberately make it more toxic for either side to agree a compromise ie ‘culture wars’ crap.
As an aside @Foxy and @cyclefree thank you for an exchange upthread that was, as is rarely the case these days, more heat than light. I consistently learn from what you two write, even when disagreeing with each other.
ETA: there are of course plenty of people across the political spectrum who are expressing their views with integrity and flexibility. They just get less air time.
Any analysis of this debate which focuses only on the right wing and not on the role that Stonewall and allies have played in attacking sex based rights in the Equality Act is missing a vital component. A so-called civil rights campaign has been campaigning for 8 years to remove existing legal rights from a group with one (and sometimes two or three) protected characteristics. That is unprecedented. And disgraceful.
The role of money from US pharmaceutical companies flogging drugs and surgery needs looking at too, especially in the US. Quite what the Lib Dems are doing taking money from US drugs companies beats me. It's as if the Sackler scandals never happened. Not the first time of course they have failed to do due diligence on who gives them money.
Why on earth are you “pro Scottish independence”? Do you want to see the UK broken up? Why?
IIRC you are a staunch Remoaner. All the arguments against Brexit apply - tenfold - to Scottish separatism. For a start it would cause economic depression in Scotland, deep recession in the rUK, and grievous pain and chaos for millions of people, for a decade
How can you desire that?
I know several people who hold these twin positions - ardent Remainerism and pro Indy - and I’ve never understood how they can be so glibly reconciled
I do, for t he same reason I voted for Brexit.
Yes the same arguments for Brexit apply. Which is why I voted for Brexit, and why I support Sindy.
I voted for Brexit on the grounds of democracy and sovereignty. Inside the EU Britain was governed by an unelected elite of Eurocrats in a foreign country
None of this applies to Scotland. Scotland is governed by the MPs we all elect to Westminster (in our national capital), who sit in an entirely democratic chamber with the power to propose, enact and repeal laws
If the Scots decide they loathe the government they, like all Britons, can kick them out at the next election. None of us was able to eject Ursula von der Leyen
And the 99.7% of us who aren't Tory members had no say in the imposition of the Trusster or Rishi.
I have no issue with parliament deciding who has the confidence of the House, that is their role, and we will get our say soon.
It's who they decide on and what that person does which matters.
There is no perfect way of doing these things. It was a point in comparison to the appointment of der Leyen.
I know, but it's not a very good one nonetheless. I agree that point gets overblown and overegged, but that stock retort just doesn't work for me since it requires the idea we should not be able to switch PMs without a GE, yet we've done that many many times. So it just falls flat.
If we had a proper constitution, not something that each successive government can change as it pleases (see FTPA), we could have written in it that if a PM changes mid-term there has to be a GE within 6 months. That would fix that issue.
That might be a good idea, but I do push back at the 'proper constitution' bit. Like most such arguments I think it assumes a codified constitution solves more problems than it does (a bit like how PR may be a good idea - I think so - but some people suggest it will magically improve the quality of our politicians somehow too).
FTPA is an interesting point, since your suggestion (which I'd support as a law) is akin to what the Act was attempting, by codifying more rules around election timing rather than relying on convention and governmental whim. Yet it was bypassed easily and both main parties were going to junk it. Why would it being in a constitution prevent that from happening? You could make things harder to change, but they still could be.
Good point
Everyone used to admire the US Constitution but it doesn’t look so good now, with the right to bear arms proving “problematic” and the politicisation of the judiciary becoming evermore poisonous
There is a flexible genius in an unwritten constitution like ours. We could easily replace it with something written and WORSE
I'm not sure who "everyone" is - even the Founding Slaveowners had huge doubts about it when they conclude it - read any history of the Constitutional Convention and it's clear from their letters at the time that most thought it was a very flawed document. There are endless stupidities: it's much too difficult amend, the screwy electoral college, the idiotic Presidential system, the over-powerful judiciary, the separation of powers which means that coherent government is often impossible, etc etc.
The only good thing about it is that its incredible vagueness and confusion has made it possible for the courts to get around its silliest features. But there's no way you'd design anything like it if you started from scratch.
