The perfidious Labour MPs in Westminster are the worst of the bunch. .
I agree. What a pity that your fellow Scots have voted for them in such overwhelming numbers for the past thirty years. You can't blame that on anyone but yourselves.
Nick Clegg faces being shut out of TV debeats ahead of the 2015 general election under Labour plans for a head-to-head battle between the only two men who can be Prime Minister.
Labour wants to see straight fight between David Cameron and Ed Miliband, in a marked shift from previous demands for a re-run of the 2010 debates when Lib Dem Mr Clegg was also included.
The plan emerged as Labour made clear Mr Miliband would not take part in a debate on Britain's membership of the European Union ordered after Mr Clegg threw down the gauntlet to Ukip leader Nigel Farage.
So that's double cowardice by Miliband. First he won't debate on the EU, even though he stands politically to gain from doing so. And secondly because he's not prepared to debate anyone in the election debates other than the person weighed down by incumbency. It clearly shows he doesn't have confidence in his own vision.
Any reason why Scottish fans have been chastised by the IOC for supporting a Scottish team with a Scottish flag? No wonder Scots are seriously considering independence when absurdities like this exist in the solitary major sporting showcase that forces Scotland to play as GB - and enforces it with pathetic measures like this.
Think it through.....for a minute.....I'm sure you'll realise why there are rules like this and why they are enforced.....
But to ban the saltire and Lion Rampant from Scottish OLympic events on Scottish soil?
One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. Mercifully we are spared that here, the rest of the world is not so lucky.....
Oh for crying out loud. It's not a political statement - in every other major showcase Scotland has its own team so it's utterly laughable by the IOC.
An independent Scotland will need all its oil money to finance current expenditure. There is now no leeway to create any kind of sovereign fund or anything similar.
Any oil money that Scotland may receive after Independence will only come for a limited period. They face the choice of having to adjust taxation and expenditure to balance without it either at the beginning of that period - so that they can use the surplus to create a sovereign fund - or at the end of that period - as is the current policy of the UK.
It will, however, be exactly that. A choice. They don't have to continue on the present path if they're prepared to make the effort to do something different.
A point well made. Is this being discussed in Scotland currently?
Oh yes. The problem is that the unionists like to take the worst case scenarios (which is a bit illogical as they simultaneously say that we can't cope with the riches). Oil price will collapse, wells dry up, etc.. Therefore much of the stuff in public debate is unrealistic and tends to go round and round in circles, usually disappearing up its own fundament like the farfamed jubjub bird. A mildly more positive approach suggests that there is some truth in the SNP analysis which is that the Scottish economy is rather wider than oil for which it is something of a bonus. Or one can just say the obvious, which is that the UK is knackered (as the Unionists carefully fail to point out as a bonus of staying in the UK). As confirmed most recently by the FT the Scottish economy is at least as good as the UK average and in some ways better off e.g. in exports, so that we have some hope of doing rather better (and more flexibly) if we cut loose.
Didn't that FT article show that Scotland needs the oil money to sustain current levels of expenditure? If that is the case, surely there will have to be significant cuts in spending if the SNP do create the oil fund they are currently talking about. And if the currency union does happen as per SNP wishes, the Scottish government will be severely constrained in what it can do. Is the SNP really making this clear?
smaller defence costs, etc , etc. So we will be in a better position immediately.
Scotland's not joining NATO then. Is that official policy?
You're certainly being silly, willfully or otherwise, using the phrase 'weren't/aren't really Scots'.
Just correcting the SNP rewrite of history, which absurdly tries to pretend that the UK defence policy of the last 50 years is somehow nothing to do with Scotland and was somehow formulated without Scottish influence or consent, when in actual fact Scots had a disproportionately large share of the policy-making.
Is that why they're building the aircraft carriers in Scotland and not an English yard? I've often wondered about that.
No: it's because (a) some was built in English yards (and far, far more in England when you include the electronics and equipment) and (b) the English shipbuilding industry no longer has the capability. Which I think -objectively speaking - a great shame.
Would I be right in thinking that they'll move any naval work south after independence? Or even overseas?
LOL, they don't have the facilities or the skills. Maybe they will put Trident along with them.
Any reason why Scottish fans have been chastised by the IOC for supporting a Scottish team with a Scottish flag? No wonder Scots are seriously considering independence when absurdities like this exist in the solitary major sporting showcase that forces Scotland to play as GB - and enforces it with pathetic measures like this.
Think it through.....for a minute.....I'm sure you'll realise why there are rules like this and why they are enforced.....
But to ban the saltire and Lion Rampant from Scottish OLympic events on Scottish soil? IT's not as if they are the SNP flags. And the equivalent, I believe, in Wales and Cornwall? It took a lot of arguing to allow even the saltire as one of the flags outside Hampden Stadium as I recall. And the Olympic Torch events in Scotland ended up with nothing but Union Flags and commercial sponsors' flags being handed out, when a more traditional celebration will always have the Union Flag, Saltire and Lion Rampants all cheerfully mixed up together.
One size fits all is the kindest interpretation. But it might have been tactful for Mr Coe to think in more generous terms given the degree to which the budget and lottery funds were raided not just for the sports but for infrastructure improvement.
I doubt Mr Coe had a say in the matter. It's the IOC not wanting to deal with political statements if they can avoid it, and if they make exceptions then they start picking and choosing on the exceptions they make and opens up a whole lot of stuff they can just avoid being their issue.
Coe would have been too busy licking rear ends to care about Scotland
You're certainly being silly, willfully or otherwise, using the phrase 'weren't/aren't really Scots'.
Just correcting the SNP rewrite of history, which absurdly tries to pretend that the UK defence policy of the last 50 years is somehow nothing to do with Scotland and was somehow formulated without Scottish influence or consent, when in actual fact Scots had a disproportionately large share of the policy-making.
Is that why they're building the aircraft carriers in Scotland and not an English yard? I've often wondered about that.
No: it's because (a) some was built in English yards (and far, far more in England when you include the electronics and equipment) and (b) the English shipbuilding industry no longer has the capability. Which I think -objectively speaking - a great shame.
Yep.
I love Portsmouth (I got married in the dockyard), and feel the pain of the loss of shipbuilding there. But the idea that a yard that had not built full ships for decades could win over one that has immediate experience, was ridiculous.
That may (or may not) remain the case after Scottish Indy.
It will, however, be exactly that. A choice. They don't have to continue on the present path if they're prepared to make the effort to do something different.
A point well made. Is this being discussed in Scotland currently?
Oh yes. The problem is that the unionists like to take the worst case scenarios (which is a bit illogical as they simultaneously say that we can't cope with the riches). Oil price will collapse, wells dry up, etc.. Therefore much of the stuff in public debate is unrealistic and tends to go round and round in circles, usually disappearing up its own fundament like the farfamed jubjub bird. A mildly more positive approach suggests that there is some truth in the SNP analysis which is that the Scottish economy is rather wider than oil for which it is something of a bonus. Or one can just say the obvious, which is that the UK is knackered (as the Unionists carefully fail to point out as a bonus of staying in the UK). As confirmed most recently by the FT the Scottish economy is at least as good as the UK average and in some ways better off e.g. in exports, so that we have some hope of doing rather better (and more flexibly) if we cut loose.
Didn't that FT article show that Scotland needs the oil money to sustain current levels of expenditure? If that is the case, surely there will have to be significant cuts in spending if the SNP do create the oil fund they are currently talking about. And if the currency union does happen as per SNP wishes, the Scottish government will be severely constrained in what it can do. Is the SNP really making this clear?
There are lots of things we would not have to pay. For example we pay interest on the QE raised by Westminster, we also pay a higher share of interest on the debt than our population share would demand, Trident , smaller defence costs, etc , etc. So we will be in a better position immediately. Given we will also need infrastructure for all those public service jobs transferring from London we will have a mini boom into the bargain.
Malcolm, we make a profit on the proceeds of QE. It is used to buy bonds and the interest is ingathered by the BoE who then recycle it to the Treasury.
In short the government was getting a lot of its additional borrowing for free. It is why QE is so insiduous and so dangerous a thing to be let loose anywhere near a politician of any stripe.
Any reason why Scottish fans have been chastised by the IOC for supporting a Scottish team with a Scottish flag? No wonder Scots are seriously considering independence when absurdities like this exist in the solitary major sporting showcase that forces Scotland to play as GB - and enforces it with pathetic measures like this.
To try and keep political statements out of the events, mainly with things like Catalonia, Kosovo, Abkhazia, (and I'm sure PBers could name more examples, I seem to remember Argentina looking into a way of claiming the Falklands on their kit). Just things the IOC doesn't want to deal with if it can avoid it.
It's also not the solitary showcase to have a GB team.
Laughable. World Cup. European Championship. Commonwealth Games. Six Nations. Cricket World Cup. Rugby World Cup. Rugby League World Cup.
They alone must account for 80+% of all bums on seats/sofas.
The perfidious Labour MPs in Westminster are the worst of the bunch. .
I agree. What a pity that your fellow Scots have voted for them in such overwhelming numbers for the past thirty years. You can't blame that on anyone but yourselves.
Precisely the same mentality which will carry NO over the line. I'm afraid your fellow voters love to cling to nurse, SLAB does well because of the relentlessly negative atmosphere. When it matters - for Westminster elections and this indyref vote.
That of course accepts the legitimacy of the British Conquest and subsequent rule, contrary to standard republican theory. There can be no doubt that that theory holds that the Crown of Ireland Act 1541 was and is illegitimate and of no force. Henry VIII as his successors are pretended Kings of Ireland and subsequently Northern Ireland, just as his predecessors had pretended to lordship of the island.
If that is accepted, the issue becomes more complicated. Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair was probably the last Irish monarch, although he did commit treason by coming to terms with Henry II during the 1170s. According to the Remonstrance of the Irish "princes" to John XXII of 1317, however, Donald O'Neill was by hereditary right king of all Ireland, there having been an unbroken line of 197 kings since the sons of Milesius of Cantabria first came to Ireland. On the other hand, the Remonstrance purported to raise Edward de Brus, Earl of Carrick to the status of king. It is, in fact, a vexed question.
I always find this line of historical thinking - of refusing to recognise things as existing because you didn't agree with them politically - as being absurd. It's the same when monarchists refer to the Commonwealth of England as the "interregnum" or when French nationalists pretend that De Gaulle in London was the government of France over the actual French government in Vichy.
If a new Scottish nation doesn't accept its share of UK debt (liablities) then it will not be entitle to its share of Uk assets.
So an independent Scotland that does not accept its share of debt will have to buy the hospitals, schools, defence buildings, and any other public buildings from rUK.
