Sky's Beff suggests Labour have been pulling resources from Teeside to focus on West Mids and their aim in Teeside is to get it to single figures behind which would 'win everything' at a GE
What I would do in the circs.
I think Street loses by 2 or 3 points....
Street now plugging his endorsement from Boris and photos of them together. Good idea?
They must think it is . Perhaps Bozo still remains popular in the West Midlands but it’s a bit risky IMO .
Strikes me as a bit of a Hail Mary play, suggesting that Team Street think they are behind but in with a shout. They wouldn't do this if they felt confident of a win.
How about "The First Thing We Do, … " - you complete it!
yeah, yeah, is kill all the lawyers. Even Shakespeare made mistakes.
Surely that's Shakespeare putting words into the mouth of one of his not very heroic characters? It's not Shakespeare stating his own view.
Something he really never did. While he wrote his histories from the point of view of Tudor ideology - something necessary for survival - he was pretty sly at presenting the opposing view in an equally dramatically compelling manner.
Macbeth was a very dangerous play to publish under the (justifiably) paranoid James Stuart, but his adroitness at presenting subversive ideas within a frame of orthodoxy allowed him to carry it off.
James VI and I believed he was the descendant of Banquo, so the vision the three witches conjure of future kings from his lineage legitimises and celebrates him.
Indeed, that's how Shakespeare gets away with putting on a play with a king's murderer as the compelling central character.
Dangerous times to put on such a performance. (See also his company getting caught up in the aftermath of the Essex rebellion, over a staging of Richard II.)
Slight diversions following my revisit to Miss Eclectech yesterday.
It's interesting how the "identity" debate has moved on to a new focus in 20 years. Is anyone currently proposing a national identity card in their manifesto?
Biden is going to get slammed, electorally, by these violent demos and the aftermath
I mean, the only violence I've seen is from cops and Zionists (some who are literally throwing lit fireworks into camps). Those institutions that haven't called the police and have had reasonable conversations with their students... are not being shown on the news and twitter.
I also love the fact that we know, time and time again, that these protest movements are hated in their own time and then lauded, laundered and whitewashed when history proves them right. MLK was hated in his time and considered a violent thug by many, Tories went around with "Hang Nelson Mandela" signs and the anti-Vietnam protesters were despised. And all of them, proven right by history - and the right even try to claim people like MLK for their own purposes.
"Zionists don’t deserve to live"; “I feel very comfortable calling for those people to die”; and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.”
We have literal politicians, ministers, in the US and in Israel saying they plan to wipe Gaza off the map and that it would be fine to kill every Palestinian - and you take one student activist and the most inflammatory things he says and ask me to disavow. I take the same position as Norman Finkelstein on this matter, who argues that the abolitionists who disagreed with John Brown still refused to disavow him, and that is how he feels about violence used by those who want a free Palestine. Tactics are, in my view, morally neutral - it is the reason behind the tactics that matter. Violence in the aim of reducing harm (such as self defence) is justifiable; punching Nazis is justifiable. One student who says they feel like they wish Zionists were dead - I think that's justifiable.
Hmmm. Try flipping it round.
"Advocates of a Palestinian State don’t deserve to live"; “I feel very comfortable calling for those people to die”; and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Advocates of a Palestinian State.”
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
They disagree with evolution as against Genesis I expect 'Perhaps the most obvious feature of the Free Church is the centrality of the Bible in all that we do. The Free Church believes that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. '
Ah, to stick with Genesis or not - the age old question. Believing in God's Invisible Touch on this does rather require taking a Sledgehammer to the scientific evidence
Slight diversions following my revisit to Miss Eclectech yesterday.
It's interesting how the "identity" debate has moved on to a new focus in 20 years. Is anyone currently proposing a national identity card in their manifesto?
Slight diversions following my revisit to Miss Eclectech yesterday.
It's interesting how the "identity" debate has moved on to a new focus in 20 years. Is anyone currently proposing a national identity card in their manifesto?
But the world has moved on. Seems their time might have come.
Why do you believe that may be the case ?
As basically, although I don't like it, big data and complex algorithms control our lives beyond even what governments can. We don't have freedom anymore, so the downside to an ID system and database is a battle lost. The positives of control over resources of the state (healthcare, immigration status, border control and the like) are still there.
I most reluctantly concur. Technology has moved reality and the debating lines have yet to catch up, let alone account for the inevitable further tech revolutions coming up shortly.
It's fascinating how many people, both on here and elsewhere, regard Sadiq Khan as a bit obnoxious but can't quite put their finger on why he's obnoxious. Curious.
Rishi Sunak is a good example of a non-obnoxious politician, even if you disagree with his policies.
Both Sadiq Khan and Rishi Sunak are of average height, which apparently is too short to be a proper leader.
Forbes is a bit of a short arse; game over.
Otoh if she was bossing a Yamaha V Max 16 years ago I might revise my opinion.
They should have gone for her in the first place.
I'll pop that in my bulging advice to the SNP from people not in the SNP folder.
The sort of folk fluffing for Forbes here and elsewhere aren't exactly making me warm to her. Perhaps it's a cunning plan to turn SNP members off her as she is verily the the most accomplished politician of our age and would have Scotland independent in a trice.
A question to ask is: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want to lead the SNP? My guess is it is not K Forbes.
Labour would be happy enough with Forbes, I'd have thought, if it means the SNP are no longer to the left of them.
I would have thought the Tories would be happy with Forbes too, given that her view that sex before marriage is wrong, wrong, wrong, is shared by so few people - and those who do share her view probably think she should be in the kitchen rather than doing politics.
If she was a Tory Forbes would be too socially conservative for the Cameroons, Rishi and even Boris, indeed she would be firmly within the ERG hard right on social matters. Her views on social issues are very similar to those of evangelicals supporting Trump (and even Trump is more socially liberal than them but throws them red meat like over abortion and the SC to use them to try and get elected)
It's fascinating how many people, both on here and elsewhere, regard Sadiq Khan as a bit obnoxious but can't quite put their finger on why he's obnoxious. Curious.
Rishi Sunak is a good example of a non-obnoxious politician, even if you disagree with his policies.
Both Sadiq Khan and Rishi Sunak are of average height, which apparently is too short to be a proper leader.
Forbes is a bit of a short arse; game over.
Otoh if she was bossing a Yamaha V Max 16 years ago I might revise my opinion.
They should have gone for her in the first place.
I'll pop that in my bulging advice to the SNP from people not in the SNP folder.
The sort of folk fluffing for Forbes here and elsewhere aren't exactly making me warm to her. Perhaps it's a cunning plan to turn SNP members off her as she is verily the the most accomplished politician of our age and would have Scotland independent in a trice.
A question to ask is: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want to lead the SNP? My guess is it is not K Forbes.
Labour would be happy enough with Forbes, I'd have thought, if it means the SNP are no longer to the left of them.
As a unionist WRT Scotland, I don't think Labour or Tory will want an SNP leader who understands that independence can only be achieved from a unifying centre ground and who has strong appeal to people who distrust politics and politicians.
If Forbes becomes FM and Starmer UK PM then Scotland would be seeking independence for a government more rightwing and conservative than England's. Wonder how that would go down with the Yes crowd, ha ha!
It seems to me that if Forbes does get the gig, then it becomes a lot easier for Labour to play the "Tartan Tories" card. I haven't heard the phrase much recently, but it was used by some Labour activists as the definitive rebuttal of everything the SNP stood for in the 1970s and 1980's
It's fascinating how many people, both on here and elsewhere, regard Sadiq Khan as a bit obnoxious but can't quite put their finger on why he's obnoxious. Curious.
Rishi Sunak is a good example of a non-obnoxious politician, even if you disagree with his policies.
Both Sadiq Khan and Rishi Sunak are of average height, which apparently is too short to be a proper leader.
Forbes is a bit of a short arse; game over.
Otoh if she was bossing a Yamaha V Max 16 years ago I might revise my opinion.
They should have gone for her in the first place.
I'll pop that in my bulging advice to the SNP from people not in the SNP folder.
The sort of folk fluffing for Forbes here and elsewhere aren't exactly making me warm to her. Perhaps it's a cunning plan to turn SNP members off her as she is verily the the most accomplished politician of our age and would have Scotland independent in a trice.
A question to ask is: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want to lead the SNP? My guess is it is not K Forbes.
Labour would be happy enough with Forbes, I'd have thought, if it means the SNP are no longer to the left of them.
I would have thought the Tories would be happy with Forbes too, given that her view that sex before marriage is wrong, wrong, wrong, is shared by so few people - and those who do share her view probably think she should be in the kitchen rather than doing politics.
Unless she is planning to criminalise sex generally I don't think anyone could care less about personal private conduct that doesn't frighten the horses. Islamic, Jewish and Catholic candidates don't get asked about all this stuff all the time.
I would add one little mentioned element when it comes to faith schools is they are legally allowed to ask for the candidates religion and discriminate when it comes to recruitment of teachers on the basis of the candidates faith.
I could understand having to respect the character of the school, which people of other faiths or none can do, but to be able to say during recruitment "not hiring them as they're Christian/Muslim/Jewish/atheist/whatever" should not be OK.
So it's not simply that children are excluded, but the teaching staff can be influenced by outright discrimination. And those are the people then teaching the segregated children.
How this is OK in the 21st Century is beyond me.
In a UK wherej ust 37% have no religion on the last census having under a 1/3 of schools of faith with teachers of faith and pupils of faith if anything is an underrepresentation considering the first schools and universities in this country were created by the Church
This is a bit like you claiming the "don't knows" as Tory voters.
I would add one little mentioned element when it comes to faith schools is they are legally allowed to ask for the candidates religion and discriminate when it comes to recruitment of teachers on the basis of the candidates faith.
I could understand having to respect the character of the school, which people of other faiths or none can do, but to be able to say during recruitment "not hiring them as they're Christian/Muslim/Jewish/atheist/whatever" should not be OK.
So it's not simply that children are excluded, but the teaching staff can be influenced by outright discrimination. And those are the people then teaching the segregated children.
How this is OK in the 21st Century is beyond me.
In a UK wherej ust 37% have no religion on the last census having under a 1/3 of schools of faith with teachers of faith and pupils of faith if anything is an underrepresentation considering the first schools and universities in this country were created by the Church
You can add those responding CofE in, on the basis that they’re only pretending.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
The comments section will be fun under this article.