Fair enough. Perhaps I should have been more specific. Many people admire the US constitutional commitment to free speech, for instance - I know I do, still
One thing that deeply troubles me about America is the politicised judiciary. The Supreme Court now seems a pretty toxic institution - able to impose its narrow view of abortion on a nation that does not want this
Likewise political lawyers. I know I am alone on PB on this but the New York prosecution of Trump, by a Democrat district attorney who was elected in 2018 on a platform of “I will go after Trump” makes me highly uneasy. He may well be guilty but it looks like politico-legal persecution to suit the Democrats - because it is
Why on earth are you “pro Scottish independence”? Do you want to see the UK broken up? Why?
IIRC you are a staunch Remoaner. All the arguments against Brexit apply - tenfold - to Scottish separatism. For a start it would cause economic depression in Scotland, deep recession in the rUK, and grievous pain and chaos for millions of people, for a decade
How can you desire that?
I know several people who hold these twin positions - ardent Remainerism and pro Indy - and I’ve never understood how they can be so glibly reconciled
I do, for t he same reason I voted for Brexit.
Yes the same arguments for Brexit apply. Which is why I voted for Brexit, and why I support Sindy.
I voted for Brexit on the grounds of democracy and sovereignty. Inside the EU Britain was governed by an unelected elite of Eurocrats in a foreign country
None of this applies to Scotland. Scotland is governed by the MPs we all elect to Westminster (in our national capital), who sit in an entirely democratic chamber with the power to propose, enact and repeal laws
If the Scots decide they loathe the government they, like all Britons, can kick them out at the next election. None of us was able to eject Ursula von der Leyen
If the Scots consider themselves Scots not Brits and that England is another country, then on the exact same grounds of democracy and sovereignty as Brexit they should be an independent sovereign country.
Similarly if an English/British individual wanted to be in a country called Europe then there's no democracy or sovereignty reasons they shouldn't have voted Remain, but the EU really needs reforming to better become a single country with a more powerful demos, Parliament and elected Government.
Personally I consider myself English. I think we'd be better off as an independent England, but if the Scots or Welsh or NI want to tag along with us it doesn't matter too much that I'd make it a priority issue, but if I were Scottish it absolutely would be a priority issue.
Your post encapsulates a major problem: why do you feel the need to define your nationality at all?
Of course, we all do it because we are forced to at times (e.g. on official and not so official forms) but generally I feel nationality is an unhelpful concept developed over centuries to control and coerce people. There is nothing physical that defines one's 'nation'.
I think we've all been brain-washed to believe nationality is an essential part of our being when it isn't.
(Citizenship however is different: a set of rights and responsibilities that people acquire through chance or design, upon which society depends.)
Without a nation, there's no National Health Service.
Why on earth are you “pro Scottish independence”? Do you want to see the UK broken up? Why?
IIRC you are a staunch Remoaner. All the arguments against Brexit apply - tenfold - to Scottish separatism. For a start it would cause economic depression in Scotland, deep recession in the rUK, and grievous pain and chaos for millions of people, for a decade
How can you desire that?
I know several people who hold these twin positions - ardent Remainerism and pro Indy - and I’ve never understood how they can be so glibly reconciled
Some of us aren’t pro-independence so much as pro-self determination. I’ve spent decent chunks of my life in both Scotland and England and they have a very different culture. If the Scots really want to govern their own affairs then I would always support their right to choose to do so.
Sturgeon’s genius was in - for some time - holding the faultlines in Scottish nationalism together. The Tartan Tory wing and the Central Belties will always be uneasy bedfellows. That rapprochement is now over for the foreseeable and I think it’ll be another 15 years or more before someone emerges that can bring them together again. Hint, it won’t be Forbes.
I agree with much of this
I make one point: Scotland is entitled to a degree of self determination but the UK as a whole is entitled to look after its integrity as a nation and a union. The two must be carefully balanced
So Cameron was right to allow indyref1. But the British Parliament is now right to say: No, there won’t be another for a generation, you had your say and you chose to remain
The generation argument was utterly lame post-Brexit, Brexit marked the end of the generation we were in the EU and marked the start of a new era.
But if you want to go on a pure timescale era its increasingly lame too. By the end of the next Westminster Parliament it will have been 15 years since the last referendum which is coming up close towards a generation however you slice it.
Indeed its worth noting that at the the time of the IndyRef it was Millennials like myself that were the youngest generation of adults, now Millennials like myself are entering or in middle age and most of Gen Z are already adults.
I’m curious where you draw the line on the self determination thing. If Scotland must have the right to secede whenever it likes, how about wales? Or indeed the Shetland isles? They are culturally distinct and have been non Scottish in their time (and non British)
How about the Orkneys? Or Cornwall? Again distinct and independent in their time
Yorkshire? Cumbria? Kent? Hereford? You? Where does it end?