LOL, Hee Haw Hee haw
I would put it more tactfully. But Mr Evershed is perhaps forgetting that the debate is the other way round - that the Scots are assuming they will pay their share of the debts and receive their share of assets, other than fixed property. It is Mr Osborne and Co who wants to go for the other option (if they are being logical) or get the debts paid without the assets and kit (which is not logical). And it should be added it is being said we won';t be independent anyway if we don't pay the debst whatever the assets situation.
The simple ruling on fixed assets in the UK would be that they simply go to the appropriate government on whose territory they are: certainly for current devolved responsibilities In any case, quite a few have been closed, sold, run down, or given away to the robbers under PFI (old style), and the rest are already vested in the Scottish Government, local councils, quangos, etc..
One could go by financial value for the defence estate, embassies, etc. but given the concentration of defence assets south of the border that might actually do quite well for the Scots!
The interest on QE is paid TO the Treasury, not BY it.
The treasury is owned by UK, we get double dipped by Westminster.
You're not making much sense at all. You speak about things the Treasury pays for as being a cost to the Scots and then also speak about things the Treasury receives as being a cost to the Scots.
I always find this line of historical thinking - of refusing to recognise things as existing because you didn't agree with them politically - as being absurd. It's the same when monarchists refer to the Commonwealth of England as the "interregnum" or when French nationalists pretend that De Gaulle in London was the government of France over the actual French government in Vichy.
I agree. The extreme forms of Irish republicanism are madness. Better still, however, are attempts to rename periods in accordance with contemporary ideological dogma. In the thirty years after Hill (1948), Marxists nearly succeeded getting the English Civil War of the seventeenth century renamed as "the bourgeois revolution" in historiography. Now nearly every aspect of that theory has been discredited, but it was a wonderful attempt to get the historical record to conform to the theory of the so-called transition from "feudalism" to "capitalism".
Both very ticklish problems for Cammie and the tories. If they are relying on Clegg to save them from their own angry Eurosceptic side again then I'm not entirely sure they have thought things through. This is not good for them by any stretch of the imagination.
For the Conservatives, I wonder if the LDs might be bigger threat.
UKIP drawing in anti-EU votes seems to be a given, if the LDs start to draw in pro-EU votes too the Conservatives will be reduced to a partisans+undecideds rump.
Of course. It's a two pronged assault given massive exposure. Tory Eurosceptics will be cringing as Clegg presents not just his own party but the face of the coalition. Clegg will have no choice but to try and defend and justify coalition EU polices from fierce kipper attack. Those inevitable attacks from Farage and his blunt messaging on the value of Cammie's Cast Iron Pledges Promises and renegotiation thus far will quite obviously appeal directly to unhappy tory Eurosceptics as well as his own side.
There's also another reason why the broadcasters seem so keen to have the debates. Format testing. They'll want to push more ideas and innovation for the 2015 debates with this as an ideal testbed. Things such as audience participation, moderation, possible twitter questions, opening/closing statements and time limits or a lack of them. All of that could be demonstrated using Clegg and Farage as a dry run and the public then polled as to what they thought of it.
Those 2015 debates are absolutely going to take place BTW. Anyone deluded enough to think otherwise is going to be in for one hell of a shock.
The extreme forms of Irish republicanism are madness.
Try being stuck next to one on a delayed train trip to Tralee. Sweet Lord, the mental gymnastics was impressive though. How Ireland has managed for nearly 100 years without a legitimate Government is also quite miraculous.
If a new Scottish nation doesn't accept its share of UK debt (liablities) then it will not be entitle to its share of Uk assets.
So an independent Scotland that does not accept its share of debt will have to buy the hospitals, schools, defence buildings, and any other public buildings from rUK.
LOL, Hee Haw Hee haw
I would put it more tactfully. But Mr Evershed is perhaps forgetting that the debate is the other way round - that the Scots are assuming they will pay their share of the debts and receive their share of assets, other than fixed property. It is Mr Osborne and Co who wants to go for the other option (if they are being logical) or get the debts paid without the assets and kit (which is not logical). And it should be added it is being said we won';t be independent anyway if we don't pay the debst whatever the assets situation.
The simple ruling on fixed assets in the UK would be that they simply go to the appropriate government on whose territory they are: certainly for current devolved responsibilities In any case, quite a few have been closed, sold, run down, or given away to the robbers under PFI (old style), and the rest are already vested in the Scottish Government, local councils, quangos, etc..
One could go by financial value for the defence estate, embassies, etc. but given the concentration of defence assets south of the border that might actually do quite well for the Scots!
the White Paper is always worth a look ...
I have no idea who would benefit from the fixed assets geographic split, but if they favour one country over or another then the non-fixed assets should be split to make up for that. It's ridiculous that one side or the other should get a better deal based on accident of geography, especially when many location decisions were made when the UK was considered to be permanently one country.
Having looked through the commentary by the OBR on the latest figures if Osborne has cunningly hidden an extra 35bn of spending and 36bn of income he has done it rather well. According to the OBR central government expenditure is up 2.4% this year to date, exactly in line with the government forecasts. http://budgetresponsibility.org.uk/wordpress/docs/Feb-2014-commentary.pdf
I will be interested to see what @AveryLP comes up with over the weekend.
It seems highly unfair to exclude the Lib Dems. They're not that much behind UKIP in the polls.
Very droll.
If that tweet is correct, it's very significant. Apart from anything else, it means that the debates will probably happen. So it also suggests that either Ed Miliband is confident of his likely performance in the debates or he believes that he needs to prove himself in the full glare of the public's gaze. I'd say he's probably right on both counts.
You're certainly being silly, willfully or otherwise, using the phrase 'weren't/aren't really Scots'.
Just correcting the SNP rewrite of history, which absurdly tries to pretend that the UK defence policy of the last 50 years is somehow nothing to do with Scotland and was somehow formulated without Scottish influence or consent, when in actual fact Scots had a disproportionately large share of the policy-making.
Is that why they're building the aircraft carriers in Scotland and not an English yard? I've often wondered about that.
No: it's because (a) some was built in English yards (and far, far more in England when you include the electronics and equipment) and (b) the English shipbuilding industry no longer has the capability. Which I think -objectively speaking - a great shame.
Would I be right in thinking that they'll move any naval work south after independence? Or even overseas?
LOL, they don't have the facilities or the skills. Maybe they will put Trident along with them.
It's not difficult to build a ship yard, and finding people with ship building skills shouldn't prove too tricky. A handful of fishery patrol vessels won't keep Scottish yards busy for too long.
The perfidious Labour MPs in Westminster are the worst of the bunch. .
I agree. What a pity that your fellow Scots have voted for them in such overwhelming numbers for the past thirty years. You can't blame that on anyone but yourselves.
Precisely the same mentality which will carry NO over the line. I'm afraid your fellow voters love to cling to nurse, SLAB does well because of the relentlessly negative atmosphere. When it matters - for Westminster elections and this indyref vote.
LOL
Thanks for clarifying that the scottish parliament somehow doesn't matter to scottish labour. That kind of westminster bubble thinking should see them win far more votes for the No side.
Try being stuck next to one on a delayed train trip to Tralee. Sweet Lord, the mental gymnastics was impressive though. How Ireland has managed for nearly 100 years without a legitimate Government is also quite miraculous.
That does sound like quite an experience! My understanding was the Council of the Provisional IRA considered itself to be the successor to the original and legitimate Dáil Éireann, so there was probably a legitimate government during in the 1960s and 1970s, though its effective power was limited by British imperialist pretenders in Belfast and Dublin.
You're certainly being silly, willfully or otherwise, using the phrase 'weren't/aren't really Scots'.
Just correcting the SNP rewrite of history, which absurdly tries to pretend that the UK defence policy of the last 50 years is somehow nothing to do with Scotland and was somehow formulated without Scottish influence or consent, when in actual fact Scots had a disproportionately large share of the policy-making.
Is that why they're building the aircraft carriers in Scotland and not an English yard? I've often wondered about that.
No: it's because (a) some was built in English yards (and far, far more in England when you include the electronics and equipment) and (b) the English shipbuilding industry no longer has the capability. Which I think -objectively speaking - a great shame.
Would I be right in thinking that they'll move any naval work south after independence? Or even overseas?
Given that BAE - who are a multinational without any pandas in this fight - have been setting up their Glasgow yards to do the Type 26 ships, it's going to cost MoD a lot more to pay BAE to build them anywhere else, either in yard re-equipment and training costs, or in hefty intellectual property costs to allow, say, a South Korean company to do the work (which would also make a nonsense of the incessant claims that EWNI warships can only be built in EWNI and not in Scotland).
And such behaviour would likely lose the otherwise certain Scottish orders of the same class for the Scottish Navy. That would have a further financial impact on MoD (the ships become more expensive, because of scaling economies) and also on EWNI industry.
Remember that the hulls are only a fraction of the value of the entire ships (30% or summat like that) and most of the equipment is made south of the border. The failure to note this absolutely fundamental issue is one of the most depressing things about the whole shipyard issue.
Clegg's pitch as "the party of in" does not strike me as a particularly good idea. Sure, the rabid rightwingers totally overestimate how many people froth at the mouth in fury at the EU. If there were a referendum, I think the majority (including me) would vote somewhat unenthusiastically to stay in the EU. Even though people think the "Eurocrats" are generally idiots and don't necessarily believe it would be some world-ending catastrophe for us to leave, I don't think people would really see the point in upsetting the apple-cart when there aren't any obvious advantages to leaving anyway.
But even so, even though as I say I think the majority would be an unenthusiastic vote to stay in, very very few people are actually enthusiastically pro-EU, and those who are are certainly outnumbered by the angry anti-EU brigade. On top of that, if the Lib Dems are aiming to have themselves defined primarily as a party who is in favour of the EU, then even leaving aside whether people agree with them on that issue or not, just sending out the image that they're mainly concerned with such aloof technocratic things as that, rather than with the things that people think really matter, would not really be a good look.
The EU Parliament polls currently have the LDs ~9%.
There are more pro-EU voters than pro-LD voters.
Again, there's a distinction between "pro-EU" and "enthusiastically pro-EU". I highly doubt 9% of people are enthusiastically pro-EU. In my view, it really is a very small clique of people (mainly various politicians and big business men) who are passionately in favour of the EU and consider it one of the biggest issues.
Clegg's pitch as "the party of in" does not strike me as a particularly good idea. Sure, the rabid rightwingers totally overestimate how many people froth at the mouth in fury at the EU. If there were a referendum, I think the majority (including me) would vote somewhat unenthusiastically to stay in the EU. Even though people think the "Eurocrats" are generally idiots and don't necessarily believe it would be some world-ending catastrophe for us to leave, I don't think people would really see the point in upsetting the apple-cart when there aren't any obvious advantages to leaving anyway.