"Britain cannot curb immigration without suffering the consequences Cutting arrivals dramatically might be worse than enduring the current huge numbers Jeremy Warner"
Extraordinary remark about Sunak being “un-British” because of his Indian caste & master mentality
😶
I had to go back and check it was actually said. It was said. Is this the *kind of racism that is actually ok coz I’m on the left* racism?
Is Heathener actually a lefty? Regardless its both bonkers and not okay.
Definitely a lefty. However @Heathener is so nutty - simultaneously an award winning writer, a far ranging traveller, a post woman, a TV presenter, a known expert on trans issues, and an impoverished single mother who has to save her boiled water in thermos flask - I sometimes wonder if she is a mad sock puppet created by me to see how much bollocks people will believe
At this point I am keen to disown her. Not my doing
We know that, your previous attempt to write in a different character during the gestation of Byronic having stood up for all of just two days.
Indeed. Or indeed in his previous guise as Sean T.
Being ‘disowned’ by the misogynistic writer who boasts in his book of abusing girls in Asia is hardly the coup de grace he imagines.
It does bemuse me though when people who have never immersed themselves fully (and I mean fully) in other cultures tie themselves in knots over race. Racism exists everywhere. Of course, some has important historic context that cannot be ignored.
But evil is evil and Sunak’s version is profoundly not the way this country has evolved over the past 300 years. His is an attempt to unweave the social fabric of this country and supplant it with an uncaring, dog-eats-dog Singaporean style ruthlessness. It’s not the British way, or at least not the way this country has thankfully evolved.
In a similar way one might describe Thatcher as non-conservative.
The British Empire was often, perhaps mostly, pretty dreadful - especially the East India Company - but we did eventually accept our seafaring role meant two-way traffic. We embraced diversity and culture, welcoming to these shores those who enriched this way of life even as so-called indigenous peoples here were already themselves part of a cultural bricolage.
Attacking minority groups and the vulnerable, demonising those who don’t conform to a nasty little ruthless business ethic, is profoundly not what this country is about.
Thanks for listening.
xx
This will be my last post on the subject or to you.
For whatever noble, high falutin', dare I say uber woke reason your comment yesterday was vile. And unambiguously racist.
Put yourself in the shoes of someone who is British but from immigrant stock. Recent immigrant stock that is because few of us are not at some point in history.
You have just told them that they are not properly British, that they in your eyes can't escape a characteristic from their "own" culture and moreover that there is a defining chatrracteristic of "their", and of British culture.
It is exactly the same language as the most virulent racists use to other such people.
To borrow from the PO Inquiry vernacular, you are either a racist or a moron and I don't care which it is.
So you can take your Archbishop John Sentamu told mes and your don't you realises and you can fuck right off.
Well said, their post was so much like the chant 'Their ain't no black in the Union Jack.'
That’s drivel
The whole point is that people like Sunak are a disgrace to people of colour who have made this country what it is.
I’m sorry you and @Topping are unable to see this. I’m happy to agree to disagree but I will not accept being called racist over it.
The bitter irony is that it’s the likes of Sunak, Badenoch, and Braverman who are causing untold damage to race relations, and minority relations, in this country.
I guess you tories just won’t get it until you have spent a long, long, time in the political wilderness. Which you will.
I haven't fully been following this conversation, so it's a perfect opportunity to throw a couple of thoughts in.
*) It's perfectly possible to be two (or more) things at once. You can be a 'person of colour' and wealthy. Or a 'person of colour' and see big issues with the cultures you were raised in. That isn't a betrayal.
*) The more we get away from stereotypes of how a certain person should act and behave according to sex, race, age, etc, the better. Women should stay at home and look after kids. Black people are all criminals. Gay men should all be flamboyant. Lesbians should all have short hair, the elderly are all waiting for God, etc, etc. Stereotypes are almost always unhelpful, and often destructive. Yet they're an easy (and lazy) way to judge people.
My two penn’orth…
I find it fascinating how people can hold different, often competing, identities, but sometimes (often?) their political identity is most important to them. An example of this would be Muslims who still support the Tory Party.
To me, it seems, Muslims are to the right, or certain sections of the right, what Jews were in the 30s. A bogeyman. And that fear, suspicion, dislike, call it what you will, of Muslims transcends any supposed solidarity that we in the UK suppose should exist between brown people.
So Braverman, Sunak, Badenoch, Habib for Reform, despite being non-white and perhaps in the eyes of many should have some kind of non-white brotherhood are instead very anti-Muslim. Because they supposedly don’t share ‘our values’ and are swamping the country from small boats, or something.
So if I were a Muslim I would think sod the Tories, they don’t like me and my kind. But many Muslim people do still support the Tories, because they agree with them in a number of ways that are more important to them than that underlying suspicion of Muslims.
If I’d been a gay Tory in times past I think similarly that I would have found it impossible to remain in the Party through section 28 and all that stuff.
You could say a similar argument could be made for Jews who stayed in Labour during the Corbyn years.
I don’t see why we should expect our non-white politicians to be any more immune from stoking race tensions, culture war, religious divisions, just because they’re not white.
I find some of Badenoch and Braverman’s comments around race and the legacy of empire extraordinary, personally, but humans are strange creatures.
I think there is a big difference in the Muslims as bogeymen/Jews in the 30s and this is the repeated, barbaric acts of terror in the name of Islam in recent times, including in the UK. There is a nasty strand of Islam that does indeed pose a threat to a modern liberal society in a way that the Jewish population never did.
That some extend this fear, suspicion, dislike etc is only natural, if sad. None of the Muslims I know (and thats not a huge list because I like in rural Wiltshire) have ever been anything but just like everyone else. Its like the idiots at the St Georges day in London - don't tar the white community with their actions.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
They disagree with evolution as against Genesis I expect 'Perhaps the most obvious feature of the Free Church is the centrality of the Bible in all that we do. The Free Church believes that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. '
Ah, to stick with Genesis or not - the age old question. Believing in God's Invisible Touch on this does rather require taking a Sledgehammer to the scientific evidence
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
And I don't. Live your life they way you want to by all means, but I cannot believe that someone born with the DNA of a man becomes a woman by wishing it so.*
*Clearly biology is fabulously complex and not everyone is either man or woman, but that category is rather small.
Persons of of faith have been & will be FM. Whether it is a Muslim (Humza) or a Christian (John & Kate). Each support the conscience vote & equal rights for all. So what is it about Kate that makes her the focus of anti-religious attacks? 🤔
Because they either don't share her - out of mainstream opinion - views on religious/moral matters or are smart/dishonest enough to keep those views hidden?
I know Yousaf missed the equal marriage vote, for example, but he has been public about his support for it.
Bollox, easy to lie after the fact. he dodged the vote due to religious pressure and then blatantly lied through his teeth. He could could have seen a man about a dog anytime , despite months of notice he inadvertently arranged a meeting at the same time as the vote to discuss a non topic. You boys are easily led by the nose when it is a favoured religious sect. Also her religion is as mainstream as Yousaf's certainly from a Scottish perspective, speaking as a non religious person. Methinks you doth protest too much, bigotry is not pleasant.
I mean there are almost 8 times the number of Muslims in Scotland than members of the Free Church of Scotland - 2011 census data puts FCoS at ~10k and Muslims at ~77k. So it is a much smaller population. And even if it wasn't - the difference is Yousaf didn't try to impose beliefs through law / votes whereas we can't say the same for Forbes. Worst case scenario, Yousaf was a coward who didn't vote when equal marriage was passed - but worst case scenario in the case of Forbes is a SFM who actively campaigns to remove the legal ability to get an abortion, or to remove the legal status of equal marriages. These are entirely different things. It was a big issue for the LDs in the UK GE, as it should have been, and it is a big issue for Forbes - because the majority of people in society don't trust people with these fixations on weird cultural issues and are generally small l libertarian about the whole thing (it should be legal, but an individual persons choice).
Neither did Forbes you numpty, she gave a pesonal opinion, he chickened out of an actual vote due to his religion , a craven coward. She at least has some principles and morals and a backbone whether right or wrong. I would take the Wee Free any time and that as a non religious person. No time for cowardly unprincipled no morals wasters , who say one thing and do the opposite themselves.
I rather like Kate, Malcolm, I think she stands the best chance of holding a good number of seats
I agree Woolie, far better than tired , useless , past his sell by date long ago , Swinney. She is far less likely to kow tow to the green nutters as well.
Jimmy Kimmel (US comedian) on the Trump/DeSantis meeting: "Trump was in Miami over the weekend, where he met with his former presidential rival Ron DeSantis. The Florida governor reportedly promised to help raise money for Trump’s campaign. “Poor Ron DeSantis. What a pathetic little worm,” said Kimmel. “They say he did it because he wants to run for president again in 2028, which seems like a great idea,” Kimmel deadpanned. “What he doesn’t realize is that Trump is also going to be running for president in 2028.”"
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
The SNP just need to ask themselves whether they are likely to lose more voters to Labour/Greens under Forbes or Tories/Alba under Swinney.
Sturgeon's genius was converting a pre-2014 rural SNP into a central belt winning political machine. Going for Forbes = abandoning the central belt and a reversion to their former role as Tartan Tories.
There simply aren't enough rural constituencies for that to work, though perhaps Yousaf's failure to count is contagious?
The "rural" constituencies, i.e anything not in the central belt, are not only fewer in number but historically more marginal. The big fight is still in the central belt, and the SNP are losing the arm wrestle to Scottish Labour, so while I think that Forbes could be a more effective FM in the longer term, I think she will be kept off balance by "events". From the longer point of view of the SNP, it may be better to keep Kate in reserve to lead the recovery, on the grounds that the die is cast for the next GE,
However, Forbes herself thinks that she can limit the losses at the GE and maintain power at Holyrood after the next elections for the Scottish Parliament. Well, all politicians have plenty of ego, but the tide is running, and however skilled Kate Forbes may be, she is probably not ^that^ skilled,
I don't understand - if Forbes is such a good politician, why did she lose to Hamza the first time around?
My highly analytical, and carefully nuanced, answer to that question, is that she was swimming in a shark-infested custard.