At some point a nation - Britain in this case - must be willing and able to defend its integrity and say STFU
Britain isn't a nation - it is several. That is the problem. Either we accept and respect that there are 4 nations (and other mini nations like the Kernow) or we scrap all of it and reform ourselves as a single entity.
Scotland is distinct from England is distinct from Wales etc etc. If they are distinct enough to have their own laws, education systems, football leagues, international sporting representation etc then they are distinct enough to become a clearly defined national group in a way that none of your other examples are.
But what if a majority of people in Cornwall or Northumberland or Shetland feel they ARE a nation and want independence? Who are you to stop them?
Let them. For a state to work in the medium to long term it has to be the natural expression of the settled will of the majority of its people. The UK worked for a long time because it was that expression. Now it seems that the individual countries are becoming a better expression of that will and as such the UK will probably dissolve in the next 50 years.
If, in the future, another part of England or Scotland felt that those countries were no longer 'of use' then the same process would hopefully happen. The alternative is people being forced to live under an artificial construct they hold no loyalty or love for. Or worse actively hate.
The same applies the other way round of course. If the settled will of the people of Europe (the people not the politicians) is for a country called Europe then that is what should be created.
I agree with most of that except…I think culturally we tend towards the easy option a little too much at the moment. As a Cornish person myself I can see the emotional appeal of independence whilst also recognising it would be fairly disastrous. It is almost exclusively a negative choice (not wanting to be associated with the wider uk) rather than a positive choice (a vision for an independent Cornwall).
So a settled will for independence in Cornwall might be something we come to a little too easily whilst not thinking through the consequences.
I think collectively we make these sorts of negative decisions too often at present cf Brexit, rates of divorce, when in many cases (but not all) we should be more willing to live in the messy compromise of the present.
Of course, believing in democracy, I still think we should respect that settled will, even if I’m uneasy about how it comes about.
My Brexit vote was an entirely positive choice. As would be the majority of the vote for Scottish Independence. People want self determination and visible, accessible representation. That is a very positive aspiration and something we will see in action at the next election.
Comments
And that is as it should be, because if Scotland ever did secede that would massively impact everyone else in Britain. Mainly for the worse in economic terms, at first, as it would guarantee chaos and investors would flee
Happily, last night’a result means Sindy is a very distant prospect. It won’t be revisited this decade at least (but yes, this is not an excuse for complacency)
I know we've had Truss and Poots in recent years, but leaders almosy akways survive bad things early on in their tenure.
That'd do Labour. Gaining 41 seats from 2019 (goodness, did they only win 1 in 2019!) before we even get to England and Wales would mean a majority might just be on the cards for them.
But I doubt they'll get 41 in Scotland.... but 30 would do them well.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/labour-seeking-to-delay-antisemitism-leak-lawsuit-until-after-election/ar-AA1hLTAk?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=af0ffa18d5d94043a995afeacb7ccc26&ei=10
It must be disappointing for thoughtful Leavers that they have ended up nailing their colours to the same mast as nutters like Hannan.
But if you want to go on a pure timescale era its increasingly lame too. By the end of the next Westminster Parliament it will have been 15 years since the last referendum which is coming up close towards a generation however you slice it.
Indeed its worth noting that at the the time of the IndyRef it was Millennials like myself that were the youngest generation of adults, now Millennials like myself are entering or in middle age and most of Gen Z are already adults.
Hannan on the day after the vote claimed he was not part of the same campaign as Farage.
Nutters one and all...
If Sunak loses both English byelections, how long can he last?
I can see he may favour the Downfall approach of a relatively early election in the Spring to the risk of a summer political assassination.
I think he has done his last Conference speech as leader.
One can disagree with them entirely but if as you put it they are sincere they are not acting as anyone's dupes. That comes across like a false consciousness argument.
What is the alternative, they not say what they sincerely believe because a bigot will use it as cover?
How about the Orkneys? Or Cornwall? Again distinct and independent in their time
Yorkshire? Cumbria? Kent? Hereford? You? Where does it end?
At some point a nation - Britain in this case - must be willing and able to defend its integrity and say STFU
Schrodinger cat was never going to survive opening the box.
Conference cancelled as a GE is called in the summer for late October.