But even so, even though as I say I think the majority would be an unenthusiastic vote to stay in, very very few people are actually enthusiastically pro-EU, and those who are are certainly outnumbered by the angry anti-EU brigade. On top of that, if the Lib Dems are aiming to have themselves defined primarily as a party who is in favour of the EU, then even leaving aside whether people agree with them on that issue or not, just sending out the image that they're mainly concerned with such aloof technocratic things as that, rather than with the things that people think really matter, would not really be a good look.
The EU Parliament polls currently have the LDs ~9%.
There are more pro-EU voters than pro-LD voters.
Again, there's a distinction between "pro-EU" and "enthusiastically pro-EU". I highly doubt 9% of people are enthusiastically pro-EU. In my view, it really is a very small clique of people (mainly various politicians and big business men) who are passionately in favour of the EU and consider it one of the biggest issues.
There's a certain metropolitan student/graduate bloc that have studied around Europe who also enthusiastically pro-EU. I work with a lot of them.
There were times on that train journey when I wasnt sure whether the people sitting at the table werent essentially the legitimate Government of Ireland at the time in their own eyes! There are indeed people out there who believe the first Dáil dissolved itself and that Ireland has been under military rule ever since. The Provisional IRA itself ending its campaign doesnt affect these people as they had long given up on P. O'Neill and his cronies.
@antifrank - I think Corporeal is right, the current OFCOM rules define the 'major parties' at Great Britain-level as Lab, Con and LD. This was confirmed in 2013, and the criteria they set for changing the list are quite severe, including performance in the relevant election over at least two electoral cycles. So I think it will be have to be the same three as last time, or else the debates won't happen.
Clegg's pitch as "the party of in" does not strike me as a particularly good idea. Sure, the rabid rightwingers totally overestimate how many people froth at the mouth in fury at the EU. If there were a referendum, I think the majority (including me) would vote somewhat unenthusiastically to stay in the EU. Even though people think the "Eurocrats" are generally idiots and don't necessarily believe it would be some world-ending catastrophe for us to leave, I don't think people would really see the point in upsetting the apple-cart when there aren't any obvious advantages to leaving anyway.
But even so, even though as I say I think the majority would be an unenthusiastic vote to stay in, very very few people are actually enthusiastically pro-EU, and those who are are certainly outnumbered by the angry anti-EU brigade. On top of that, if the Lib Dems are aiming to have themselves defined primarily as a party who is in favour of the EU, then even leaving aside whether people agree with them on that issue or not, just sending out the image that they're mainly concerned with such aloof technocratic things as that, rather than with the things that people think really matter, would not really be a good look.
The EU Parliament polls currently have the LDs ~9%.
There are more pro-EU voters than pro-LD voters.
Again, there's a distinction between "pro-EU" and "enthusiastically pro-EU". I highly doubt 9% of people are enthusiastically pro-EU. In my view, it really is a very small clique of people (mainly various politicians and big business men) who are passionately in favour of the EU and consider it one of the biggest issues.
Clegg's pitch as "the party of in" does not strike me as a particularly good idea. Sure, the rabid rightwingers totally overestimate how many people froth at the mouth in fury at the EU. If there were a referendum, I think the majority (including me) would vote somewhat unenthusiastically to stay in the EU. Even though people think the "Eurocrats" are generally idiots and don't necessarily believe it would be some world-ending catastrophe for us to leave, I don't think people would really see the point in upsetting the apple-cart when there aren't any obvious advantages to leaving anyway.
But even so, even though as I say I think the majority would be an unenthusiastic vote to stay in, very very few people are actually enthusiastically pro-EU, and those who are are certainly outnumbered by the angry anti-EU brigade. On top of that, if the Lib Dems are aiming to have themselves defined primarily as a party who is in favour of the EU, then even leaving aside whether people agree with them on that issue or not, just sending out the image that they're mainly concerned with such aloof technocratic things as that, rather than with the things that people think really matter, would not really be a good look.
The EU Parliament polls currently have the LDs ~9%.
There are more pro-EU voters than pro-LD voters.
Again, there's a distinction between "pro-EU" and "enthusiastically pro-EU". I highly doubt 9% of people are enthusiastically pro-EU. In my view, it really is a very small clique of people (mainly various politicians and big business men) who are passionately in favour of the EU and consider it one of the biggest issues.
Clegg's pitch as "the party of in" does not strike me as a particularly good idea. Sure, the rabid rightwingers totally overestimate how many people froth at the mouth in fury at the EU. If there were a referendum, I think the majority (including me) would vote somewhat unenthusiastically to stay in the EU. Even though people think the "Eurocrats" are generally idiots and don't necessarily believe it would be some world-ending catastrophe for us to leave, I don't think people would really see the point in upsetting the apple-cart when there aren't any obvious advantages to leaving anyway.
But even so, even though as I say I think the majority would be an unenthusiastic vote to stay in, very very few people are actually enthusiastically pro-EU, and those who are are certainly outnumbered by the angry anti-EU brigade. On top of that, if the Lib Dems are aiming to have themselves defined primarily as a party who is in favour of the EU, then even leaving aside whether people agree with them on that issue or not, just sending out the image that they're mainly concerned with such aloof technocratic things as that, rather than with the things that people think really matter, would not really be a good look.
The EU Parliament polls currently have the LDs ~9%.
There are more pro-EU voters than pro-LD voters.
Again, there's a distinction between "pro-EU" and "enthusiastically pro-EU". I highly doubt 9% of people are enthusiastically pro-EU. In my view, it really is a very small clique of people (mainly various politicians and big business men) who are passionately in favour of the EU and consider it one of the biggest issues.
So what? Your feelings on this are irrelevant. Find some polling on which to make assertions.
Clegg's pitch as "the party of in" does not strike me as a particularly good idea. Sure, the rabid rightwingers totally overestimate how many people froth at the mouth in fury at the EU. If there were a referendum, I think the majority (including me) would vote somewhat unenthusiastically to stay in the EU. Even though people think the "Eurocrats" are generally idiots and don't necessarily believe it would be some world-ending catastrophe for us to leave, I don't think people would really see the point in upsetting the apple-cart when there aren't any obvious advantages to leaving anyway.
But even so, even though as I say I think the majority would be an unenthusiastic vote to stay in, very very few people are actually enthusiastically pro-EU, and those who are are certainly outnumbered by the angry anti-EU brigade. On top of that, if the Lib Dems are aiming to have themselves defined primarily as a party who is in favour of the EU, then even leaving aside whether people agree with them on that issue or not, just sending out the image that they're mainly concerned with such aloof technocratic things as that, rather than with the things that people think really matter, would not really be a good look.
The EU Parliament polls currently have the LDs ~9%.
There are more pro-EU voters than pro-LD voters.
Again, there's a distinction between "pro-EU" and "enthusiastically pro-EU". I highly doubt 9% of people are enthusiastically pro-EU. In my view, it really is a very small clique of people (mainly various politicians and big business men) who are passionately in favour of the EU and consider it one of the biggest issues.
You're certainly being silly, willfully or otherwise, using the phrase 'weren't/aren't really Scots'.
Just correcting the SNP rewrite of history, which absurdly tries to pretend that the UK defence policy of the last 50 years is somehow nothing to do with Scotland and was somehow formulated without Scottish influence or consent, when in actual fact Scots had a disproportionately large share of the policy-making.
Is that why they're building the aircraft carriers in Scotland and not an English yard? I've often wondered about that.
No: it's because (a) some was built in English yards (and far, far more in England when you include the electronics and equipment) and (b) the English shipbuilding industry no longer has the capability. Which I think -objectively speaking - a great shame.
Would I be right in thinking that they'll move any naval work south after independence? Or even overseas?
Given that BAE - who are a multinational without any pandas in this fight - have been setting up their Glasgow yards to do the Type 26 ships, it's going to cost MoD a lot more to pay BAE to build them anywhere else, either in yard re-equipment and training costs, or in hefty intellectual property costs to allow, say, a South Korean company to do the work (which would also make a nonsense of the incessant claims that EWNI warships can only be built in EWNI and not in Scotland).
And such behaviour would likely lose the otherwise certain Scottish orders of the same class for the Scottish Navy. That would have a further financial impact on MoD (the ships become more expensive, because of scaling economies) and also on EWNI industry.
Remember that the hulls are only a fraction of the value of the entire ships (30% or summat like that) and most of the equipment is made south of the border. The failure to note this absolutely fundamental issue is one of the most depressing things about the whole shipyard issue.
I should have typed 'new' naval work.
As for the 26's, how many do you think Scotland wants, and will they be able to afford them?
Setting up Procurement, Recruiting and Training, MAA etc from scratch won't be cheap,
Never mind the costs of remaining in NATO. Standards compliance, Military Attaches in each member country etc etc
And if they're out, then there's the question of restrictions on selling the technology in the afore mentioned ships to a non member.
I always find this line of historical thinking - of refusing to recognise things as existing because you didn't agree with them politically - as being absurd. It's the same when monarchists refer to the Commonwealth of England as the "interregnum" or when French nationalists pretend that De Gaulle in London was the government of France over the actual French government in Vichy.
I agree. The extreme forms of Irish republicanism are madness. Better still, however, are attempts to rename periods in accordance with contemporary ideological dogma. In the thirty years after Hill (1948), Marxists nearly succeeded getting the English Civil War of the seventeenth century renamed as "the bourgeois revolution" in historiography. Now nearly every aspect of that theory has been discredited, but it was a wonderful attempt to get the historical record to conform to the theory of the so-called transition from "feudalism" to "capitalism".
As a matter of genuine interest, do you know when the term 'English Civil War' became commonplace, and is there a specific reason? Is it to do with the political/constitutional side? Or just the emphasis in many English histories on the home front, so to speak, so they wanted to focus on the local battles and politics? From a military perspective it seems odd given that the 'Civil Wars of Britain and Ireland' or 'The Wars of the Three Kingdoms' are surely more appropriate terms, at least on a military basis, and some of the decisive battles took place beyond England (as late as 1746, if you take the Scottish perspective and allow the Hanoverians to pile in as well).
There were times on that train journey when I wasnt sure whether the people sitting at the table werent essentially the legitimate Government of Ireland at the time in their own eyes!
As William of Ockham argued, true Christianity could survive even if only one person believed in it. The same applies mutatis mutandis to the question of legitimate government in Ireland!
Clegg's pitch as "the party of in" does not strike me as a particularly good idea. Sure, the rabid rightwingers totally overestimate how many people froth at the mouth in fury at the EU. If there were a referendum, I think the majority (including me) would vote somewhat unenthusiastically to stay in the EU. Even though people think the "Eurocrats" are generally idiots and don't necessarily believe it would be some world-ending catastrophe for us to leave, I don't think people would really see the point in upsetting the apple-cart when there aren't any obvious advantages to leaving anyway.