Exactly , one word , chosen by Sturgeon as they needed a patsy to take lots of flak as the police closed in and the court cases were going to start rolling in.
The comments section will be fun under this article.
"Britain cannot curb immigration without suffering the consequences Cutting arrivals dramatically might be worse than enduring the current huge numbers Jeremy Warner"
I went to a Royal Aeronautical Society thing a few weeks ago and there was a plenitude of arseholes from the big defence contractors. All they could moan about was the lack of engineers and fat incels who can do C++. They didn't want to know about apprentices or graduates, etc. They want the finished article and they want it now. Hence the tories can't plug the immigration geyser.
Slight diversions following my revisit to Miss Eclectech yesterday.
It's interesting how the "identity" debate has moved on to a new focus in 20 years. Is anyone currently proposing a national identity card in their manifesto?
But the world has moved on. Seems their time might have come.
They'll be forged if introduced. So what's the point.
I love the fact that we devise schemes to prevent deception only to provide a new crime of deception. Yep id cards will be forged so only introduce them if there really is some real benefit and ensure they are difficult to forge and if you punish people for forging them make sure you punish the right people
The new stamps are classic case. I'm guessing the old ones were always forged so we introduce unforgeable ones to only then fine the innocent party if they want their post. I see the fines have now been removed so it is so far a complete failure except for identifying the extent of the problem They need to go after the forger not the innocent buyer or receiver.
When I worked in Cyprus in the 90s I remember discussing ID cards with the locals. In theory they all had one. Nobody knew where theirs was though. That may have well changed with the development of IT now.
My issue with Kate Forbes is that she implies a moral superiority over her colleagues and a right to decide on her conscience that doesn't apply to to her colleagues, as if those colleagues don't also have to grapple with their consciences on different issues.
I don't think a single word of that is correct, and I don't think any of it can be justified.
Kate Forbes was hardly backwards coming forward on her moral positions in the leadership campaign last year, dismissing policy decisions her party had laboriously arrived at, no doubt involving all sorts of soul searching by her colleagues that they don't shout about.
Slight diversions following my revisit to Miss Eclectech yesterday.
It's interesting how the "identity" debate has moved on to a new focus in 20 years. Is anyone currently proposing a national identity card in their manifesto?
But the world has moved on. Seems their time might have come.
They'll be forged if introduced. So what's the point.
Anti forgery technology can deal with most of that.
The biggest problem is fraudulent application. Due to one passport processing office getting lazy (literally a bunch of people decided not to bother) a bunch of U.K. passports were issued to people who have no right to them, for example.
It's fascinating how many people, both on here and elsewhere, regard Sadiq Khan as a bit obnoxious but can't quite put their finger on why he's obnoxious. Curious.
Rishi Sunak is a good example of a non-obnoxious politician, even if you disagree with his policies.
Both Sadiq Khan and Rishi Sunak are of average height, which apparently is too short to be a proper leader.
Forbes is a bit of a short arse; game over.
Otoh if she was bossing a Yamaha V Max 16 years ago I might revise my opinion.
They should have gone for her in the first place.
I'll pop that in my bulging advice to the SNP from people not in the SNP folder.
The sort of folk fluffing for Forbes here and elsewhere aren't exactly making me warm to her. Perhaps it's a cunning plan to turn SNP members off her as she is verily the the most accomplished politician of our age and would have Scotland independent in a trice.
I'll add "not a member of the SNP" to people who are not allowed to comment on the SNP to the list currently comprising of people who are not Scottish, and people who look at other people's LinkedIn profiles. Say hi to Disco Stu for me will you?
Och, it's 'all about me' Doug again. If you wish to draw attention to your weird stalky 'research' into some bloke on the internet you don't know from Adam, knock yersel oot.
I hadn't realised that I could stop people from commenting on the SNP just by indicating I don't much respect their opinions. I must do more of it.
I know exactly who he is. He posted on here. Just like I know who Sean Thomas is, because he posts on here. It's not weird, it's not stalking, it's looking at a social media profile while having settings open to people knowing that is the case. If I am wrong, then I extend heartfelt apologies to Mike Smithson, Robert Smithson, and sundry other people who have posted or do post on here under their real names for doing exactly the same thing to them. Yet they don't matter, because they are not an SNP supporter who have a sacred right to not have their social media profiles designed to raise business and personal profile, looked at by anyone they don't know in real life.
The fact you haven't even mentioned what stalking (which is a crime) I'm supposed to have committed, rather couch it in adjectives like "weird", "stalky" and sundry euphemisms speaks volumes. So I'll spell it out, and yes, it's all about me. I'll put it in bold.
Hey everyone - I googled Stuart Dickson and clicked on his LinkedIn profile. SOZ!!!! I'm virtually a sex offender!!!! I'm weird and creepy according to the Scot Nats!!! Somewhere on Earth, maybe Scotland, by using social media exactly as it is supposed to be used, I've committed, literally, the crime of stalking!!!
Biden is going to get slammed, electorally, by these violent demos and the aftermath
I mean, the only violence I've seen is from cops and Zionists (some who are literally throwing lit fireworks into camps). Those institutions that haven't called the police and have had reasonable conversations with their students... are not being shown on the news and twitter.
I also love the fact that we know, time and time again, that these protest movements are hated in their own time and then lauded, laundered and whitewashed when history proves them right. MLK was hated in his time and considered a violent thug by many, Tories went around with "Hang Nelson Mandela" signs and the anti-Vietnam protesters were despised. And all of them, proven right by history - and the right even try to claim people like MLK for their own purposes.
There are few concepts that boil my piss as much as someone being on "the right side of history". History, by definition, doesn't prove anyone wrong or right. It is the systematic study and documentation of the human past. That's it. To suggest history is teleological is a Whiggish and Marxist fallacy. Moralists can interpret the output of history. Historians shouldn't. "That Boudicca didn't half end up on the wrong side of history.
The SNP just need to ask themselves whether they are likely to lose more voters to Labour/Greens under Forbes or Tories/Alba under Swinney.
Sturgeon's genius was converting a pre-2014 rural SNP into a central belt winning political machine. Going for Forbes = abandoning the central belt and a reversion to their former role as Tartan Tories.
There simply aren't enough rural constituencies for that to work, though perhaps Yousaf's failure to count is contagious?
The "rural" constituencies, i.e anything not in the central belt, are not only fewer in number but historically more marginal. The big fight is still in the central belt, and the SNP are losing the arm wrestle to Scottish Labour, so while I think that Forbes could be a more effective FM in the longer term, I think she will be kept off balance by "events". From the longer point of view of the SNP, it may be better to keep Kate in reserve to lead the recovery, on the grounds that the die is cast for the next GE,
However, Forbes herself thinks that she can limit the losses at the GE and maintain power at Holyrood after the next elections for the Scottish Parliament. Well, all politicians have plenty of ego, but the tide is running, and however skilled Kate Forbes may be, she is probably not ^that^ skilled,
I don't understand - if Forbes is such a good politician, why did she lose to Hamza the first time around?
Slight diversions following my revisit to Miss Eclectech yesterday.
It's interesting how the "identity" debate has moved on to a new focus in 20 years. Is anyone currently proposing a national identity card in their manifesto?
Biden is going to get slammed, electorally, by these violent demos and the aftermath
I mean, the only violence I've seen is from cops and Zionists (some who are literally throwing lit fireworks into camps). Those institutions that haven't called the police and have had reasonable conversations with their students... are not being shown on the news and twitter.
I also love the fact that we know, time and time again, that these protest movements are hated in their own time and then lauded, laundered and whitewashed when history proves them right. MLK was hated in his time and considered a violent thug by many, Tories went around with "Hang Nelson Mandela" signs and the anti-Vietnam protesters were despised. And all of them, proven right by history - and the right even try to claim people like MLK for their own purposes.
"Zionists don’t deserve to live"; “I feel very comfortable calling for those people to die”; and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.”
We have literal politicians, ministers, in the US and in Israel saying they plan to wipe Gaza off the map and that it would be fine to kill every Palestinian - and you take one student activist and the most inflammatory things he says and ask me to disavow. I take the same position as Norman Finkelstein on this matter, who argues that the abolitionists who disagreed with John Brown still refused to disavow him, and that is how he feels about violence used by those who want a free Palestine. Tactics are, in my view, morally neutral - it is the reason behind the tactics that matter. Violence in the aim of reducing harm (such as self defence) is justifiable; punching Nazis is justifiable. One student who says they feel like they wish Zionists were dead - I think that's justifiable.
Hmmm. Try flipping it round.
"Advocates of a Palestinian State don’t deserve to live"; “I feel very comfortable calling for those people to die”; and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Advocates of a Palestinian State.”
Yes - I think that would be wrong.
Because, as I explain, I think that tactics are morally neutral and the reason behind those tactics matter.
I think, for example, it is pretty reasonable to say that you would kill members of or supporters of a genocidal government - indeed we went to war with Nazi Germany in part because of that.
I do not think, for example, saying "I would like to kill anti-Apartheid activists" and "I would like to kill Apartheid enforcers" are the same, morally, if they were uttered during South Africa's apartheid regime.
It's fascinating how many people, both on here and elsewhere, regard Sadiq Khan as a bit obnoxious but can't quite put their finger on why he's obnoxious. Curious.
Rishi Sunak is a good example of a non-obnoxious politician, even if you disagree with his policies.
My issue with Kate Forbes is that she implies a moral superiority over her colleagues and a right to decide on her conscience that doesn't apply to to her colleagues, as if those colleagues don't also have to grapple with their consciences on different issues.
It seems to me that if Forbes does get the gig, then it becomes a lot easier for Labour to play the "Tartan Tories" card. I haven't heard the phrase much recently, but it was used by some Labour activists as the definitive rebuttal of everything the SNP stood for in the 1970s and 1980's
Slogan politics is always with us. At the moment 'SNP incompetence and infighting' is a decent slogan.
Forbes (who I am politically against) understands that independence is achieved, if at all, by centrist consensus building by which about 60%+ of Scots, including the non political and the centre right, come to believe they can run their own affairs well. I am against the whole of this programme and I hope it fails, but if I wanted it done Forbes is the candidate.
For running politics as usual there is a plethora of choice.