I hope the conference next week gives me some cheer that they have what it takes to really sort the country out. I’m still a bit skeptical of that - but anything is better than the Tories right now and I’m sure many people must feel the same as me.
I have a received seat and I'm getting on at an early stop - but I've still be told by others that it's likely I'll have to turf someone from my seat - the lack of capacity is very obvious...
Does anyone think that Team Rishi have worked through all the interlocking parts here and made sure that HS Two-thirds physically works as a scheme to move trains around the country?
Of course they haven't, because that's fiddly and boring.
Good thing we're not selling off the spare bits before we're sure we don't need them, eh?
Citizenship of a nation and nationality are intertwined, you can't have one without the other.
John Lennon's "imagine there's no country" is not something to aspire to its utterly dystopian.
We need a nation because there's much that the nation state provides and nothing can better provide for it - democracy, the rule of law, courts, welfare, taxes, police, security, national education, national health.
Without a nation, there's no National Health Service.
What there should not be is a nation that you're born to and can never change. That's ethnicity not nationality. People should be perfectly able to emigrate if they want to, and if another nation wants to accept them they should be able to immigrate into that nation and ultimately acquire citizenship of that nation too.
For that alone the Tories need to be gone. They aren’t even basically competent any more. Enough. Let Sir Kir Royale have his majority and let’s see what he can do
I’m not hopeful but the Tories are hopeLESS, as things stand
Scotland is distinct from England is distinct from Wales etc etc. If they are distinct enough to have their own laws, education systems, football leagues, international sporting representation etc then they are distinct enough to become a clearly defined national group in a way that none of your other examples are.
We actually need to be pretty glad he was found out, because the country really can’t afford about 5-6 years of the Tories right now.
FTPA is an interesting point, since your suggestion (which I'd support as a law) is akin to what the Act was attempting, by codifying more rules around election timing rather than relying on convention and governmental whim. Yet it was bypassed easily and both main parties were going to junk it. Why would it being in a constitution prevent that from happening? You could make things harder to change, but they still could be.
- You know one male trans person (presumably FTM?). Does this person poo in the men's loos or the women's loos? Do you approve of their choice?
- You know one female trans person (presumably MTF?). Does this person poo in the men's loos or the women's loos? Do you approve of their choice?
Because ultimately this is what it all boils down to.(I'm not sure which pronouns you use for trans people so I'll guess. You're gender critical so you may be using the TIM/TIF convention. I'm old school so I use the MTF/FTM convention. If you referred to the MTF as male and the FTM as female you'll have to point it out)
and want independence? Who are you to stop them?
"Misogyny and homophobia - bigotry generally - are cross party..", so your point, and Leon's don't really address mine.
Instead their strategy was to play political games, draw dividing lines and aim for a 50%+1 mandate.
Unionists politicians have been, and remain, weak and uninspiring. The SNP appear to have blown it - but Unionist politicians are likely to give them another chance.
Assuming Starmer does lead the next Westminster government, I believe that he will prove unequal to the problems facing Britain, and rapidly become unpopular. In the absence of any other effective opposition, we could easily see the SNP revitalised very soon.
I think he does have some room for manoeuvre and should be bolder, but he needs to spend his political capital really, really cleverly.
The next GE is going to be the Tories throwing a bucketload of mud at Starmer and hoping something sticks. He can’t afford to have something unravel like Mrs May’s care policy, for instance, because it’s very easy to see how a commanding lead in the polls narrows significantly by polling day if your opponents seize the narrative.
SNP activists posted 1,600 more ‘great response on the doorstep’ tweets than they received actual votes.
Each one is functionally independent.
Post-privatisation the industry knew what it was doing. A clear structure meant that investing in rolling stock was a managed risk which the private sector undertook.
Then the DfT started meddling, speccing trains for individual franchises (like Transpennine or Thameslink) which are under-specced and grotesquely expensive due to civil servants not knowing how to negotiate.
As an example, the DfT-mandated AT300s for Great Western (Class 800) - not at the spec required by the operator and at vast cost. Great Western later negotiate an add-on fleet (Class 802) to a suitable spec at much lower cost.
The AT300 family isn't perfect, but it could be improved, and they are becoming ubiquitous. So we need the Rail Delivery Group spec for a train suitable for inter-operator use. Seats with padding and leg room, luggage space, enhanced trolley space. And build hundreds of them.
It’s time.