But even so, even though as I say I think the majority would be an unenthusiastic vote to stay in, very very few people are actually enthusiastically pro-EU, and those who are are certainly outnumbered by the angry anti-EU brigade. On top of that, if the Lib Dems are aiming to have themselves defined primarily as a party who is in favour of the EU, then even leaving aside whether people agree with them on that issue or not, just sending out the image that they're mainly concerned with such aloof technocratic things as that, rather than with the things that people think really matter, would not really be a good look.
The EU Parliament polls currently have the LDs ~9%.
There are more pro-EU voters than pro-LD voters.
Again, there's a distinction between "pro-EU" and "enthusiastically pro-EU". I highly doubt 9% of people are enthusiastically pro-EU. In my view, it really is a very small clique of people (mainly various politicians and big business men) who are passionately in favour of the EU and consider it one of the biggest issues.
So what? Your feelings on this are irrelevant. Find some polling on which to make assertions.
How about the fact that, when pollsters ask what issues people are most concerned about, Europe always comes near the bottom?
@antifrank - I think Corporeal is right, the current OFCOM rules define the 'major parties' at Great Britain-level as Lab, Con and LD. This was confirmed in 2013, and the criteria they set for changing the list are quite severe, including performance in the relevant election over at least two electoral cycles. So I think it will be have to be the same three as last time, or else the debates won't happen.
Is that why they're building the aircraft carriers in Scotland and not an English yard? I've often wondered about that.
No: it's because (a) some was built in English yards (and far, far more in England when you include the electronics and equipment) and (b) the English shipbuilding industry no longer has the capability. Which I think -objectively speaking - a great shame.
Would I be right in thinking that they'll move any naval work south after independence? Or even overseas?
Given that BAE - who are a multinational without any pandas in this fight - have been setting up their Glasgow yards to do the Type 26 ships, it's going to cost MoD a lot more to pay BAE to build them anywhere else, either in yard re-equipment and training costs, or in hefty intellectual property costs to allow, say, a South Korean company to do the work (which would also make a nonsense of the incessant claims that EWNI warships can only be built in EWNI and not in Scotland).
And such behaviour would likely lose the otherwise certain Scottish orders of the same class for the Scottish Navy. That would have a further financial impact on MoD (the ships become more expensive, because of scaling economies) and also on EWNI industry.
Remember that the hulls are only a fraction of the value of the entire ships (30% or summat like that) and most of the equipment is made south of the border. The failure to note this absolutely fundamental issue is one of the most depressing things about the whole shipyard issue.
I should have typed 'new' naval work.
As for the 26's, how many do you think Scotland wants, and will they be able to afford them?
Setting up Procurement, Recruiting and Training, MAA etc from scratch won't be cheap,
Never mind the costs of remaining in NATO. Standards compliance, Military Attaches in each member country etc etc
Bit confused as I wasn't replying to you so not sure what you mean, no discourtesy intended. But if the current MoD thinks the UK can afford x Type 26 (mutatis mutandis with the 45s) then the Scots should certainly be able to afford and crew 0.1x of them when we don't have Trident boats or carriers to worry about. Or, if we can't, then MoD really is not doing its job right now and the UK is in a mess.
I have to go now and do some work, but will refer you to the White Paper while reminding you that (a) other small countries seem to manage and (b) doing without the MoD will save a great deal of money.
Is that why they're building the aircraft carriers in Scotland and not an English yard? I've often wondered about that.
No: it's because (a) some was built in English yards (and far, far more in England when you include the electronics and equipment) and (b) the English shipbuilding industry no longer has the capability. Which I think -objectively speaking - a great shame.
Would I be right in thinking that they'll move any naval work south after independence? Or even overseas?
Given that BAE - who are a multinational without any pandas in this fight - have been setting up their Glasgow yards to do the Type 26 ships, it's going to cost MoD a lot more to pay BAE to build them anywhere else, either in yard re-equipment and training costs, or in hefty intellectual property costs to allow, say, a South Korean company to do the work (which would also make a nonsense of the incessant claims that EWNI warships can only be built in EWNI and not in Scotland).
And such behaviour would likely lose the otherwise certain Scottish orders of the same class for the Scottish Navy. That would have a further financial impact on MoD (the ships become more expensive, because of scaling economies) and also on EWNI industry.
Remember that the hulls are only a fraction of the value of the entire ships (30% or summat like that) and most of the equipment is made south of the border. The failure to note this absolutely fundamental issue is one of the most depressing things about the whole shipyard issue.
I should have typed 'new' naval work.
As for the 26's, how many do you think Scotland wants, and will they be able to afford them?
Setting up Procurement, Recruiting and Training, MAA etc from scratch won't be cheap,
Never mind the costs of remaining in NATO. Standards compliance, Military Attaches in each member country etc etc
Bit confused as I wasn't replying to you so not sure what you mean, no discourtesy intended. But if the current MoD thinks the UK can afford x Type 26 (mutatis mutandis with the 45s) then the Scots should certainly be able to afford and crew 0.1x of them when we don't have Trident boats or carriers to worry about. Or, if we can't, then MoD really is not doing its job right now and the UK is in a mess.
I have to go now and do some work, but will refer you to the White Paper while reminding you that (a) other small countries seem to manage and (b) doing without the MoD will save a great deal of money.
Sorry, picked up on someone else's discussion. 'Skin in the game' on this subject so to speak.
If a new Scottish nation doesn't accept its share of UK debt (liablities) then it will not be entitle to its share of Uk assets.
So an independent Scotland that does not accept its share of debt will have to buy the hospitals, schools, defence buildings, and any other public buildings from rUK.
LOL, Hee Haw Hee haw
I would put it more tactfully. But Mr Evershed is perhaps forgetting that the debate is the other way round - that the Scots are assuming they will pay their share of the debts and receive their share of assets, other than fixed property. It is Mr Osborne and Co who wants to go for the other option (if they are being logical) or get the debts paid without the assets and kit (which is not logical). And it should be added it is being said we won';t be independent anyway if we don't pay the debst whatever the assets situation.
The simple ruling on fixed assets in the UK would be that they simply go to the appropriate government on whose territory they are: certainly for current devolved responsibilities In any case, quite a few have been closed, sold, run down, or given away to the robbers under PFI (old style), and the rest are already vested in the Scottish Government, local councils, quangos, etc..
One could go by financial value for the defence estate, embassies, etc. but given the concentration of defence assets south of the border that might actually do quite well for the Scots!
the White Paper is always worth a look ...
The white paper is of course written by the SNP and does not necessarily reflect the views of the rUK. whilst hospitals and schools nmay be administered by Scottish entities, they can still be owned by the rUK government, especially if an independent Scotland does not pick up its share of the debt.
This raises an interesting question: are we sure an independent Scotland will be part of the Commonwealth? It's not a member at the moment (yes it competes in the Commonwealth games, but that's not the same thing: you have to be a state to be a member of the Commonwealth) and there's no automaticity in joining (you have to apply), so it's the EU all over again: it's assumed it is a member (it isn't), it's assumed membership is automatic (it isn't), nobody's actually done the groundwork to assure entry, so...ooops.
I can't see it being in anybody's interests to stop Scotland joining the Commonwealth, if they want to join. What is the mechanism for joining? ISTR countries have been suspended from the Commonwealth in a fairly timely manner, e.g. Pakistan after the coup in ?'98?
Seems far more ad hoc criteria nowadays - Mozambique and Rwanda joined in the last 10 years, neither having been a formal British possession.
The last country to join was Rwanda in 2009. In theory there are all sorts of criteria a propsective member should meet (Harare declaration, Edinburgh declaration)[1] but in practice what happens is the Commonwealth Secretariat draws up a confidential report and the Commonwealth Heads of Government say yes/no at a CHOGM[2]
@antifrank - I think Corporeal is right, the current OFCOM rules define the 'major parties' at Great Britain-level as Lab, Con and LD. This was confirmed in 2013, and the criteria they set for changing the list are quite severe, including performance in the relevant election over at least two electoral cycles. So I think it will be have to be the same three as last time, or else the debates won't happen.
The story seems to be if Nick'n Nige debate this year, Ed'n'Dave debate in February before the rules kick in
The Nick and Nigel debate is about the EU. It's unfair for that to be held against them so they don't get to debate other topics.
The OFCOM rules are also a stitch-up by the big parties. It'll be outrageous if a party in double figures in the polls don't get a chance at the main debate.
There are plenty of non-sovereign territories that are in the Commonwealth.
Sunil, hi! You're normally good at detail but I think you're wrong here. Although many of the Commonwealth members[2] are very very small (Nairu, Tuvalu for example) all are sovereign states. I think some of them still have the House of Lords as supreme court of appeal (Bahamas?), but that doesn't stop them being sovereign states (otherwise Canada wouldn't have been a member until the 1980's). The FCO says that the only category of membership in the Commonwealth is that of a sovereign state as full member.[1]
Offtopic Is Rooney really worth more than Ronaldo and Messi :P. Talk about agents having football clubs over a barrel.
With Vidic on his way and rumours about Van Percy any other major departures would look too much like the end of an era. Rooney may not be the sharpest tool in the box but his advisors have played a blinder here with a club on the edge of desperation.
Given that BAE - who are a multinational without any pandas in this fight - have been setting up their Glasgow yards to do the Type 26 ships, it's going to cost MoD a lot more to pay BAE to build them anywhere else, either in yard re-equipment and training costs, or in hefty intellectual property costs to allow, say, a South Korean company to do the work (which would also make a nonsense of the incessant claims that EWNI warships can only be built in EWNI and not in Scotland).
And such behaviour would likely lose the otherwise certain Scottish orders of the same class for the Scottish Navy. That would have a further financial impact on MoD (the ships become more expensive, because of scaling economies) and also on EWNI industry.
Remember that the hulls are only a fraction of the value of the entire ships (30% or summat like that) and most of the equipment is made south of the border. The failure to note this absolutely fundamental issue is one of the most depressing things about the whole shipyard issue.
I think the point is this: if push came to shove, Portsmouth or Devenport *could* build the hulls. There's nothing ultimately heroic in the Clydesiders that means they can, when P or D cannot.
If it becomes worthwhile for BAE to build them south of the border, then new equipment and training will be bought. After all, both have many of the facilities needed - they're not exactly greenfield sites with no naval experience.
The needs of a UK military order will be very different from a Scottish one, especially in the long term. You need to be looking more at the Swedish or Irish navies as a model, rather than the UK's. The UK is planning 13 Type 26's, which means Scotland's share will be a little over one hull. But one would be essentially pointless, and you would need two or three to make them effective, both in terms of mission (think of maintenance periods) and cost.
Clydeside dockyards will have a hefty decision to make: whether to build the overspecificed and overpriced hulls the UK MOD wants, or less capable ones that smaller navies want and may be exportable. Sadly, other countries (e.g. Spain), can make those less capable hulls.
