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The long road to a united Ireland – politicalbetting.com
The long road to a united Ireland – politicalbetting.com
"I'm honoured to stand here as First Minister. We mark a moment of equality and a moment of progress. A new opportunity to work and grow together."Michelle O'Neill speaks at Stormont as she makes history as NI's first nationalist FM.https://t.co/qZ4xG2V8b0? Sky 501 pic.twitter.com/xxrumEM1uM
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I have been travelling regularly on Ryanair. I would advise always printing out your boarding pass and not trusting their 'app'. Quite often the boarding pass disappears from the app after you have checked in or mysteriously cannot be retrieved just before the flight due to some 'technical issue'. At the least, if you use the app and get a boarding pass on it, take a screenshot of the boarding pass.
Tiocfaidh ar la.
As @darkage says, it will fudged and finessed for the foreseeable
https://mubi.com/en/fi/films/zero-fucks-given
The key statistic is that while the self-identifying nationalist population is growing at the expense of the self-identifying unionist, those seeing themselves as neither is growing the fastest of all (hence the continuing growth of the alliance party). And a significant majority of those ‘in the middle’ consistently say they would rather stay in the UK.
That said, the economic and social progress made within the Republic makes it more of an attractive destination now, than it was as a reactionary church-controlled society in times past. One silver lining that has emerged from the long history of church scandals.
My assumption would be that the South would emotionally desire reunification - the question might be whether they would be willing to pay the largeish bill that would come with it. At the moment, Northern Ireland is something of a dead loss economically and it has rather more generous public services than in the Republic.
Of course, Sinn Féin's manifesto for Ireland includes an expansion in the south - e.g. an NHS style universal FPU healthcare system. So that may cease to matter as much if they are in power in Stormont and Dublin.
And Sinn Fein have got the key economic portfolios in the new executive, so if it lasts for any length of time they have the opportunity to try and sort out the North's economy. Whether they have the imagination and ability to do so may be a rather different question.
https://schoolsweek.co.uk/ap-in-desperate-need-of-reform-damning-ofsted-and-cqc-report-says/
Perhaps we're seeing the first impact of somebody who has actually worked in education being put back in charge? Although I am assuming given the length of it and the complexity it must have been commissioned by Spielman.
I think fans of the ongoing occupation of the 6C are making the mistakes Remain did with utilitarian and instrumental arguments.
Feels > Reals.
‘The first real Brexit dividend’
But I didn’t want to be accused of trolling.
lol
I would agree that it makes geopolitical sense and to some extent, cultural sense, but I do wonder with a reunification would lead to the return to England and Scotland of the grandchildren of the Plantation. Obviously the Republic is not the quasi theocracy that it was until a few years ago, but I don’t think the attitudes led to the separation a century ago have died out.
https://online.hscni.net/my-waiting-times-ni/bhsct/bt-treatments/
RoI healthcare has its own issues, but is functional. While some pay nothing, the average citizen pays £500 per year in medical charges, with fees for public healthcare and a larger private system. Overall results are generally superior to the NHS.
https://www.movehub.com/uk/moving-abroad/ireland/healthcare-for-expats/
England will now win this.
Lack of soldiers and arms must be addressed with a major shake-up, warns landmark report
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/04/britains-hollowed-out-armed-forces-not-ready-fight-russia/ (£££)
We must rise to the challenge of a ‘pre-war world’ – and quickly
Warnings of a possible Russian offensive against Nato are a wake-up call
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/04/armed-forces-west-nato-pre-war-russia/ (£££)
Wasteful Britain needs to buy a new arsenal for war with Russia
Doubts over Nato and threats on multiple fronts leave UK with no choice but to rearm
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/02/04/wasteful-britain-buy-new-arsenal-war-russia/ (£££)
Army fails to meet recruitment targets at all training centres for five years
Report says that for every eight troops who leave the Armed Forces only five join
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/03/none-of-armys-recruitment-centres-hits-targets-for-5-years/ (£££)
Britain’s warships have gym where land attack missiles should be
Type 45 destroyers did not procure the weapons due to lack of funds
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/03/royal-navy-warships-gym-land-attack-missiles/ (£££)
Our enemies are prepared for the fight. It’s time to rearm to avoid World War Three
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/03/enemies-prepared-for-fight-time-to-rearm-avoid-world-war/ (£££)
It's military panic day at the Sunday Telegraph which has just caught up with four decades of Jeremy Corbyn's defence cuts.
Let's hear it for Foakes' keeping even as England totter to defeat.
Some might move here, but most would stay and form a block in the Irish Parliament, which ironically might be an abstentionist one.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/03/anyone-but-peter-bone-voters-turn-to-labour-and-reform-uk-as-wellingborough-byelection-nears
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
A less independent role anyway. So, they need to both be a true believer, and like the then-current Taoiseach; or be willing for that to be the culmination of their career .
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
Just this week, the UK ploughed £3 billion into NI. The Republic simply doesn't have the firepower to do that on the regularity that would be needed. Remember, we had to bail out their banks in 2008.
Many non-aligned will look at that and say "Nah..let's keep the safety blanket in place." If the outcome of Brexit has shown us one thing it is that warm fuzzy glows about 'taking control' don't pay the bills.
"She warned that Britain’s previously thriving pharmaceutical sector was now in a trade deficit because we have to import so much more medicine than before – the latest 2022 figures show a $5bn deficit globally, compared with a surplus of $9.7bn in 2010."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/04/brexit-trade-perks-firms-business-department-leaving-eu-companies
You can win a vote by making a lot of damnfool promises. But if you win, you then have to keep those promises. If you don't (which is likely given how damnfool the promises were), retribution will be brutal.