Persons of of faith have been & will be FM. Whether it is a Muslim (Humza) or a Christian (John & Kate). Each support the conscience vote & equal rights for all. So what is it about Kate that makes her the focus of anti-religious attacks? 🤔
Because they either don't share her - out of mainstream opinion - views on religious/moral matters or are smart/dishonest enough to keep those views hidden?
I know Yousaf missed the equal marriage vote, for example, but he has been public about his support for it.
Bollox, easy to lie after the fact. he dodged the vote due to religious pressure and then blatantly lied through his teeth. He could could have seen a man about a dog anytime , despite months of notice he inadvertently arranged a meeting at the same time as the vote to discuss a non topic. You boys are easily led by the nose when it is a favoured religious sect. Also her religion is as mainstream as Yousaf's certainly from a Scottish perspective, speaking as a non religious person. Methinks you doth protest too much, bigotry is not pleasant.
I mean there are almost 8 times the number of Muslims in Scotland than members of the Free Church of Scotland - 2011 census data puts FCoS at ~10k and Muslims at ~77k. So it is a much smaller population. And even if it wasn't - the difference is Yousaf didn't try to impose beliefs through law / votes whereas we can't say the same for Forbes. Worst case scenario, Yousaf was a coward who didn't vote when equal marriage was passed - but worst case scenario in the case of Forbes is a SFM who actively campaigns to remove the legal ability to get an abortion, or to remove the legal status of equal marriages. These are entirely different things. It was a big issue for the LDs in the UK GE, as it should have been, and it is a big issue for Forbes - because the majority of people in society don't trust people with these fixations on weird cultural issues and are generally small l libertarian about the whole thing (it should be legal, but an individual persons choice).
Neither did Forbes you numpty, she gave a pesonal opinion, he chickened out of an actual vote due to his religion , a craven coward. She at least has some principles and morals and a backbone whether right or wrong. I would take the Wee Free any time and that as a non religious person. No time for cowardly unprincipled no morals wasters , who say one thing and do the opposite themselves.
Do you have similar respect for Calvinists who aren't Scottish, e.g. say the late Ian Paisley or the Broederbond in South Africa?
The underlying belief is that those who God loves most he makes rich.
So if you're a moneygrubbing saddo ripping off your clients and customers and storing up as big a pile of money and assets as you can, you must be doing the right thing - so don't have a conscience about it, you know you're better than them, because God has shown you to that effect - and those horrible neighbours are probably having sex all the time, what animals they are, I mean how much profit and self-denial is there in having a shag.
"She at least has some principles and morals and a backbone whether right or wrong."
Scottish wrong is righter than English right, any day of the week. Only halfwits think otherwise.
You been at the cooking sherry. Must be something in the water down there, the amount of absolute barking bellend Scotch Experts on here is incredible.
Biden is going to get slammed, electorally, by these violent demos and the aftermath
I mean, the only violence I've seen is from cops and Zionists (some who are literally throwing lit fireworks into camps). Those institutions that haven't called the police and have had reasonable conversations with their students... are not being shown on the news and twitter.
I also love the fact that we know, time and time again, that these protest movements are hated in their own time and then lauded, laundered and whitewashed when history proves them right. MLK was hated in his time and considered a violent thug by many, Tories went around with "Hang Nelson Mandela" signs and the anti-Vietnam protesters were despised. And all of them, proven right by history - and the right even try to claim people like MLK for their own purposes.
There are few concepts that boil my piss as much as someone being on "the right side of history". History, by definition, doesn't prove anyone wrong or right. It is the systematic study and documentation of the human past. That's it. To suggest history is teleological is a Whiggish and Marxist fallacy. Moralists can interpret the output of history. Historians shouldn't. "That Boudicca didn't half end up on the wrong side of history.
History, like war, doesn't decide who's right or wrong. It decides who's left.
In fact, it's almost like somebody wrote an article about how history resolves a social issue in the UK
Biden is going to get slammed, electorally, by these violent demos and the aftermath
I mean, the only violence I've seen is from cops and Zionists (some who are literally throwing lit fireworks into camps). Those institutions that haven't called the police and have had reasonable conversations with their students... are not being shown on the news and twitter.
I also love the fact that we know, time and time again, that these protest movements are hated in their own time and then lauded, laundered and whitewashed when history proves them right. MLK was hated in his time and considered a violent thug by many, Tories went around with "Hang Nelson Mandela" signs and the anti-Vietnam protesters were despised. And all of them, proven right by history - and the right even try to claim people like MLK for their own purposes.
There are few concepts that boil my piss as much as someone being on "the right side of history". History, by definition, doesn't prove anyone wrong or right. It is the systematic study and documentation of the human past. That's it. To suggest history is teleological is a Whiggish and Marxist fallacy. Moralists can interpret the output of history. Historians shouldn't. "That Boudicca didn't half end up on the wrong side of history.
I mean, it has a cultural understanding beyond "neutral historians should say this was right / wrong" - it is a statement on our current understanding of morality and ethics and how actions in the past shed light on them. It isn't meant, at least when I use it, to suggest a Marxian view such as "this is scientifically how events will unfurl" as much as a counter to those who typically like to argue that progress is just something that happens without effort or discomfort, and that many of the movements that got us to modern ethics and morality were disliked in their time and that can tell us something about how to understand similar things happening in our lifetimes. The events of our lives will, in time, be history - and some events will clearly be seen in negative and positive ways.
It's fascinating how many people, both on here and elsewhere, regard Sadiq Khan as a bit obnoxious but can't quite put their finger on why he's obnoxious. Curious.
Rishi Sunak is a good example of a non-obnoxious politician, even if you disagree with his policies.
Both Sadiq Khan and Rishi Sunak are of average height, which apparently is too short to be a proper leader.
Forbes is a bit of a short arse; game over.
Otoh if she was bossing a Yamaha V Max 16 years ago I might revise my opinion.
They should have gone for her in the first place.
I'll pop that in my bulging advice to the SNP from people not in the SNP folder.
The sort of folk fluffing for Forbes here and elsewhere aren't exactly making me warm to her. Perhaps it's a cunning plan to turn SNP members off her as she is verily the the most accomplished politician of our age and would have Scotland independent in a trice.
A question to ask is: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want to lead the SNP? My guess is it is not K Forbes.
Labour would be happy enough with Forbes, I'd have thought, if it means the SNP are no longer to the left of them.
She is not a Tory so hard to be to the right of LabourTories
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
They disagree with evolution as against Genesis I expect 'Perhaps the most obvious feature of the Free Church is the centrality of the Bible in all that we do. The Free Church believes that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. '
That doesn't make them creationists. All the Free Churchers I know accept evolution and that the Earth is older than 6000 years etc. Apparently there are some within the Church who don't accept these things, but my friends seem to think they're in the minority. My understanding is that there are more avowedly creationist Churches out there.
I think the idea that the Free Church are a kind of 'British Trumpite' tendency is a bit lazy. They are often socially conservative, like the US evangelical right, and in the same areas but that's where the similarities end. Again, most of the people I know in the Church tend to be horrified by the Evangelical Right's complete disregard for human life and indifference to suffering.
How about "The First Thing We Do, … " - you complete it!
yeah, yeah, is kill all the lawyers. Even Shakespeare made mistakes.
Surely that's Shakespeare putting words into the mouth of one of his not very heroic characters? It's not Shakespeare stating his own view.
Something he really never did. While he wrote his histories from the point of view of Tudor ideology - something necessary for survival - he was pretty sly at presenting the opposing view in an equally dramatically compelling manner.
Macbeth was a very dangerous play to publish under the (justifiably) paranoid James Stuart, but his adroitness at presenting subversive ideas within a frame of orthodoxy allowed him to carry it off.
James VI and I believed he was the descendant of Banquo, so the vision the three witches conjure of future kings from his lineage legitimises and celebrates him.
Indeed, that's how Shakespeare gets away with putting on a play with a king's murderer as the compelling central character.
Dangerous times to put on such a performance. (See also his company getting caught up in the aftermath of the Essex rebellion, over a staging of Richard II.)
Hamlet is interesting here because a key part of the plot is Hamlet's mother shockingly marrying her previous husband's murderer, and the father of the Prince.
Which is precisely what James VI / I mother did as well.
Shakespeare must have been in a complete panic when James turned up in London to be King.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Does not just sound ridiculous it is ridiculous and pathetic in teh extreme. You point to lack of evolution theory
Persons of of faith have been & will be FM. Whether it is a Muslim (Humza) or a Christian (John & Kate). Each support the conscience vote & equal rights for all. So what is it about Kate that makes her the focus of anti-religious attacks? 🤔
Because they either don't share her - out of mainstream opinion - views on religious/moral matters or are smart/dishonest enough to keep those views hidden?
I know Yousaf missed the equal marriage vote, for example, but he has been public about his support for it.
Bollox, easy to lie after the fact. he dodged the vote due to religious pressure and then blatantly lied through his teeth. He could could have seen a man about a dog anytime , despite months of notice he inadvertently arranged a meeting at the same time as the vote to discuss a non topic. You boys are easily led by the nose when it is a favoured religious sect. Also her religion is as mainstream as Yousaf's certainly from a Scottish perspective, speaking as a non religious person. Methinks you doth protest too much, bigotry is not pleasant.
I mean there are almost 8 times the number of Muslims in Scotland than members of the Free Church of Scotland - 2011 census data puts FCoS at ~10k and Muslims at ~77k. So it is a much smaller population. And even if it wasn't - the difference is Yousaf didn't try to impose beliefs through law / votes whereas we can't say the same for Forbes. Worst case scenario, Yousaf was a coward who didn't vote when equal marriage was passed - but worst case scenario in the case of Forbes is a SFM who actively campaigns to remove the legal ability to get an abortion, or to remove the legal status of equal marriages. These are entirely different things. It was a big issue for the LDs in the UK GE, as it should have been, and it is a big issue for Forbes - because the majority of people in society don't trust people with these fixations on weird cultural issues and are generally small l libertarian about the whole thing (it should be legal, but an individual persons choice).
Neither did Forbes you numpty, she gave a pesonal opinion, he chickened out of an actual vote due to his religion , a craven coward. She at least has some principles and morals and a backbone whether right or wrong. I would take the Wee Free any time and that as a non religious person. No time for cowardly unprincipled no morals wasters , who say one thing and do the opposite themselves.