At the end of the day, shipbuilding may return to P or D as Scotland decides that it cannot afford the indirect subsidies BAE demands for shipbuilding ...
If a new Scottish nation doesn't accept its share of UK debt (liablities) then it will not be entitle to its share of Uk assets.
So an independent Scotland that does not accept its share of debt will have to buy the hospitals, schools, defence buildings, and any other public buildings from rUK.
This is not a 'divorce' where two partners go their separate ways.
Scotland is leaving the UK - which persists as the continuing state - which affects how things get divvied up (which Salmond should know, but chooses to ignore)
Hence:
The background is that, in terms of public international law, what would happen in the event of a Yes vote in the independence referendum in September is that Scotland would become a new State in international law and that the rest of the United Kingdom would continue as the “continuator” State. This legal analysis has not been seriously questioned by the Scottish Government in the last 12 months.
The consequence of this is that institutions of the United Kingdom would automatically become institutions of the rest of the United Kingdom in the event of Scottish independence. Thus, for example, the UK’s security and secret intelligence services would become the security and secret intelligence services of the rest of the UK (“rUK”). The Bank of England is a UK institution. So is the BBC. As UK institutions they would not fall to be apportioned equitably between the rUK and an independent Scotland.
The UK’s assets and liabilities, on the other hand, would fall to be apportioned equitably between the rUK and an independent Scotland. The apportionment of the UK’s assets and liabilities would constitute a large part of the separation negotiations that would have to follow any Yes vote in the referendum......
On the UK’s embassies, the white paper states that “Scotland would … be entitled to a fair share of the UK’s assets” (p. 13) and that “Scotland would be entitled to a fair share of the UK’s extensive overseas properties (or a share in their value) allowing us to use existing premises for some overseas posts” (p. 211). Again, this is mistaken. International law provides that State property would remain the property of the continuator State (the rUK) unless it was located in the territory of the new State (Scotland). In the Scotland Analysis Paper on EU and International Issues, the UK Government correctly state that “An independent Scottish state would not be entitled by right to any UK diplomatic premises, equipment or staff” (para 2.16).
If the offices of the DPM and PM are different it won't be a nuance that will register with 99% of voters. NClegg can have his cake and eat it: he puts on his DPM hat for the NFarage debate and his LD leader hat for the leaders' debates.
He has taken a lot of stick and my guess is that he thinks he will be able to swat away NFarage. He is of course a wily political operator no matter the criticism he has attracted and he may very well do this; I haven't seen Farage debate a political heavyweight head-on yet.
And it is good for both of them; the public gets to see politicians red in tooth and claw having a scrap.
Sunil, hi! You're normally good at detail but I think you're wrong here. Although many of the Commonwealth members[2] are very very small (Nairu, Tuvalu for example) all are sovereign states. I think some of them still have the House of Lords as supreme court of appeal (Bahamas?), but that doesn't stop them being sovereign states (otherwise Canada wouldn't have been a member until the 1980's). The FCO says that the only category of membership in the Commonwealth is that of a sovereign state as full member.[1]
The House of Lords never had any judicial functions which related to the dominions beyond the seas, if courts had been established there. Traditionally, where the Queen's sovereignty ran, an appeal lay to Her Majesty in Council. Today, that route of appeal still exists for some territories and countries, others like Australia and New Zealand have created their own final courts of appeal. Other countries such as Mauritius where the Queen is no longer sovereign also allow an appeal to the Privy Council from their own courts.
oh and as for The Topic That Shall Not Be Mentioned (apart from by everyone all the time), of course some Cons want a currency union. It is spiteful but it is saying that even though you have voted for independence, we still have you by the short & curlies.
If a new Scottish nation doesn't accept its share of UK debt (liablities) then it will not be entitle to its share of Uk assets.
So an independent Scotland that does not accept its share of debt will have to buy the hospitals, schools, defence buildings, and any other public buildings from rUK.
LOL, Hee Haw Hee haw
I would put it more tactfully. But Mr Evershed is perhaps forgetting that the debate is the other way round - that the Scots are assuming they will pay their share of the debts and receive their share of assets, other than fixed property. It is Mr Osborne and Co who wants to go for the other option (if they are being logical) or get the debts paid without the assets and kit (which is not logical). And it should be added it is being said we won';t be independent anyway if we don't pay the debst whatever the assets situation.
The simple ruling on fixed assets in the UK would be that they simply go to the appropriate government on whose territory they are: certainly for current devolved responsibilities In any case, quite a few have been closed, sold, run down, or given away to the robbers under PFI (old style), and the rest are already vested in the Scottish Government, local councils, quangos, etc..
One could go by financial value for the defence estate, embassies, etc. but given the concentration of defence assets south of the border that might actually do quite well for the Scots!
the White Paper is always worth a look ...
The white paper is of course written by the SNP and does not necessarily reflect the views of the rUK. whilst hospitals and schools nmay be administered by Scottish entities, they can still be owned by the rUK government, especially if an independent Scotland does not pick up its share of the debt.
The White Paper is mistaken in law in several aspects. Basically, stuff in Scotland goes to Scotland. Stuff outside Scotland (Embassies, institutions) stays with the continuing state, rUK. Scotland has no claim on the Embassies of the state it has chosen to leave.
As a matter of genuine interest, do you know when the term 'English Civil War' became commonplace, and is there a specific reason? Is it to do with the political/constitutional side? Or just the emphasis in many English histories on the home front, so to speak, so they wanted to focus on the local battles and politics? From a military perspective it seems odd given that the 'Civil Wars of Britain and Ireland' or 'The Wars of the Three Kingdoms' are surely more appropriate terms, at least on a military basis, and some of the decisive battles took place beyond England (as late as 1746, if you take the Scottish perspective and allow the Hanoverians to pile in as well).
I think the view of the period as a civil war has been current since the days of Hobbes, but the seventeenth century is not my strongest period.
Sunil, hi! You're normally good at detail but I think you're wrong here. Although many of the Commonwealth members[2] are very very small (Nairu, Tuvalu for example) all are sovereign states. I think some of them still have the House of Lords as supreme court of appeal (Bahamas?), but that doesn't stop them being sovereign states (otherwise Canada wouldn't have been a member until the 1980's). The FCO says that the only category of membership in the Commonwealth is that of a sovereign state as full member.[1]
The House of Lords never had any judicial functions which related to the dominions beyond the seas, if courts had been established there. Traditionally, where the Queen's sovereignty ran, an appeal lay to Her Majesty in Council. Today, that route of appeal still exists for some territories and countries, others like Australia and New Zealand have created their own final courts of appeal. Other countries such as Mauritius where the Queen is no longer sovereign also allow an appeal to the Privy Council from their own courts.
Good point well made. However,the main point still stands: all entities in the Commonwealth are sovereign states. Anything in the Commonwealth that is not a sovereign state - e.g. the Cook Islands? (a dependency of New Zealand) - is not "in" the Commonwealth in its own right, but only by virtue of its relationship with its "parent" sovereign state. If the Cook Islands cut all ties with New Zealand and became a sovereign state in its own right, it would not automatically be a member of the Commonwealth and would have to apply. Similarly for Scotland.
We wont be having the O'Neill's anywhere near the throne, thank you very much. If it has to come back it will be an O'Conor and nothing less! (I believe the current O'Conor Don lives in the Home Counties somewhere, I wonder if he sits by the phone waiting for the call to come as a compromise Head of State of a united Ireland?)
Any reason why Scottish fans have been chastised by the IOC for supporting a Scottish team with a Scottish flag? No wonder Scots are seriously considering independence when absurdities like this exist in the solitary major sporting showcase that forces Scotland to play as GB - and enforces it with pathetic measures like this.
To try and keep political statements out of the events, mainly with things like Catalonia, Kosovo, Abkhazia, (and I'm sure PBers could name more examples, I seem to remember Argentina looking into a way of claiming the Falklands on their kit). Just things the IOC doesn't want to deal with if it can avoid it.
It's also not the solitary showcase to have a GB team.
Laughable. World Cup. European Championship. Commonwealth Games. Six Nations. Cricket World Cup. Rugby World Cup. Rugby League World Cup.
They alone must account for 80+% of all bums on seats/sofas.
How many times over are you going to count football?
Rugby Union of course has regular Lions tours.
Rugby League until very recently was GB based, they've decided to move to a more similar Union style set up with regular tours but non-WC teams (to try and boost internationals by having the various nations separate).
Tennis is British based in team events.
Golf mixes and matches, with the Europe based team in the Ryder cup being the highest profile team event.
Cycling is mainly GB based, in both road and track.
As a matter of genuine interest, do you know when the term 'English Civil War' became commonplace, and is there a specific reason? Is it to do with the political/constitutional side? Or just the emphasis in many English histories on the home front, so to speak, so they wanted to focus on the local battles and politics? From a military perspective it seems odd given that the 'Civil Wars of Britain and Ireland' or 'The Wars of the Three Kingdoms' are surely more appropriate terms, at least on a military basis, and some of the decisive battles took place beyond England (as late as 1746, if you take the Scottish perspective and allow the Hanoverians to pile in as well).
I think the view of the period as a civil war has been current since the days of Hobbes, but the seventeenth century is not my strongest period.
The Civil Wars 1642-1652 are known as the English Civil War in England and Wales and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in Scotland. They kicked off with the 2 Bishops Wars in Scotland in 1639 and 1640 when Charles I decided to impose the English style of worship with the Book of Common Prayer etc on the Scottish Presbyterian Church.
Given that BAE - who are a multinational without any pandas in this fight - have been setting up their Glasgow yards to do the Type 26 ships, it's going to cost MoD a lot more to pay BAE to build them anywhere else, either in yard re-equipment and training costs, or in hefty intellectual property costs to allow, say, a South Korean company to do the work (which would also make a nonsense of the incessant claims that EWNI warships can only be built in EWNI and not in Scotland).
And such behaviour would likely lose the otherwise certain Scottish orders of the same class for the Scottish Navy. That would have a further financial impact on MoD (the ships become more expensive, because of scaling economies) and also on EWNI industry.
Remember that the hulls are only a fraction of the value of the entire ships (30% or summat like that) and most of the equipment is made south of the border. The failure to note this absolutely fundamental issue is one of the most depressing things about the whole shipyard issue.
I think the point is this: if push came to shove, Portsmouth or Devenport *could* build the hulls. There's nothing ultimately heroic in the Clydesiders that means they can, when P or D cannot.
If it becomes worthwhile for BAE to build them south of the border, then new equipment and training will be bought. After all, both have many of the facilities needed - they're not exactly greenfield sites with no naval experience.
The needs of a UK military order will be very different from a Scottish one, especially in the long term. You need to be looking more at the Swedish or Irish navies as a model, rather than the UK's. The UK is planning 13 Type 26's, which means Scotland's share will be a little over one hull. But one would be essentially pointless, and you would need two or three to make them effective, both in terms of mission (think of maintenance periods) and cost.