Everyone used to admire the US Constitution but it doesn’t look so good now, with the right to bear arms proving “problematic” and the politicisation of the judiciary becoming evermore poisonous
There is a flexible genius in an unwritten constitution like ours. We could easily replace it with something written and WORSE
FWIW I agree with @Cyclefree : no part of the political spectrum is free from bigots.
Largest swing to Labour in Scotland (If you ignore some Ind. Labour -> Labour swings involving an incumbent back in the 40s and 50s)
Certainly the largest SNP -> Labour swing in any election (I think).
All in all a night that must have exceeded all Labour's expectations.
I think this the UK is not a nation idea is a bit nonsensical. It is a nation because its treated as one, that's all a nation is. It is a union of somewhat distinct areas but that's hardly unique, even if our sporting arrangements often are.
The question I think is not whether the UK is Nation and must either break up if not or consolidate if it it is, but whether the nation as formulated still works.
Many say no. I disagree but I can understand why they say that, and it cannot be held together indefinitely if enough think that in distinct areas.
But it's a bit like the mostly now retired jibe about British identity being artificial. So is every national identity on earth, we're all just human beings, but for periods of decades to hundreds of years we come together to believe in an artificial construction.
Places like England and Scotland are probably pretty unusual in having relatively firm identity for so long
1. The rolling back of the 2019 Tory Brexit caliphate and Labour's reconquista of the Red Wall.
2. The reversal of the 2015 SNP avalanche
3. The recapture of the Lib Dem Wessex heartlands after Cameron's illegal annexation in 2015
The last few elections, including 2017, have been miserable affairs for a voter like me. The occasional good effort at locals doesn't really compensate. Several times in succession I've found myself sitting up alone at 4am, strong drink in hand, wondering why I hadn't just got early night. Surely everyone needs a happy election once in a while.
"Whenever I point out that JK Rowling is an evil transphobe, her defenders always ask for “evidence”.
But Rowling’s tactic is to not attack trans people in order to make it look as though she is not attacking trans people.
It’s the oldest trick in the book."
If you were trying to count the number of ways cancelling HS2 has screwed multiple things up you would run out of fingers and toes before the list even got going...
Someone elsewhere this morning said this is Government by localized focus group with ideas decided upon on the basis of how a few (usually relatively insane because they attend focus groups) people in that constituency / constituencies respond.
Regardless of what happens, Starmer needs to take the chance to complete a major constitutional overhaul.
There is a purpose to his every move, and he has been setting up heffalump traps for Sunak everywhere. Starmer also doesn't fight a battle of his choice unless a decisive advantage.
Britain would benefit from a much more strategic approach to government. Certainly transforming Labour within 3 years from Corbynite shambles to a government in waiting is a remarkable feat.
Whether such a plodding strategic approach can survive the fast moving world of government is yet to be seen.
If, in the future, another part of England or Scotland felt that those countries were no longer 'of use' then the same process would hopefully happen. The alternative is people being forced to live under an artificial construct they hold no loyalty or love for. Or worse actively hate.
The same applies the other way round of course. If the settled will of the people of Europe (the people not the politicians) is for a country called Europe then that is what should be created.
Inflexible idealists on both sides are clashing over incompatible rights. That’s primarily left of centre infighting. But I do think the government and other right of centre commentators are making strategic ‘wedge’ interventions to amplify the disagreements and deliberately make it more toxic for either side to agree a compromise ie ‘culture wars’ crap.
As an aside @Foxy and @cyclefree thank you for an exchange upthread that was, as is rarely the case these days, more heat than light. I consistently learn from what you two write, even when disagreeing with each other.
ETA: there are of course plenty of people across the political spectrum who are expressing their views with integrity and flexibility. They just get less air time.
Which is what most people fail to grasp and why all the replacement schemes are disappearing back to dreams so quickly - the money doesn't exist.
Oh and the plans for Euston are now not even enough to run HS2 to Birmingham successfully
https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/hs2-euston-with-only-7-platforms-is-not-fit-for-the-future-network-experts-say-09-08-2023/
In 2015 I was a young Conservative Intern who helped a relatively unknown Prospective Parliamentary Candidate get elected in North Yorkshire with 27,744 votes.
8 years later I urge everyone to vote against this very same man at the next opportunity
https://twitter.com/BenJamminWalker/status/1710047407210184729
When it works, it works great. When it doesn’t, it REALLY doesn’t.