Do you have similar respect for Calvinists who aren't Scottish, e.g. say the late Ian Paisley or the Broederbond in South Africa?
The underlying belief is that those who God loves most he makes rich.
So if you're a moneygrubbing saddo ripping off your clients and customers and storing up as big a pile of money and assets as you can, you must be doing the right thing - so don't have a conscience about it, you know you're better than them, because God has shown you to that effect - and those horrible neighbours are probably having sex all the time, what animals they are, I mean how much profit and self-denial is there in having a shag.
"She at least has some principles and morals and a backbone whether right or wrong."
Scottish wrong is righter than English right, any day of the week. Only halfwits think otherwise.
Keep aspiring to only be a halfwit, doubt you will get there but you never know.
At risk of upsetting what appears to be the general PB consensus that Kate Forbes is fab, a few counter points:
1. I still don’t think that a lot of people are really factoring in the big shift she would be from the Sturgeon/Yousaf era. That may reap her some rewards - but if she is wanting to take the party in a completely different direction it opens up real challenges too. One of the significant failures of Truss’ (and also Sunak’s, to some extent) strategy was their inability to realise that they simply didn’t have a mandate to move the Tories away from Johnsonian boosterism and levelling up and economic interventionism. I happen to think Sturgeon’s weird “aren’t we more worthy than those reactionaries in England” progressive alliance shtick was the wrong tactic, particularly in building an alliance for independence, but that is essentially what people were getting when they voted SNP last time round, not Kate Forbes.
2. The whole thing about her views is going to come up again and again. I happen to think that perhaps it shouldn’t , and that it will be really overplayed by a media that really loves banging the ‘progressive’ drum at times, but she’s going to get asked about it time and time again. In every interview. In every campaign stop. At every juncture. See Tim Farron. It is not inconceivable that this causes her significant problems with the left of the SNP.
If the SNP had been defeated in an election and they were reassessing their priorities and strategy, I’d say Forbes would be an interesting and credible pick. In government, I sense danger for them, to be honest.
I think for both issues this all comes down to whether, as a politician, she's got what it takes.
If she's a good politician she will know that she has to bring all of her party with her. She couldn't just do a screeching u-turn and expect everyone to lump it. One step at a time and convince people by the quality of her arguments.
And the same with reconciling her personal religious belief with mainstream contemporary society. If she is a good enough politician she'll have a good enough response to the question that the media will get bored of asking it.
So, is she a good enough politician? I've no idea. Obviously all the Tories on pb.com rate her above every other SNP figure because she is closest to their views. I liked Rory Stewart for similar reasons, and he also added a degree of honesty unusual in a politician. But, ultimately, he wasn't a good enough politician to convince other people to follow him, or voters to vote for him.
One of the Tories on here (Scotch variety) has been highlighting fairly approvingly Forbes’ doubling down on her right of centre outlook since her last failed leadership bid. Things may change but I haven’t seen much evidence of bridge building from Forbes so far.
Biden is going to get slammed, electorally, by these violent demos and the aftermath
I mean, the only violence I've seen is from cops and Zionists (some who are literally throwing lit fireworks into camps). Those institutions that haven't called the police and have had reasonable conversations with their students... are not being shown on the news and twitter.
I also love the fact that we know, time and time again, that these protest movements are hated in their own time and then lauded, laundered and whitewashed when history proves them right. MLK was hated in his time and considered a violent thug by many, Tories went around with "Hang Nelson Mandela" signs and the anti-Vietnam protesters were despised. And all of them, proven right by history - and the right even try to claim people like MLK for their own purposes.
"Zionists don’t deserve to live"; “I feel very comfortable calling for those people to die”; and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.”
We have literal politicians, ministers, in the US and in Israel saying they plan to wipe Gaza off the map and that it would be fine to kill every Palestinian - and you take one student activist and the most inflammatory things he says and ask me to disavow. I take the same position as Norman Finkelstein on this matter, who argues that the abolitionists who disagreed with John Brown still refused to disavow him, and that is how he feels about violence used by those who want a free Palestine. Tactics are, in my view, morally neutral - it is the reason behind the tactics that matter. Violence in the aim of reducing harm (such as self defence) is justifiable; punching Nazis is justifiable. One student who says they feel like they wish Zionists were dead - I think that's justifiable.
Hmmm. Try flipping it round.
"Advocates of a Palestinian State don’t deserve to live"; “I feel very comfortable calling for those people to die”; and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Advocates of a Palestinian State.”
Yes - I think that would be wrong.
Because, as I explain, I think that tactics are morally neutral and the reason behind those tactics matter.
I think, for example, it is pretty reasonable to say that you would kill members of or supporters of a genocidal government - indeed we went to war with Nazi Germany in part because of that.
I do not think, for example, saying "I would like to kill anti-Apartheid activists" and "I would like to kill Apartheid enforcers" are the same, morally, if they were uttered during South Africa's apartheid regime.
A pedant writes: that is not why we declared war on Nazi Germany.
Woolies prediction post to be used as stick to beat him with
Teeside - Houchen West Mids - TCTC, within 2% either way East Mids - Labour N Yorks - Tory by a kittens whisker London - Khan by 12% London Assembly - Lab gains, Reform get representation Councillors - 420 Tory losses PCCs - who cares about the rozzers?!
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
They disagree with evolution as against Genesis I expect 'Perhaps the most obvious feature of the Free Church is the centrality of the Bible in all that we do. The Free Church believes that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. '
That doesn't make them creationists. All the Free Churchers I know accept evolution and that the Earth is older than 6000 years etc. Apparently there are some within the Church who don't accept these things, but my friends seem to think they're in the minority. My understanding is that there are more avowedly creationist Churches out there.
I think the idea that the Free Church are a kind of 'British Trumpite' tendency is a bit lazy. They are often socially conservative, like the US evangelical right, and in the same areas but that's where the similarities end. Again, most of the people I know in the Church tend to be horrified by the Evangelical Right's complete disregard for human life and indifference to suffering.
At least one prominent Free Churchman was an advocate of evolution, of a theistic kind (but Darwinism by natuiral selection was then very much a minority amongst evolutionists). And that was 150 years ago.
"Why Shakespeare Is For All Time Whenever we consult his works, we come away with a deeper insight into the heart of our own mystery. Theodore Dalrymple"
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
If you want to do any sort of analysis of a population it is often useful to split the population into different groups to see whether the different constituent parts are affected differently.
Doing so enables us to see that young men have a big problem with suicide, or that women disproportionality suffer from domestic violence. It's a difference that matters. It's silly to say that it's arbitrary.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
They disagree with evolution as against Genesis I expect 'Perhaps the most obvious feature of the Free Church is the centrality of the Bible in all that we do. The Free Church believes that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. '
That doesn't make them creationists. All the Free Churchers I know accept evolution and that the Earth is older than 6000 years etc. Apparently there are some within the Church who don't accept these things, but my friends seem to think they're in the minority. My understanding is that there are more avowedly creationist Churches out there.
I think the idea that the Free Church are a kind of 'British Trumpite' tendency is a bit lazy. They are often socially conservative, like the US evangelical right, and in the same areas but that's where the similarities end. Again, most of the people I know in the Church tend to be horrified by the Evangelical Right's complete disregard for human life and indifference to suffering.
Also: possibly there has been conflation with the free churches of Ulster. The ones that don't like dinosaurs or geological display panels for the Giant's Causeway.
Biden is going to get slammed, electorally, by these violent demos and the aftermath
I mean, the only violence I've seen is from cops and Zionists (some who are literally throwing lit fireworks into camps). Those institutions that haven't called the police and have had reasonable conversations with their students... are not being shown on the news and twitter.
I also love the fact that we know, time and time again, that these protest movements are hated in their own time and then lauded, laundered and whitewashed when history proves them right. MLK was hated in his time and considered a violent thug by many, Tories went around with "Hang Nelson Mandela" signs and the anti-Vietnam protesters were despised. And all of them, proven right by history - and the right even try to claim people like MLK for their own purposes.
"Zionists don’t deserve to live"; “I feel very comfortable calling for those people to die”; and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.”
We have literal politicians, ministers, in the US and in Israel saying they plan to wipe Gaza off the map and that it would be fine to kill every Palestinian - and you take one student activist and the most inflammatory things he says and ask me to disavow. I take the same position as Norman Finkelstein on this matter, who argues that the abolitionists who disagreed with John Brown still refused to disavow him, and that is how he feels about violence used by those who want a free Palestine. Tactics are, in my view, morally neutral - it is the reason behind the tactics that matter. Violence in the aim of reducing harm (such as self defence) is justifiable; punching Nazis is justifiable. One student who says they feel like they wish Zionists were dead - I think that's justifiable.
Hmmm. Try flipping it round.
"Advocates of a Palestinian State don’t deserve to live"; “I feel very comfortable calling for those people to die”; and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Advocates of a Palestinian State.”
Yes - I think that would be wrong.
Because, as I explain, I think that tactics are morally neutral and the reason behind those tactics matter.
I think, for example, it is pretty reasonable to say that you would kill members of or supporters of a genocidal government - indeed we went to war with Nazi Germany in part because of that.
I do not think, for example, saying "I would like to kill anti-Apartheid activists" and "I would like to kill Apartheid enforcers" are the same, morally, if they were uttered during South Africa's apartheid regime.
A pedant writes: that is not why we declared war on Nazi Germany.
Sure - but like I said, in part. And it is certainly part of what makes WW2 a "just" war, unlike most wars I can think of.
I would add one little mentioned element when it comes to faith schools is they are legally allowed to ask for the candidates religion and discriminate when it comes to recruitment of teachers on the basis of the candidates faith.
I could understand having to respect the character of the school, which people of other faiths or none can do, but to be able to say during recruitment "not hiring them as they're Christian/Muslim/Jewish/atheist/whatever" should not be OK.
So it's not simply that children are excluded, but the teaching staff can be influenced by outright discrimination. And those are the people then teaching the segregated children.
How this is OK in the 21st Century is beyond me.