Clydeside dockyards will have a hefty decision to make: whether to build the overspecificed and overpriced hulls the UK MOD wants, or less capable ones that smaller navies want and may be exportable. Sadly, other countries (e.g. Spain), can make those less capable hulls.
At the end of the day, shipbuilding may return to P or D as Scotland decides that it cannot afford the indirect subsidies BAE demands for shipbuilding ...
Thanks, some interesting comments there. I had a good look around Devonport on a recent open day and there is certainly a great deal of unused space those days (though a nearby greenfield site might be better in some respects).
We wont be having the O'Neill's anywhere near the throne, thank you very much. If it has to come back it will be an O'Conor and nothing less! (I believe the current O'Conor Don lives in the Home Counties somewhere, I wonder if he sits by the phone waiting for the call to come as a compromise Head of State of a united Ireland?)
Absolutely no O'Neill's anywhere, please.
I knew I could count on you to back the Connacht challenger, Charles.
As a matter of genuine interest, do you know when the term 'English Civil War' became commonplace, and is there a specific reason? Is it to do with the political/constitutional side? Or just the emphasis in many English histories on the home front, so to speak, so they wanted to focus on the local battles and politics? From a military perspective it seems odd given that the 'Civil Wars of Britain and Ireland' or 'The Wars of the Three Kingdoms' are surely more appropriate terms, at least on a military basis, and some of the decisive battles took place beyond England (as late as 1746, if you take the Scottish perspective and allow the Hanoverians to pile in as well).
I think the view of the period as a civil war has been current since the days of Hobbes, but the seventeenth century is not my strongest period.
The Civil Wars 1642-1652 are known as the English Civil War in England and Wales and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in Scotland. They kicked off with the 2 Bishops Wars in Scotland in 1639 and 1640 when Charles I decided to impose the English style of worship with the Book of Common Prayer etc on the Scottish Presbyterian Church.
Given that BAE - who are a multinational without any pandas in this fight - have been setting up their Glasgow yards to do the Type 26 ships, it's going to cost MoD a lot more to pay BAE to build them anywhere else, either in yard re-equipment and training costs, or in hefty intellectual property costs to allow, say, a South Korean company to do the work (which would also make a nonsense of the incessant claims that EWNI warships can only be built in EWNI and not in Scotland).
And such behaviour would likely lose the otherwise certain Scottish orders of the same class for the Scottish Navy. That would have a further financial impact on MoD (the ships become more expensive, because of scaling economies) and also on EWNI industry.
Remember that the hulls are only a fraction of the value of the entire ships (30% or summat like that) and most of the equipment is made south of the border. The failure to note this absolutely fundamental issue is one of the most depressing things about the whole shipyard issue.
I think the point is this: if push came to shove, Portsmouth or Devenport *could* build the hulls. There's nothing ultimately heroic in the Clydesiders that means they can, when P or D cannot.
If it becomes worthwhile for BAE to build them south of the border, then new equipment and training will be bought. After all, both have many of the facilities needed - they're not exactly greenfield sites with no naval experience.
The needs of a UK military order will be very different from a Scottish one, especially in the long term. You need to be looking more at the Swedish or Irish navies as a model, rather than the UK's. The UK is planning 13 Type 26's, which means Scotland's share will be a little over one hull. But one would be essentially pointless, and you would need two or three to make them effective, both in terms of mission (think of maintenance periods) and cost.
Clydeside dockyards will have a hefty decision to make: whether to build the overspecificed and overpriced hulls the UK MOD wants, or less capable ones that smaller navies want and may be exportable. Sadly, other countries (e.g. Spain), can make those less capable hulls.
At the end of the day, shipbuilding may return to P or D as Scotland decides that it cannot afford the indirect subsidies BAE demands for shipbuilding ...
Thanks, some interesting comments there. I had a good look around Devonport on a recent open day and there is certainly a great deal of unused space those days (though a nearby greenfield site might be better in some respects).
Christopher McEleny @Cllr_McEleny 2 hrs Jackson Carlaw, Deputy Tory Leader confirms that come a #Yes vote he will be "manning the barricades" for Scotland to keep the £. #indyref
Silly man, has he no been 'telt' by Osballs & Alexander?
Surely there's a difference between 'keeping the pound' and 'being in a currency union' ?
Well if you want to be picky , even though a fool could understand it. Jackson Carlaw, Deputy Tory Leader confirms that come a #Yes vote he will be "manning the barricades" for Scotland to have a sterling currency union ( £ )
It seems 'a fool' didn't include TUD. ;-)
As is often the case for your brethren (e.g. MickPOrk), you've fapped yourself off by retweeting a non-entity's dribblings, without actually thinking what it means.
Just spotted your careful and considered opinion Jessie. Perhaps you could explain why laughably out of touch right-wingers (shrieking for over a week now) on an issue you clearly have minimal knowledge of should be taken seriously by anyone? Let alone the scottish public to whom you and the tories are so amusingly toxic.
Go back to cheering on the fop chicken as Farage and Clegg prepare to make the second rate Blair impersonator Cammie look even more cowardly than usual.
I think the point is this: if push came to shove, Portsmouth or Devenport *could* build the hulls. There's nothing ultimately heroic in the Clydesiders that means they can, when P or D cannot.
If it becomes worthwhile for BAE to build them south of the border, then new equipment and training will be bought. After all, both have many of the facilities needed - they're not exactly greenfield sites with no naval experience.
The needs of a UK military order will be very different from a Scottish one, especially in the long term. You need to be looking more at the Swedish or Irish navies as a model, rather than the UK's. The UK is planning 13 Type 26's, which means Scotland's share will be a little over one hull. But one would be essentially pointless, and you would need two or three to make them effective, both in terms of mission (think of maintenance periods) and cost.
Clydeside dockyards will have a hefty decision to make: whether to build the overspecificed and overpriced hulls the UK MOD wants, or less capable ones that smaller navies want and may be exportable. Sadly, other countries (e.g. Spain), can make those less capable hulls.
At the end of the day, shipbuilding may return to P or D as Scotland decides that it cannot afford the indirect subsidies BAE demands for shipbuilding ...
Thanks, some interesting comments there. I had a good look around Devonport on a recent open day and there is certainly a great deal of unused space those days (though a nearby greenfield site might be better in some respects).
Lots of Devonport has been sold off for housing.
It wouldn't surprise me if that was the case (aside from the usual and often forgotten pollution problems with ex-industrial sites), but has any been sold recently? A quick Google shows no references, but that might just be my google-fu failing.
I think the point is this: if push came to shove, Portsmouth or Devenport *could* build the hulls. There's nothing ultimately heroic in the Clydesiders that means they can, when P or D cannot.
If it becomes worthwhile for BAE to build them south of the border, then new equipment and training will be bought. After all, both have many of the facilities needed - they're not exactly greenfield sites with no naval experience.
The needs of a UK military order will be very different from a Scottish one, especially in the long term. You need to be looking more at the Swedish or Irish navies as a model, rather than the UK's. The UK is planning 13 Type 26's, which means Scotland's share will be a little over one hull. But one would be essentially pointless, and you would need two or three to make them effective, both in terms of mission (think of maintenance periods) and cost.
Clydeside dockyards will have a hefty decision to make: whether to build the overspecificed and overpriced hulls the UK MOD wants, or less capable ones that smaller navies want and may be exportable. Sadly, other countries (e.g. Spain), can make those less capable hulls.
At the end of the day, shipbuilding may return to P or D as Scotland decides that it cannot afford the indirect subsidies BAE demands for shipbuilding ...
Thanks, some interesting comments there. I had a good look around Devonport on a recent open day and there is certainly a great deal of unused space those days (though a nearby greenfield site might be better in some respects).
Lots of Devonport has been sold off for housing.
It wouldn't surprise me if that was the case (aside from the usual and often forgotten pollution problems with ex-industrial sites), but has any been sold recently? A quick Google shows no references, but that might just be my google-fu failing.
Are you talking about of the blitzed and, a few years ago, still derelict housing areas at the south end, incorporated into he dockyard and used as car parks etc.? That's not really the old dockyard proper, I suppose, but avoids the historic dockyard with conservation as well as pollution issues.
There is a tongue of the town which penetrates to the sea between the two chunks of the dockyard, to where the ferry to the Cornish side ran/runs. It has a railway tunnel under and bridge over between different parts of the dockyard.
Don't know if anyone is following it but Ireland doing decently in the 2nd T20 in Jamaica: after 10 overs they've reduced the Windies to 48/3. Have a decent shot at a 2-0 series victory over the current World Champs. Remarkable.
Stoke North Labour selection. 8 applications received at the deadline:
Candi Chetwynd (Stoke Central CLP Secretary; 29 year old, joined Labour 2 years ago; failed candidate in Baddeley Green, Milton and Norton by-election last year)
Katie Ghose (Chief Executive of Electoral Society; Yes2AV campaign chair, shortlisted in Brighton Kemptown)
Zaeba Hanif (Stoke North CLP Women's officer)
Doreen McCalla (from North East Derbyshire, unsucessfully tried in Coventry NE)
Jasbir Jaspal (Wolverhampton Cllr)
Louise Reecejones (stood in Wirral locals in 2012, shortlisted in Dover, Redcar)
Ruth Smeeth (Deputy Director of Hope, Not Hate, 2010 candidate in Burton, run for NEC for Labour First in 2012)
Clare White (project manager at the Workers' Educational Association; 33 years old, joined Labour 2 years ago, 2013 conference delegate for Stoke North CLP)
Don't know if anyone is following it but Ireland doing decently in the 2nd T20 in Jamaica: after 10 overs they've reduced the Windies to 48/3. Have a decent shot at a 2-0 series victory over the current World Champs. Remarkable.
It's being followed *very* closely! 7 down now. Well done to all concerned for the free live stream.
Nick vs Nigel represents 20% of the electorate or 30% if you take the Euros into consideration.
It is not a mainstream debate and should be relegated to LBC unless the two big parties take part.
Nonsense - the debate isn't about a Westminster election or even about the EU Parliament election but the question of our membership of the EU as a whole. On that basis, and as the crudest of measurements, Nick "represents" 40% and Nigel 60%. Whether anyone votes LD or UKIP is irrelevant, the key is whether people will vote YES or NO in any future referendum on EU membership.
On that basis, it has no relevance to the 2015 GE debates either. Whether Nigel Farage should be included in those debates or not isn't determined on his inclusion in this debate.
Nick vs Nigel represents 20% of the electorate or 30% if you take the Euros into consideration.
It is not a mainstream debate and should be relegated to LBC unless the two big parties take part.