The Conservatives strapped themselves into a torture device in 2019. And by getting rid of the Rory Stewart wing of the party, they basically threw away the key. Now, they can't get out.
The obvious ploy then would be to start the alignment process for unification. A border poll would be a lot easier to win if citizens wherever they live can see similar things happening at the same time.
As for the remaining hardcore loyalist community, surely the solution is simple. Retain your British passports and citizenship. NI ceased to be indivisibly British when devolution happened. Now NI is separate from GB from a trading perspective. The mission to stay “British” has failed. They are not - and from a governance position only the English remain wholly under Westminster. I wonder when the DUP will accept what they have done?
So they do in Sunak and stick in Braverman. What then? Your average FUKer is not making rational objections to policy, only emotional ones. They - like the Corbynites - do not want practical solutions because reality is compromise. They want absolutist fantasy solutions.
You cannot disarm emotional objections with facts and rationale. A Braverman Tory party - assuming it doesn’t split - would still not fully satisfy the FUKers because what they want is a fantasy. So they would lose another chunk of their remaining vote (a third?) and only recapture part of the FUKer vote.
Instead of deflecting the ELE killer rock, they would accelerate it…
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
https://x.com/mercurius_scot/status/1754061246989586574?s=61
Rather savage but comical effort here.
Remember the “eeee wasn’t Tony Blair shit” gasm on here a few weeks ago? Not saying the people posting that are Tory voters, but certainly they are fellow travellers.
Things have been getting progressively shabbier for a number of years. Austerity massively accelerated the decline. People voted Brexit being promised that all their problems would go away. Then they voted Boris! to Get Brexit Done and finally receive the Good Times promised.
They feel lied to on a massive scale. Because they were lied to. By a party and political class who decided that they could weaponise stupidity and ignorance of how things work for votes. You can’t do that then fail to deliver.
NEW: Keir Starmer has ditched his promise to abolish the House of Lords in a first term as he seeks to make the Labour manifesto "bombproof" of Tory attacks
[@ObserverUK]
https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/1753892770601652717?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
If economic growth had been more evenly spread post the Brown Bust then it would have been different.
Most telling comment for me during the debate was a town hall in Newcastle. A panellist cautioned a member of the audience that a brexit vote would damage growth to which he replied “what growth”.
How they feel in 2024 is now much more relevant than in 2016, and it ain't looking good for Sunak.
And for that matter REFUK whose manifesto is basically the Tory one written in BLOCK CAPITALS!
https://x.com/timmyvoe240886/status/1703030484995842357?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
https://x.com/timmyvoe240886/status/1705632053734014989?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Control over Eastern European immigration ?
Its been done.
Extra spending on the NHS.
Its been done.
Taking back control.
Its been done.
Now if people aren't happy about the results then they can complain and vote differently.
But the next government will face exactly the same problems but with even more challenges and less money to spend.
They're are no magic wands for any government to wave.
If people want higher prosperity and better services the process is the same as it has always been - better skills and higher prosperity.
Perhaps never has a government in waiting had with such low expectations and such a large lead.
It leaves a lot of room to "surprise on the upside".
Quite frankly if we rejoined tomorrow how is that going to make a major benefit to the lives of people in these towns. People keep talking about rejoining as being a panacea but if it was so great and prosperity was there for all we would never have left in the first place. I voted remain, reluctantly, but I wouldn’t bother voting if there was another referendum
Hardly streets paved with gold is it.
At least in Castleford the housing is affordable and there's full employment.
It's why only 13% of Britons consider Brexit a success.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/7-10-britons-think-brexit-has-had-negative-impact-uk-economy
Starmer is picking the wrong fight . Labour should simply have said to the Tories we aren’t going to be lectured to about anything given the Truss debacle and put out some policies that will actually change lives .
I would expect it to take a while before we get a border poll, though it's possible the dynamic of a Sinn Fein Taoiseach and First Minister at the same time might accelerate things.
Also, if Sinn Fein win the position of First Minister again at the next Assembly election, how does Unionism react to the prospect of never having a Unionist First Minister ever again?
And that's not been done.
Still, affluent elderly right-wingers are happy, so that’s all good. Sod the rest of the country, eh?
The basis of prosperity is being able to develop a skillset, get a job and afford a house.
You can do that in Yorkshire now and easier than at any earlier time.
No government can 'deliver prosperity' but what it can do is create opportunities for people to become prosperous.
Ultimately that prosperity has to be worked for and gained by people acting for themselves.
That can be difficult, especially so in a changing world.
But shutting down supermarkets and internet shopping in an attempt to make Castleford market traders happy isn't going to happen.
Why be First Minister in Stormont when you can be Taoiseach in Dublin and get your photo in the White House next St Patrick's Day?
In 10 years the appetite in Ulster for reunification - with all its anguish - will be even less than it is now
Okay, scrub 'your' and substitute 'Tory'. It remains a general objection to Tory attacks on SKS's apparent inconsistencies that when SKS adopts effectivelyt the Tory position, the Tories are de facto attacking their own position.
De facto unification is a process. Brexit forces people to make a choice. People in Northern Ireland are increasingly choosing Ireland over Britain.
Covid and Brexit have a small part to play, but mostly it is global trends.
That wouldn't happen if the Republic had a better health service than Northern Ireland.
I don't think five years of Starmer is likely to change their mind.
Result “as a matter of principle” to saying it’s “an important point of principle” that there should be a second referendum in which Labour will campaign for Remain?