In a UK wherej ust 37% have no religion on the last census having under a 1/3 of schools of faith with teachers of faith and pupils of faith if anything is an underrepresentation considering the first schools and universities in this country were created by the Church
I don't think you can state 37% have no religion based upon the census. It probably is to a lesser extent now, but in the past this was a cultural question really, not a religious question. People from my background would answer Christian or CofE/Catholic whether they believed or not. It identified your background. I imagine that is true of people from a Muslim background still. Worth knowing how @TheScreamingEagles responds.
On a related point, my children's first school was a CofE school but there was no religious requirement to go there. I didn't have to do any fibbing. There was little religious content as well, other than the vicar in the next door church popping in. @hyufd is this normal or is it normally more restrictive e.g I have to show I am a regular attender of the church for instance.
Biden is going to get slammed, electorally, by these violent demos and the aftermath
I mean, the only violence I've seen is from cops and Zionists (some who are literally throwing lit fireworks into camps). Those institutions that haven't called the police and have had reasonable conversations with their students... are not being shown on the news and twitter.
I also love the fact that we know, time and time again, that these protest movements are hated in their own time and then lauded, laundered and whitewashed when history proves them right. MLK was hated in his time and considered a violent thug by many, Tories went around with "Hang Nelson Mandela" signs and the anti-Vietnam protesters were despised. And all of them, proven right by history - and the right even try to claim people like MLK for their own purposes.
There are few concepts that boil my piss as much as someone being on "the right side of history". History, by definition, doesn't prove anyone wrong or right. It is the systematic study and documentation of the human past. That's it. To suggest history is teleological is a Whiggish and Marxist fallacy. Moralists can interpret the output of history. Historians shouldn't. "That Boudicca didn't half end up on the wrong side of history.
I mean, it has a cultural understanding beyond "neutral historians should say this was right / wrong" - it is a statement on our current understanding of morality and ethics and how actions in the past shed light on them. It isn't meant, at least when I use it, to suggest a Marxian view such as "this is scientifically how events will unfurl" as much as a counter to those who typically like to argue that progress is just something that happens without effort or discomfort, and that many of the movements that got us to modern ethics and morality were disliked in their time and that can tell us something about how to understand similar things happening in our lifetimes. The events of our lives will, in time, be history - and some events will clearly be seen in negative and positive ways.
So you meant on the right side of morality and ethics, rather than history. We agree there.
It's fascinating how many people, both on here and elsewhere, regard Sadiq Khan as a bit obnoxious but can't quite put their finger on why he's obnoxious. Curious.
Rishi Sunak is a good example of a non-obnoxious politician, even if you disagree with his policies.
Both Sadiq Khan and Rishi Sunak are of average height, which apparently is too short to be a proper leader.
Forbes is a bit of a short arse; game over.
Otoh if she was bossing a Yamaha V Max 16 years ago I might revise my opinion.
They should have gone for her in the first place.
I'll pop that in my bulging advice to the SNP from people not in the SNP folder.
The sort of folk fluffing for Forbes here and elsewhere aren't exactly making me warm to her. Perhaps it's a cunning plan to turn SNP members off her as she is verily the the most accomplished politician of our age and would have Scotland independent in a trice.
A question to ask is: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want to lead the SNP? My guess is it is not K Forbes.
Labour would be happy enough with Forbes, I'd have thought, if it means the SNP are no longer to the left of them.
As a unionist WRT Scotland, I don't think Labour or Tory will want an SNP leader who understands that independence can only be achieved from a unifying centre ground and who has strong appeal to people who distrust politics and politicians.
If Forbes becomes FM and Starmer UK PM then Scotland would be seeking independence for a government more rightwing and conservative than England's. Wonder how that would go down with the Yes crowd, ha ha!
The point is that an independent Scotland can choose policies which Forbes likes, or could choose policies which Forbes hates. Unlike at present where Scotland gets the policies that the people of Epping Forest want.
A question for the Scottish Experts. So on topic. Ish.
Does there exist a right to swim in any river or lake in Scotland, under Right to Roam?
I ask because I was looking into our local Open Water swimming location (Kings Mill Lake) and someone seems to think they have the right to control who swims there.
It's not a plan (I pick up too many snuffles swimming in public venues and do not recover from them very well), but I was intrigued by the idea of being charged £6.50 to run up and down a public footpath, and swim in a Council managed lake.
(I suspect that this has stopped now, as it seems a bit edgy commercially. People round here would not buy that unless it added significant value to what they can do anyway.)
Yes, though I vaguely recall some controversy over marine reserves where all human activity was to be prohibited, including swimming (following the Australian example, I think).
I was recently denied access to a beach/river and I'm delighted to say the Local Authority did a full Brexit tackle on the landowner (to the extent they now advertise the beach on the council's website).
That was IIRC about legislating for the *options* to control access where needed in a highly protected area. I imagine that a breeding site for an endangered species would be the sort of thing. No walkers, and logically also no swimmers.
It's fascinating how many people, both on here and elsewhere, regard Sadiq Khan as a bit obnoxious but can't quite put their finger on why he's obnoxious. Curious.
Rishi Sunak is a good example of a non-obnoxious politician, even if you disagree with his policies.
Both Sadiq Khan and Rishi Sunak are of average height, which apparently is too short to be a proper leader.
Forbes is a bit of a short arse; game over.
Otoh if she was bossing a Yamaha V Max 16 years ago I might revise my opinion.
They should have gone for her in the first place.
I'll pop that in my bulging advice to the SNP from people not in the SNP folder.
The sort of folk fluffing for Forbes here and elsewhere aren't exactly making me warm to her. Perhaps it's a cunning plan to turn SNP members off her as she is verily the the most accomplished politician of our age and would have Scotland independent in a trice.
A question to ask is: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want to lead the SNP? My guess is it is not K Forbes.
Labour would be happy enough with Forbes, I'd have thought, if it means the SNP are no longer to the left of them.
I would have thought the Tories would be happy with Forbes too, given that her view that sex before marriage is wrong, wrong, wrong, is shared by so few people - and those who do share her view probably think she should be in the kitchen rather than doing politics.
Tories are irrelevant in Scotland, hated by almost everyone.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
If you want to do any sort of analysis of a population it is often useful to split the population into different groups to see whether the different constituent parts are affected differently.
Doing so enables us to see that young men have a big problem with suicide, or that women disproportionality suffer from domestic violence. It's a difference that matters. It's silly to say that it's arbitrary.
I don't understand how anything you have said makes it not arbitrary - sure there are cultural and biological differences between men and women (you point to two cultural ones), but that we as a species differentiated ourselves along those lines is arbitrary - in the sense that it is not objectively necessary to do so and it would be possible to imagine a culture where the main biological difference between men and women (carrying, giving birth to and feeding babies) does not lead to such significant cultural dimorphism.
I think we can say that sex / gender is significant and of course useful when it comes to studying human behaviour, but also accept that a lot of human behaviour is arbitrary. Another good example could be race - there are no objective races, there are no significant genetic bases for race, it is arbitrary that the idea of race evolved as it did - but it is still important now.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Does not just sound ridiculous it is ridiculous and pathetic in teh extreme. You point to lack of evolution theory
I mean, it seems that some members of the church are creationists - whilst some are not. It is of interest to me which group Kate Forbes sits in if she wishes to be SFM; I don't expect it to be in the top 5 things other people might care about her, but it's up there for me if someone is a creationist.
At risk of upsetting what appears to be the general PB consensus that Kate Forbes is fab, a few counter points:
1. I still don’t think that a lot of people are really factoring in the big shift she would be from the Sturgeon/Yousaf era. That may reap her some rewards - but if she is wanting to take the party in a completely different direction it opens up real challenges too. One of the significant failures of Truss’ (and also Sunak’s, to some extent) strategy was their inability to realise that they simply didn’t have a mandate to move the Tories away from Johnsonian boosterism and levelling up and economic interventionism. I happen to think Sturgeon’s weird “aren’t we more worthy than those reactionaries in England” progressive alliance shtick was the wrong tactic, particularly in building an alliance for independence, but that is essentially what people were getting when they voted SNP last time round, not Kate Forbes.
2. The whole thing about her views is going to come up again and again. I happen to think that perhaps it shouldn’t , and that it will be really overplayed by a media that really loves banging the ‘progressive’ drum at times, but she’s going to get asked about it time and time again. In every interview. In every campaign stop. At every juncture. See Tim Farron. It is not inconceivable that this causes her significant problems with the left of the SNP.
If the SNP had been defeated in an election and they were reassessing their priorities and strategy, I’d say Forbes would be an interesting and credible pick. In government, I sense danger for them, to be honest.
I think for both issues this all comes down to whether, as a politician, she's got what it takes.
If she's a good politician she will know that she has to bring all of her party with her. She couldn't just do a screeching u-turn and expect everyone to lump it. One step at a time and convince people by the quality of her arguments.
And the same with reconciling her personal religious belief with mainstream contemporary society. If she is a good enough politician she'll have a good enough response to the question that the media will get bored of asking it.
So, is she a good enough politician? I've no idea. Obviously all the Tories on pb.com rate her above every other SNP figure because she is closest to their views. I liked Rory Stewart for similar reasons, and he also added a degree of honesty unusual in a politician. But, ultimately, he wasn't a good enough politician to convince other people to follow him, or voters to vote for him.
One of the Tories on here (Scotch variety) has been highlighting fairly approvingly Forbes’ doubling down on her right of centre outlook since her last failed leadership bid. Things may change but I haven’t seen much evidence of bridge building from Forbes so far.
I'm trying to think of the last leading politician who was able to build bridges across the different factions within their party, let alone across the country.
I'm really struggling. It seems to be that setting up some of your own party as a scapegoat is a chosen ready to send a message to the voters about where a politician stands. I don't think it's healthy.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Does not just sound ridiculous it is ridiculous and pathetic in teh extreme. You point to lack of evolution theory
I mean, it seems that some members of the church are creationists - whilst some are not. It is of interest to me which group Kate Forbes sits in if she wishes to be SFM; I don't expect it to be in the top 5 things other people might care about her, but it's up there for me if someone is a creationist.
Remember that there are different Free Churches, albeit with the same interwoven history of splits and mergers as the foirmerly-Established and Secession kirks. And be careful not to confuse them with the similarly named free churches of Ulster.
But, unlike Ulster, I've never come across any creationism to speak of outwith the likes of the fringe groups. No protests about dinosaurs or NTS display panels in Scotland.