Nonsense - the debate isn't about a Westminster election or even about the EU Parliament election but the question of our membership of the EU as a whole. On that basis, and as the crudest of measurements, Nick "represents" 40% and Nigel 60%. Whether anyone votes LD or UKIP is irrelevant, the key is whether people will vote YES or NO in any future referendum on EU membership.
On that basis, it has no relevance to the 2015 GE debates either. Whether Nigel Farage should be included in those debates or not isn't determined on his inclusion in this debate.
That`s just silly.This is not a referendum with a `Yes` or `No` campaign for Europe.
It is an European election for MEP`s elected on the basis of party identity.So a Lib Dem vs UKIP debate represents a small proportion of voters and should receive a proportionate amount of attention.
The strategy of backing Ireland at the start of the championship and laying off wasnt too bad - possible to lay them at 3.05 to win the championship after France's dodgy start.
That`s just silly.This is not a referendum with a `Yes` or `No` campaign for Europe.
It is an European election for MEP`s elected on the basis of party identity for the European election.So a Lib Dem vs UKIP debate represents a small proportion of voters and should receive a proportionate amount of attention.
No, the debate is about Britain's membership of the EU. The EU Parliamentary election is NOT a referendum on whether we should be in the EU or not - you can choose to vote for a party which wants us out of the EU if you want but we won't leave the EU as a result of these elections.
There will be Conservative voters who want us to stay in the EU and Conservative voters who don't but they all vote the same way as far as the EU Parliamentary election is concerned.
The Clegg/Farage debate is about whether we remain members of the EU - the fact there is no actual referendum on the table is irrelevant. When the referendum is called, they will be on different sides along with members of other parties.
The strategy of backing Ireland at the start of the championship and laying off wasnt too bad - possible to lay them at 3.05 to win the championship after France's dodgy start.
Windies struggling to get 100!
And they don't. 96/9. And 4-1-11-4 for Cusack. Wonder if he's got an English grandmother...
That`s just silly.This is not a referendum with a `Yes` or `No` campaign for Europe.
It is an European election for MEP`s elected on the basis of party identity for the European election.So a Lib Dem vs UKIP debate represents a small proportion of voters and should receive a proportionate amount of attention.
No, the debate is about Britain's membership of the EU. The EU Parliamentary election is NOT a referendum on whether we should be in the EU or not - you can choose to vote for a party which wants us out of the EU if you want but we won't leave the EU as a result of these elections.
There will be Conservative voters who want us to stay in the EU and Conservative voters who don't but they all vote the same way as far as the EU Parliamentary election is concerned.
The Clegg/Farage debate is about whether we remain members of the EU - the fact there is no actual referendum on the table is irrelevant. When the referendum is called, they will be on different sides along with members of other parties.
Why do you need such a debate when the question before us in May is not whether we remain members of EU.It is only a question of which party best represents the UK in Europe.
It is a cynical desperate attempt by a party leader to remain relevant when poll after poll shows devastation for Lib Dems in the MEP elections.
* East-Kilbride will become a ghost-town. You'll have to wait a month before a bus will come in order for you to collect your Scots' pension.
That's funny, all those PCS workers in East Kilbride have voted 'overwhelmingly' to support Yes Scotland.
'The East Kilbride Revenue & Customs branch of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) today voted “overwhelmingly” to support a Yes vote in this September’s referendum on Scottish independence.The branch’s official Twitter account tweeted: “PCS East Kilbride votes overwhelmingly that PCS should campaign for a Yes vote in the Scottish Independence debate!!” A later tweet added: “It was an overwhelming majority so we didn’t need to do an exact count. It was split 60-20-20 in favour of supporting the Yes.”'
That`s just silly.This is not a referendum with a `Yes` or `No` campaign for Europe.
It is an European election for MEP`s elected on the basis of party identity for the European election.So a Lib Dem vs UKIP debate represents a small proportion of voters and should receive a proportionate amount of attention.
No, the debate is about Britain's membership of the EU. The EU Parliamentary election is NOT a referendum on whether we should be in the EU or not - you can choose to vote for a party which wants us out of the EU if you want but we won't leave the EU as a result of these elections.
There will be Conservative voters who want us to stay in the EU and Conservative voters who don't but they all vote the same way as far as the EU Parliamentary election is concerned.
The Clegg/Farage debate is about whether we remain members of the EU - the fact there is no actual referendum on the table is irrelevant. When the referendum is called, they will be on different sides along with members of other parties.
Why do you need such a debate when the question before us in May is not whether we remain members of EU.It is only a question of which party best represents the UK in Europe.
It is a cynical desperate attempt by a party leader to remain relevant when poll after poll shows devastation for Lib Dems in the MEP elections.
So what?
If little Ed doesn't want to look as cowardly as Cammie then he'd better get in touch with Farage or Clegg sharpish. Lest you be in any doubt, it's not just the out of touch tories who should be dreading this, it's little Ed who still struggles to connect with ordinary voters.
Not a good idea to reinforce that image after last May's locals.
Labour or the tories can't just demand for this debate not to take place on TV just because they don't want to take part in it. Even the BBC would struggle not to laugh in their faces.
How "Irish" is the Irish cricket team, compared, say, to the football team? (Or the English cricket team, of course.) Subject to usual disclaimer about Ireland being a heterogeneous society with a large diaspora and the nature of "Irishness" having both inheritable and assimilable aspects...
That`s just silly.This is not a referendum with a `Yes` or `No` campaign for Europe.
It is an European election for MEP`s elected on the basis of party identity for the European election.So a Lib Dem vs UKIP debate represents a small proportion of voters and should receive a proportionate amount of attention.
No, the debate is about Britain's membership of the EU. The EU Parliamentary election is NOT a referendum on whether we should be in the EU or not - you can choose to vote for a party which wants us out of the EU if you want but we won't leave the EU as a result of these elections.
There will be Conservative voters who want us to stay in the EU and Conservative voters who don't but they all vote the same way as far as the EU Parliamentary election is concerned.
The Clegg/Farage debate is about whether we remain members of the EU - the fact there is no actual referendum on the table is irrelevant. When the referendum is called, they will be on different sides along with members of other parties.
Why do you need such a debate when the question before us in May is not whether we remain members of EU.It is only a question of which party best represents the UK in Europe.
It is a cynical desperate attempt by a party leader to remain relevant when poll after poll shows devastation for Lib Dems in the MEP elections.
So what?
If little Ed doesn't want to look as cowardly as Cammie then he'd better get in touch with Farage or Clegg sharpish. Lest you be in any doubt, it's not just the out of touch tories who should be dreading this, it's little Ed who still struggles to connect with ordinary voters.
Not a good idea to reinforce that image after last May's locals.
Labour or the Tories can't just demand for this debate not to take place on TV just because they don't want to take part in it. Even the BBC would struggle not to laugh in their faces.
What next?Greens vs Raving Loony Party debate on ITV for the May Council elections.
Without the main contenders,this debate is a farce and I am surprised that Farage has humoured Clegg with this attempt at still maintaining his relevance.
That's funny, all those PCS workers in East Kilbride have voted 'overwhelmingly' to support Yes Scotland.
T'hUD:
Public-sector parasites want the English-Taxpayer to pay for their bennies? No wonder the Scots and other Svens look to Norway as a model/homeland whilst they enjoy their own rapacious consumption of England's wealth....
That`s just silly.This is not a referendum with a `Yes` or `No` campaign for Europe.
It is an European election for MEP`s elected on the basis of party identity for the European election.So a Lib Dem vs UKIP debate represents a small proportion of voters and should receive a proportionate amount of attention.
No, the debate is about Britain's membership of the EU. The EU Parliamentary election is NOT a referendum on whether we should be in the EU or not - you can choose to vote for a party which wants us out of the EU if you want but we won't leave the EU as a result of these elections.
There will be Conservative voters who want us to stay in the EU and Conservative voters who don't but they all vote the same way as far as the EU Parliamentary election is concerned.
The Clegg/Farage debate is about whether we remain members of the EU - the fact there is no actual referendum on the table is irrelevant. When the referendum is called, they will be on different sides along with members of other parties.
Why do you need such a debate when the question before us in May is not whether we remain members of EU.It is only a question of which party best represents the UK in Europe.
It is a cynical desperate attempt by a party leader to remain relevant when poll after poll shows devastation for Lib Dems in the MEP elections.
So what?
If little Ed doesn't want to look as cowardly as Cammie then he'd better get in touch with Farage or Clegg sharpish. Lest you be in any doubt, it's not just the out of touch tories who should be dreading this, it's little Ed who still struggles to connect with ordinary voters.
Not a good idea to reinforce that image after last May's locals.
Labour or the Tories can't just demand for this debate not to take place on TV just because they don't want to take part in it. Even the BBC would struggle not to laugh in their faces.
What next?Greens vs Raving Loony Party debate on ITV for the May Council elections.
Without the main contenders,this debate is a farce and I am surprised that Farage has humoured Clegg with this attempt at still maintaining his relevance.
For the Euros UKIP are either the top contender or 2nd contender.
Lab and Con could have taken part, decided not to. Shame, but there it is.
I of course wouldnt deny any of them their Irishness...
But the cricketers who qualify tend to do so through residency and are genuinely adopted Irishmen in the end. I think 3 of this team were born overseas. But Rankin and Morgan would probably be in the team if available which might just up the numbers if picking the strongest 11.
Comments
So that's double cowardice by Miliband. First he won't debate on the EU, even though he stands politically to gain from doing so. And secondly because he's not prepared to debate anyone in the election debates other than the person weighed down by incumbency. It clearly shows he doesn't have confidence in his own vision.
You can control a MacBook's keyboard-back-light with the F5 and F6 keys.
@JohnRentoul @michaelsavage @JGForsyth @MattChorley @Sean_Kemp For what it's worth, Miliband has just told me he wants a "three-way debate"
I love Portsmouth (I got married in the dockyard), and feel the pain of the loss of shipbuilding there. But the idea that a yard that had not built full ships for decades could win over one that has immediate experience, was ridiculous.
That may (or may not) remain the case after Scottish Indy.
In short the government was getting a lot of its additional borrowing for free. It is why QE is so insiduous and so dangerous a thing to be let loose anywhere near a politician of any stripe.
They alone must account for 80+% of all bums on seats/sofas.
The simple ruling on fixed assets in the UK would be that they simply go to the appropriate government on whose territory they are: certainly for current devolved responsibilities In any case, quite a few have been closed, sold, run down, or given away to the robbers under PFI (old style), and the rest are already vested in the Scottish Government, local councils, quangos, etc..
One could go by financial value for the defence estate, embassies, etc. but given the concentration of defence assets south of the border that might actually do quite well for the Scots!
the White Paper is always worth a look ...