But there IS a willed dream of Britishness. Of Britain. And it definitely exists
Go to a massive multinational event abroad and the Brits - Scots, Londoners, Geordies and Cornish - will cluster together. Because they are British and have a shared British culture and shared British jokes. The Scots don’t hang out with the Germans and Bulgarians because they “feel more European”
The nationality most likely to group WITH us is the Aussies, in my experience (and this works both ways)
I have a lot of sympathy with this myself. I was not at all a girly girl growing up but had a lot of Italian female relatives very intent on turning me into just such a person, against which I rather rebelled.
She looks very mannish to some. I can't see it myself as I think she has a lovely warm face. But she has been challenged sometimes in women's loosand is perfectly fine with this because she understands why some women might do this. She considers it wrong to make women worried about doing this.
When I talk to them I use their names. It is perfectly obvious how I talk about them. The only other trans person I know is a lawyer at a firm I have worked with. Male to female and has done the whole surgical transition. Quite a few years ago now. Supported by the firm and no-one bats an eyelid. Quite a good lawyer too. Admire the bravery. It cannot be easy doing it. There is a colleague in my husband's chambers also. He simply wears women's clothes from time to time. He has not changed his name or anything. So no idea whether he would consider himself trans.
The only point I would make is that none of them are in any way supportive of the moves to take away women's rights to single sex spaces/ services / associations. They just want to be left to get on with their lives. An ambition I fully support.
Why then are so many male trans activists so determined to attack women and their rights?
What do I mean by this? Simply that if a majority of people in an area want independence and can sustain themselves without making claims on their neighbours, then it must be allowed.
Examples: Scotland, obviously. There are plenty of independent countries smaller and poorer than Scotland that get by just fine. Scottish independence would not pose special burden on England. We would be able to have a social, defence, foreign policy, transport and hygiene infrastructure, police, judicial, medical services and all the rest of it. The relevant question is, would they be better and do people want it, not whether it's even possible at all.
Christiania: no. It's a tiny area, which doesn't really have an economy beyond a couple of cafes and a lot of drug pushers who don't even live there. The commune is car-free... so all the people who live there just park in the neighbouring streets. It has no means to provide itself water or sewerage systems and is wholly parasitic on the Danish state. Therefore it doesn't matter whether a majority there think it should be independent. It would be too great a burden on the Danish state to allow it.
As for Cornwall or other county-sized geographies... this is at the interface of viability. I think, for example, Shetland could do it. So as far as I'm concerned its none of my business. But if Turriff & District wanted to go its own way then it would be too burdensome on Troupe or Central Buchan for it to be allowed.
If you want a precise red line that says here is ok, 1mm that way is silly, then you won't get it. This isn't an exact science. But that shouldn't put us off from saying that yes, Scottish or Shetland independence is a matter of preference, whereas independence for numbers 22-38 Cambourne Grove is obviously silly.
Anyway, congrats to Labour! 20% swing
The only good thing about it is that its incredible vagueness and confusion has made it possible for the courts to get around its silliest features. But there's no way you'd design anything like it if you started from scratch.
Though asbestos in them was also a problem, and apparently that was an argument that got the funding over the line.
So a settled will for independence in Cornwall might be something we come to a little too easily whilst not thinking through the consequences.
I think collectively we make these sorts of negative decisions too often at present cf Brexit, rates of divorce, when in many cases (but not all) we should be more willing to live in the messy compromise of the present.
Of course, believing in democracy, I still think we should respect that settled will, even if I’m uneasy about how it comes about.
BoZo got the Crown, and the people got shafted (and continue to suffer)
Perhaps DuraAce can weigh in.
FA-50 reaches 100,000-hour accident-free milestone
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=360603
The role of money from US pharmaceutical companies flogging drugs and surgery needs looking at too, especially in the US. Quite what the Lib Dems are doing taking money from US drugs companies beats me. It's as if the Sackler scandals never happened. Not the first time of course they have failed to do due diligence on who gives them money.
One thing that deeply troubles me about America is the politicised judiciary. The Supreme Court now seems a pretty toxic institution - able to impose its narrow view of abortion on a nation that does not want this
Likewise political lawyers. I know I am alone on PB on this but the New York prosecution of Trump, by a Democrat district attorney who was elected in 2018 on a platform of “I will go after Trump” makes me highly uneasy. He may well be guilty but it looks like politico-legal persecution to suit the Democrats - because it is