I would add one little mentioned element when it comes to faith schools is they are legally allowed to ask for the candidates religion and discriminate when it comes to recruitment of teachers on the basis of the candidates faith.
I could understand having to respect the character of the school, which people of other faiths or none can do, but to be able to say during recruitment "not hiring them as they're Christian/Muslim/Jewish/atheist/whatever" should not be OK.
So it's not simply that children are excluded, but the teaching staff can be influenced by outright discrimination. And those are the people then teaching the segregated children.
How this is OK in the 21st Century is beyond me.
In a UK wherej ust 37% have no religion on the last census having under a 1/3 of schools of faith with teachers of faith and pupils of faith if anything is an underrepresentation considering the first schools and universities in this country were created by the Church
I don't think you can state 37% have no religion based upon the census. It probably is to a lesser extent now, but in the past this was a cultural question really, not a religious question. People from my background would answer Christian or CofE/Catholic whether they believed or not. It identified your background. I imagine that is true of people from a Muslim background still. Worth knowing how @TheScreamingEagles responds.
On a related point, my children's first school was a CofE school but there was no religious requirement to go there. I didn't have to do any fibbing. There was little religious content as well, other than the vicar in the next door church popping in. @hyufd is this normal or is it normally more restrictive e.g I have to show I am a regular attender of the church for instance.
My son's at a CofE primary school. Two nearest were CofE - I'd have had a slight preference for secular, but the third nearest was Catholic and they were very open about it being in the selection criteria; the fourth nearest is in the badlands The CofE schools were not selecting on religion - question not asked. They do have a daily 'worship', but that sounds very much like what my own secular school called assembly. They do get taught about God and Jesus etc, but also cover other religions, did things for Diwali etc.
All in all there's a bit more religion as fact than I'd like, but I just gently make sure my son is aware of alternative views - he comes home with something he's been told and I say something like "yes, Christians believe that, but other people believe this". Occasionally he asks me directly what I believe and I am honest. My wife is more of a believer and so he gets a pretty balanced view overall.
Overall, I think it's very similar to my own childhood school which wasn't CofE but we sang hymns in assembly, many of the teachers would do bible stories as fact and the local vicar would visit.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Does not just sound ridiculous it is ridiculous and pathetic in teh extreme. You point to lack of evolution theory
I mean, it seems that some members of the church are creationists - whilst some are not. It is of interest to me which group Kate Forbes sits in if she wishes to be SFM; I don't expect it to be in the top 5 things other people might care about her, but it's up there for me if someone is a creationist.
The irony if Simulation Theory is correct and creationism is adjacently correct
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
Sky's Beff suggests Labour have been pulling resources from Teeside to focus on West Mids and their aim in Teeside is to get it to single figures behind which would 'win everything' at a GE
That suggests West Mids are close and they might even be slightly behind, and are trying to drive turnout.
The SNP just need to ask themselves whether they are likely to lose more voters to Labour/Greens under Forbes or Tories/Alba under Swinney.
Sturgeon's genius was converting a pre-2014 rural SNP into a central belt winning political machine. Going for Forbes = abandoning the central belt and a reversion to their former role as Tartan Tories.
There simply aren't enough rural constituencies for that to work, though perhaps Yousaf's failure to count is contagious?
The "rural" constituencies, i.e anything not in the central belt, are not only fewer in number but historically more marginal. The big fight is still in the central belt, and the SNP are losing the arm wrestle to Scottish Labour, so while I think that Forbes could be a more effective FM in the longer term, I think she will be kept off balance by "events". From the longer point of view of the SNP, it may be better to keep Kate in reserve to lead the recovery, on the grounds that the die is cast for the next GE,
However, Forbes herself thinks that she can limit the losses at the GE and maintain power at Holyrood after the next elections for the Scottish Parliament. Well, all politicians have plenty of ego, but the tide is running, and however skilled Kate Forbes may be, she is probably not ^that^ skilled,
I don't understand - if Forbes is such a good politician, why did she lose to Hamza the first time around?
Sky's Beff suggests Labour have been pulling resources from Teeside to focus on West Mids and their aim in Teeside is to get it to single figures behind which would 'win everything' at a GE
That suggests West Mids are close and they might even be slightly behind, and are trying to drive turnout.
Interesting.
Turnouts key there I think, Labour still has the "can't be arsed for locals" brigade in the main.
Sky's Beff suggests Labour have been pulling resources from Teeside to focus on West Mids and their aim in Teeside is to get it to single figures behind which would 'win everything' at a GE
That suggests West Mids are close and they might even be slightly behind, and are trying to drive turnout.
Interesting.
The polling data had West Mids close, within a couple of percent.
I personally think Street will lose although he will outpoll the current Tory polling numbers.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Interesting question. She seems sane but you never know. Within UK Christianity evolution denial is pretty much confined to a group within extreme evangelicalism. It never comes up in mainstream Christianity. I suspect creationism is much more widespread within Islam.
Questions will be asked of Kate Forbes because she's White and Christian that her detractors wouldn't dream of asking if she were Muslim, Hindu or even Jewish.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
Maybe arbitrary isn't the right word, although it feels like the right word to me.
I guess what I'm trying to say is there is no objective reason why we must separate humans by their bimodal sexual characteristics outside of the cultural significance placed on these characteristics.
Sky's Beff suggests Labour have been pulling resources from Teeside to focus on West Mids and their aim in Teeside is to get it to single figures behind which would 'win everything' at a GE
That suggests West Mids are close and they might even be slightly behind, and are trying to drive turnout.
Interesting.
Beth's source in Labour says they are just behind for what such bluster is worth in election week, could mean anything from nowhere to winning
Sky's Beff suggests Labour have been pulling resources from Teeside to focus on West Mids and their aim in Teeside is to get it to single figures behind which would 'win everything' at a GE
That suggests West Mids are close and they might even be slightly behind, and are trying to drive turnout.
Interesting.
Beth's source in Labour says they are just behind for what such bluster is worth in election week, could mean anything from nowhere to winning
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
And I don't. Live your life they way you want to by all means, but I cannot believe that someone born with the DNA of a man becomes a woman by wishing it so.*
*Clearly biology is fabulously complex and not everyone is either man or woman, but that category is rather small.
And here we go again.
It is, indeed, very complex, and it's one of the few issues on which I'm inclined to agree with 148grss on. A lot of our gendered behaviour seems to be hormonal, rather than chromosomal.
Since you mentioned the idea of your DNA defining you as male, here's a paper from 2009 suggesting precisely the opposite - that in MtF transgender people, their DNA means they can't process androgens (male sex hormones) properly, "resulting in a more feminized brain and a female gender identity".
It must be annoying to Scottish playwrights that history has determined there is only one Scottish Play. THE Scottish Play. What about all the others?
Shakespeareans have been kinder with other nations and haven't, for example, tried to monopolise The theatre of Denmark, Rome, Athens, or shipwrecked desert islands with sounds and sweet airs.
Sky's Beff suggests Labour have been pulling resources from Teeside to focus on West Mids and their aim in Teeside is to get it to single figures behind which would 'win everything' at a GE
That suggests West Mids are close and they might even be slightly behind, and are trying to drive turnout.
Interesting.
Turnouts key there I think, Labour still has the "can't be arsed for locals" brigade in the main.
I'm of the opinion the extent of anger and blame about Birmingham councils finances will be decisive
At the 2021 London mayoral election Labour had a lead of between 12% and 25% (first prefs) in the opinion polls beforehand. Their eventual winning margin was 4.7%.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
If you want to do any sort of analysis of a population it is often useful to split the population into different groups to see whether the different constituent parts are affected differently.
Doing so enables us to see that young men have a big problem with suicide, or that women disproportionality suffer from domestic violence. It's a difference that matters. It's silly to say that it's arbitrary.
It's also not arbitrary - the body is fundamentally different. I do not have ovaries, a vagina, a uterus etc. I have a penis, testicles, a prostate etc. It's a denial of science to claim this is arbitrary. Biology shouldn't affect how you dress, what job you do, what films you like. But to say that the man Vs woman is an arbitrary split is nonsense.
Biden is going to get slammed, electorally, by these violent demos and the aftermath
I mean, the only violence I've seen is from cops and Zionists (some who are literally throwing lit fireworks into camps). Those institutions that haven't called the police and have had reasonable conversations with their students... are not being shown on the news and twitter.
I also love the fact that we know, time and time again, that these protest movements are hated in their own time and then lauded, laundered and whitewashed when history proves them right. MLK was hated in his time and considered a violent thug by many, Tories went around with "Hang Nelson Mandela" signs and the anti-Vietnam protesters were despised. And all of them, proven right by history - and the right even try to claim people like MLK for their own purposes.
"Zionists don’t deserve to live"; “I feel very comfortable calling for those people to die”; and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.”
We have literal politicians, ministers, in the US and in Israel saying they plan to wipe Gaza off the map and that it would be fine to kill every Palestinian - and you take one student activist and the most inflammatory things he says and ask me to disavow. I take the same position as Norman Finkelstein on this matter, who argues that the abolitionists who disagreed with John Brown still refused to disavow him, and that is how he feels about violence used by those who want a free Palestine. Tactics are, in my view, morally neutral - it is the reason behind the tactics that matter. Violence in the aim of reducing harm (such as self defence) is justifiable; punching Nazis is justifiable. One student who says they feel like they wish Zionists were dead - I think that's justifiable.
Hmmm. Try flipping it round.
"Advocates of a Palestinian State don’t deserve to live"; “I feel very comfortable calling for those people to die”; and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Advocates of a Palestinian State.”
Yes - I think that would be wrong.
Because, as I explain, I think that tactics are morally neutral and the reason behind those tactics matter.
I think, for example, it is pretty reasonable to say that you would kill members of or supporters of a genocidal government - indeed we went to war with Nazi Germany in part because of that.
I do not think, for example, saying "I would like to kill anti-Apartheid activists" and "I would like to kill Apartheid enforcers" are the same, morally, if they were uttered during South Africa's apartheid regime.
The continuum of Zionists range from pacifists to the funkier allies of Netanyahu The continuum of Advocates of a Palestinian State range from pacifists to forceful advocates of literal genocide. The continuum of Anti-Apartheid activists ranged (and range) from pacifists to forceful advocates of literal genocide.