There's also another reason why the broadcasters seem so keen to have the debates. Format testing. They'll want to push more ideas and innovation for the 2015 debates with this as an ideal testbed. Things such as audience participation, moderation, possible twitter questions, opening/closing statements and time limits or a lack of them. All of that could be demonstrated using Clegg and Farage as a dry run and the public then polled as to what they thought of it.
Those 2015 debates are absolutely going to take place BTW.
Anyone deluded enough to think otherwise is going to be in for one hell of a shock.
http://budgetresponsibility.org.uk/wordpress/docs/Feb-2014-commentary.pdf
I will be interested to see what @AveryLP comes up with over the weekend.
If that tweet is correct, it's very significant. Apart from anything else, it means that the debates will probably happen. So it also suggests that either Ed Miliband is confident of his likely performance in the debates or he believes that he needs to prove himself in the full glare of the public's gaze. I'd say he's probably right on both counts.
Independence will give opportunities to everyone.
Thanks for clarifying that the scottish parliament somehow doesn't matter to scottish labour.
That kind of westminster bubble thinking should see them win far more votes for the No side.
More please.
And such behaviour would likely lose the otherwise certain Scottish orders of the same class for the Scottish Navy. That would have a further financial impact on MoD (the ships become more expensive, because of scaling economies) and also on EWNI industry.
Remember that the hulls are only a fraction of the value of the entire ships (30% or summat like that) and most of the equipment is made south of the border. The failure to note this absolutely fundamental issue is one of the most depressing things about the whole shipyard issue.
There were times on that train journey when I wasnt sure whether the people sitting at the table werent essentially the legitimate Government of Ireland at the time in their own eyes! There are indeed people out there who believe the first Dáil dissolved itself and that Ireland has been under military rule ever since. The Provisional IRA itself ending its campaign doesnt affect these people as they had long given up on P. O'Neill and his cronies.
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/consultations/ppbs/statement/statement.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_referendum_on_United_Kingdom_membership_of_the_European_Union#2013
The strategy does depend on being able to portray the EU Parliament elections as in in/out EU referendum vote. It could work.
The key thing for the LDs is to nudge the campaign debate to in/out. They won't be the only ones trying to do that.
As for the 26's, how many do you think Scotland wants, and will they be able to afford them?
Setting up Procurement, Recruiting and Training, MAA etc from scratch won't be cheap,
Never mind the costs of remaining in NATO. Standards compliance, Military Attaches in each member country etc etc
And if they're out, then there's the question of restrictions on selling the technology in the afore mentioned ships to a non member.
I have to go now and do some work, but will refer you to the White Paper while reminding you that (a) other small countries seem to manage and (b) doing without the MoD will save a great deal of money.
The white paper is of course written by the SNP and does not necessarily reflect the views of the rUK. whilst hospitals and schools nmay be administered by Scottish entities, they can still be owned by the rUK government, especially if an independent Scotland does not pick up its share of the debt.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations_membership_criteria
[2] http://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/publications/hradvocacy/rwanda's_application_for_membership_of_the_commonwealth.pdf
The OFCOM rules are also a stitch-up by the big parties. It'll be outrageous if a party in double figures in the polls don't get a chance at the main debate.
[1] http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmfaff/114/11410.htm
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_the_Commonwealth_of_Nations
If it becomes worthwhile for BAE to build them south of the border, then new equipment and training will be bought. After all, both have many of the facilities needed - they're not exactly greenfield sites with no naval experience.
The needs of a UK military order will be very different from a Scottish one, especially in the long term. You need to be looking more at the Swedish or Irish navies as a model, rather than the UK's. The UK is planning 13 Type 26's, which means Scotland's share will be a little over one hull. But one would be essentially pointless, and you would need two or three to make them effective, both in terms of mission (think of maintenance periods) and cost.
Clydeside dockyards will have a hefty decision to make: whether to build the overspecificed and overpriced hulls the UK MOD wants, or less capable ones that smaller navies want and may be exportable. Sadly, other countries (e.g. Spain), can make those less capable hulls.
At the end of the day, shipbuilding may return to P or D as Scotland decides that it cannot afford the indirect subsidies BAE demands for shipbuilding ...
http://notesfromnorthbritain.wordpress.com/2014/01/28/the-hidden-costs-of-independence/
This is not a 'divorce' where two partners go their separate ways.
Scotland is leaving the UK - which persists as the continuing state - which affects how things get divvied up (which Salmond should know, but chooses to ignore)
Hence:
The background is that, in terms of public international law, what would happen in the event of a Yes vote in the independence referendum in September is that Scotland would become a new State in international law and that the rest of the United Kingdom would continue as the “continuator” State. This legal analysis has not been seriously questioned by the Scottish Government in the last 12 months.
The consequence of this is that institutions of the United Kingdom would automatically become institutions of the rest of the United Kingdom in the event of Scottish independence. Thus, for example, the UK’s security and secret intelligence services would become the security and secret intelligence services of the rest of the UK (“rUK”). The Bank of England is a UK institution. So is the BBC. As UK institutions they would not fall to be apportioned equitably between the rUK and an independent Scotland.
The UK’s assets and liabilities, on the other hand, would fall to be apportioned equitably between the rUK and an independent Scotland. The apportionment of the UK’s assets and liabilities would constitute a large part of the separation negotiations that would have to follow any Yes vote in the referendum......
On the UK’s embassies, the white paper states that “Scotland would … be entitled to a fair share of the UK’s assets” (p. 13) and that “Scotland would be entitled to a fair share of the UK’s extensive overseas properties (or a share in their value) allowing us to use existing premises for some overseas posts” (p. 211). Again, this is mistaken. International law provides that State property would remain the property of the continuator State (the rUK) unless it was located in the territory of the new State (Scotland). In the Scotland Analysis Paper on EU and International Issues, the UK Government correctly state that “An independent Scottish state would not be entitled by right to any UK diplomatic premises, equipment or staff” (para 2.16).
If the offices of the DPM and PM are different it won't be a nuance that will register with 99% of voters. NClegg can have his cake and eat it: he puts on his DPM hat for the NFarage debate and his LD leader hat for the leaders' debates.
He has taken a lot of stick and my guess is that he thinks he will be able to swat away NFarage. He is of course a wily political operator no matter the criticism he has attracted and he may very well do this; I haven't seen Farage debate a political heavyweight head-on yet.
And it is good for both of them; the public gets to see politicians red in tooth and claw having a scrap.
Rugby Union of course has regular Lions tours.
Rugby League until very recently was GB based, they've decided to move to a more similar Union style set up with regular tours but non-WC teams (to try and boost internationals by having the various nations separate).
Tennis is British based in team events.
Golf mixes and matches, with the Europe based team in the Ryder cup being the highest profile team event.
Cycling is mainly GB based, in both road and track.
Go back to cheering on the fop chicken as Farage and Clegg prepare to make the second rate Blair impersonator Cammie look even more cowardly than usual.
There is a tongue of the town which penetrates to the sea between the two chunks of the dockyard, to where the ferry to the Cornish side ran/runs. It has a railway tunnel under and bridge over between different parts of the dockyard.
Candi Chetwynd (Stoke Central CLP Secretary; 29 year old, joined Labour 2 years ago; failed candidate in Baddeley Green, Milton and Norton by-election last year)
Katie Ghose (Chief Executive of Electoral Society; Yes2AV campaign chair, shortlisted in Brighton Kemptown)
Zaeba Hanif (Stoke North CLP Women's officer)
Doreen McCalla (from North East Derbyshire, unsucessfully tried in Coventry NE)
Jasbir Jaspal (Wolverhampton Cllr)
Louise Reecejones (stood in Wirral locals in 2012, shortlisted in Dover, Redcar)
Ruth Smeeth (Deputy Director of Hope, Not Hate, 2010 candidate in Burton, run for NEC for Labour First in 2012)
Clare White (project manager at the Workers' Educational Association; 33 years old, joined Labour 2 years ago, 2013 conference delegate for Stoke North CLP)
Selection: April 5
It is not a mainstream debate and should be relegated to LBC unless the two big parties take part.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP6KbkoJe3o
On that basis, it has no relevance to the 2015 GE debates either. Whether Nigel Farage should be included in those debates or not isn't determined on his inclusion in this debate.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/nick-clegg/10654723/Nick-Clegg-could-be-cut-out-of-2015-general-election-debates.html
It is an European election for MEP`s elected on the basis of party identity.So a Lib Dem vs UKIP debate represents a small proportion of voters and should receive a proportionate amount of attention.
* East-Kilbride will become a ghost-town. You'll have to wait a month before a bus will come in order for you to collect your Scots' pension.
And do not conflate London with Westminster. BoJo has no debt raising powers you skirt-wearing muppet....
Windies struggling to get 100!
There will be Conservative voters who want us to stay in the EU and Conservative voters who don't but they all vote the same way as far as the EU Parliamentary election is concerned.
The Clegg/Farage debate is about whether we remain members of the EU - the fact there is no actual referendum on the table is irrelevant. When the referendum is called, they will be on different sides along with members of other parties.
It is a cynical desperate attempt by a party leader to remain relevant when poll after poll shows devastation for Lib Dems in the MEP elections.
'The East Kilbride Revenue & Customs branch of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) today voted “overwhelmingly” to support a Yes vote in this September’s referendum on Scottish independence.The branch’s official Twitter account tweeted: “PCS East Kilbride votes overwhelmingly that PCS should campaign for a Yes vote in the Scottish Independence debate!!” A later tweet added: “It was an overwhelming majority so we didn’t need to do an exact count. It was split 60-20-20 in favour of supporting the Yes.”'
If little Ed doesn't want to look as cowardly as Cammie then he'd better get in touch with Farage or Clegg sharpish. Lest you be in any doubt, it's not just the out of touch tories who should be dreading this, it's little Ed who still struggles to connect with ordinary voters.
Not a good idea to reinforce that image after last May's locals.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/96/UK_opinion_polling_2010-2015.png
Labour or the tories can't just demand for this debate not to take place on TV just because they don't want to take part in it. Even the BBC would struggle not to laugh in their faces.
:troll-alert:
No mention of OFCOM etc.
Without the main contenders,this debate is a farce and I am surprised that Farage has humoured Clegg with this attempt at still maintaining his relevance.
Public-sector parasites want the English-Taxpayer to pay for their bennies? No wonder the Scots and other Svens look to Norway as a model/homeland whilst they enjoy their own rapacious consumption of England's wealth....
Lab and Con could have taken part, decided not to. Shame, but there it is.
I of course wouldnt deny any of them their Irishness...
But the cricketers who qualify tend to do so through residency and are genuinely adopted Irishmen in the end. I think 3 of this team were born overseas. But Rankin and Morgan would probably be in the team if available which might just up the numbers if picking the strongest 11.
Wonderful to see you up so late and apparently not too drunk to operate a computer. I'm proud of you.