At risk of upsetting what appears to be the general PB consensus that Kate Forbes is fab, a few counter points:
1. I still don’t think that a lot of people are really factoring in the big shift she would be from the Sturgeon/Yousaf era. That may reap her some rewards - but if she is wanting to take the party in a completely different direction it opens up real challenges too. One of the significant failures of Truss’ (and also Sunak’s, to some extent) strategy was their inability to realise that they simply didn’t have a mandate to move the Tories away from Johnsonian boosterism and levelling up and economic interventionism. I happen to think Sturgeon’s weird “aren’t we more worthy than those reactionaries in England” progressive alliance shtick was the wrong tactic, particularly in building an alliance for independence, but that is essentially what people were getting when they voted SNP last time round, not Kate Forbes.
2. The whole thing about her views is going to come up again and again. I happen to think that perhaps it shouldn’t , and that it will be really overplayed by a media that really loves banging the ‘progressive’ drum at times, but she’s going to get asked about it time and time again. In every interview. In every campaign stop. At every juncture. See Tim Farron. It is not inconceivable that this causes her significant problems with the left of the SNP.
If the SNP had been defeated in an election and they were reassessing their priorities and strategy, I’d say Forbes would be an interesting and credible pick. In government, I sense danger for them, to be honest.
I think for both issues this all comes down to whether, as a politician, she's got what it takes.
If she's a good politician she will know that she has to bring all of her party with her. She couldn't just do a screeching u-turn and expect everyone to lump it. One step at a time and convince people by the quality of her arguments.
And the same with reconciling her personal religious belief with mainstream contemporary society. If she is a good enough politician she'll have a good enough response to the question that the media will get bored of asking it.
So, is she a good enough politician? I've no idea. Obviously all the Tories on pb.com rate her above every other SNP figure because she is closest to their views. I liked Rory Stewart for similar reasons, and he also added a degree of honesty unusual in a politician. But, ultimately, he wasn't a good enough politician to convince other people to follow him, or voters to vote for him.
One of the Tories on here (Scotch variety) has been highlighting fairly approvingly Forbes’ doubling down on her right of centre outlook since her last failed leadership bid. Things may change but I haven’t seen much evidence of bridge building from Forbes so far.
If you were a statesman and wanted Scottish independence (which I don't) the bridges you would need to build would be not with a narrowly based party but the broad base of the Scottish people. Thus far the SNP leadership, despite warm words, has failed in this regard.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
If you want to do any sort of analysis of a population it is often useful to split the population into different groups to see whether the different constituent parts are affected differently.
Doing so enables us to see that young men have a big problem with suicide, or that women disproportionality suffer from domestic violence. It's a difference that matters. It's silly to say that it's arbitrary.
It's also not arbitrary - the body is fundamentally different. I do not have ovaries, a vagina, a uterus etc. I have a penis, testicles, a prostate etc. It's a denial of science to claim this is arbitrary. Biology shouldn't affect how you dress, what job you do, what films you like. But to say that the man Vs woman is an arbitrary split is nonsense.
You also need a defined concept to self identify against otherwise its just all meaningless given nobody can know how someone else feels and therefore their own feeling has no external meaning whatsoever
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
And I don't. Live your life they way you want to by all means, but I cannot believe that someone born with the DNA of a man becomes a woman by wishing it so.*
*Clearly biology is fabulously complex and not everyone is either man or woman, but that category is rather small.
And here we go again.
It is, indeed, very complex, and it's one of the few issues on which I'm inclined to agree with 148grss on. A lot of our gendered behaviour seems to be hormonal, rather than chromosomal.
Since you mentioned the idea of your DNA defining you as male, here's a paper from 2009 suggesting precisely the opposite - that in MtF transgender people, their DNA means they can't process androgens (male sex hormones) properly, "resulting in a more feminized brain and a female gender identity".
So, in fact, if you're a man born with DNA that can't fully process male hormones properly, your brain tells you that you're female.
So yes, you're right about one thing - biology is fabulously complex, and things are not always as they first appear.
What evidence is there for a feminized brain? Beware imaging studies with high contrast. It's very hard to look at one person and say feminine masculine from, say, a brain scan.
Biden is going to get slammed, electorally, by these violent demos and the aftermath
I mean, the only violence I've seen is from cops and Zionists (some who are literally throwing lit fireworks into camps). Those institutions that haven't called the police and have had reasonable conversations with their students... are not being shown on the news and twitter.
I also love the fact that we know, time and time again, that these protest movements are hated in their own time and then lauded, laundered and whitewashed when history proves them right. MLK was hated in his time and considered a violent thug by many, Tories went around with "Hang Nelson Mandela" signs and the anti-Vietnam protesters were despised. And all of them, proven right by history - and the right even try to claim people like MLK for their own purposes.
There are few concepts that boil my piss as much as someone being on "the right side of history". History, by definition, doesn't prove anyone wrong or right. It is the systematic study and documentation of the human past. That's it. To suggest history is teleological is a Whiggish and Marxist fallacy. Moralists can interpret the output of history. Historians shouldn't. "That Boudicca didn't half end up on the wrong side of history.
Also, and quite aside from some of those assertions being incorrect - such as the hang Mandela stuff, protestors have protested against every conflict since time immemorial, including the first Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Libya, amongst others. They have also, at times, failed to march - like against Soviet actions in Prague and Budapest, and in favour of Solidarity.
Just because they might assert they were on "the right side of history" on one big issue doesn't mean they always are, which is what they'd like to be thought as being, and if you take all of them in the round they have been "wrong" on a great many.
I would add one little mentioned element when it comes to faith schools is they are legally allowed to ask for the candidates religion and discriminate when it comes to recruitment of teachers on the basis of the candidates faith.
I could understand having to respect the character of the school, which people of other faiths or none can do, but to be able to say during recruitment "not hiring them as they're Christian/Muslim/Jewish/atheist/whatever" should not be OK.
So it's not simply that children are excluded, but the teaching staff can be influenced by outright discrimination. And those are the people then teaching the segregated children.
How this is OK in the 21st Century is beyond me.
In a UK wherej ust 37% have no religion on the last census having under a 1/3 of schools of faith with teachers of faith and pupils of faith if anything is an underrepresentation considering the first schools and universities in this country were created by the Church
I don't think you can state 37% have no religion based upon the census. It probably is to a lesser extent now, but in the past this was a cultural question really, not a religious question. People from my background would answer Christian or CofE/Catholic whether they believed or not. It identified your background. I imagine that is true of people from a Muslim background still. Worth knowing how @TheScreamingEagles responds.
On a related point, my children's first school was a CofE school but there was no religious requirement to go there. I didn't have to do any fibbing. There was little religious content as well, other than the vicar in the next door church popping in. @hyufd is this normal or is it normally more restrictive e.g I have to show I am a regular attender of the church for instance.
Well if you are culturally Christian you are likely to be attracted by excellent Christian schools for your children. The question of whether you believe in God or not is father less relevant to this issue than the right of cultural Christians to choose good faith schools for their kids.
For Outstanding CofE secondary schools which are oversubscribed then yes you normally need a Vicar's reference of a certain amount of church attendance to get your children in
Sky's Beff suggests Labour have been pulling resources from Teeside to focus on West Mids and their aim in Teeside is to get it to single figures behind which would 'win everything' at a GE
That suggests West Mids are close and they might even be slightly behind, and are trying to drive turnout.
Interesting.
Beth's source in Labour says they are just behind for what such bluster is worth in election week, could mean anything from nowhere to winning
At this stage, with the election tomorrow, it will be about canvass returns and driving turnout. Hence the need for more activists.
Sky's Beff suggests Labour have been pulling resources from Teeside to focus on West Mids and their aim in Teeside is to get it to single figures behind which would 'win everything' at a GE
That suggests West Mids are close and they might even be slightly behind, and are trying to drive turnout.
Interesting.
Turnouts key there I think, Labour still has the "can't be arsed for locals" brigade in the main.
I'm of the opinion the extent of anger and blame about Birmingham councils finances will be decisive
W Mids anecdote. Intelligent middle class voter, weighing up whom to vote for. Hates the Tories nationally. Quite likes Street. But "then there's the whole Birmingham bankruptcy stuff".
So at least one voter was considering voting against Street on the assumption he is responsible. (Had I not made the point that's the council. But also the second point that it's because of Tory cuts).
Comments
Dangerous times to put on such a performance. (See also his company getting caught up in the aftermath of the Essex rebellion, over a staging of Richard II.)
"Advocates of a Palestinian State don’t deserve to live"; “I feel very comfortable calling for those people to die”; and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Advocates of a Palestinian State.”
Don't get me all excited for no reason.
(but Don is too of course)
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
"Britain cannot curb immigration without suffering the consequences
Cutting arrivals dramatically might be worse than enduring the current huge numbers
Jeremy Warner"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/30/why-not-let-state-cut-net-immigration-tens-thousands/
That some extend this fear, suspicion, dislike etc is only natural, if sad. None of the Muslims I know (and thats not a huge list because I like in rural Wiltshire) have ever been anything but just like everyone else. Its like the idiots at the St Georges day in London - don't tar the white community with their actions.
*Clearly biology is fabulously complex and not everyone is either man or woman, but that category is rather small.
"Trump was in Miami over the weekend, where he met with his former presidential rival Ron DeSantis. The Florida governor reportedly promised to help raise money for Trump’s campaign. “Poor Ron DeSantis. What a pathetic little worm,” said Kimmel. “They say he did it because he wants to run for president again in 2028, which seems like a great idea,” Kimmel deadpanned. “What he doesn’t realize is that Trump is also going to be running for president in 2028.”"
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
The new stamps are classic case. I'm guessing the old ones were always forged so we introduce unforgeable ones to only then fine the innocent party if they want their post. I see the fines have now been removed so it is so far a complete failure except for identifying the extent of the problem They need to go after the forger not the innocent buyer or receiver.
When I worked in Cyprus in the 90s I remember discussing ID cards with the locals. In theory they all had one. Nobody knew where theirs was though. That may have well changed with the development of IT now.
The biggest problem is fraudulent application. Due to one passport processing office getting lazy (literally a bunch of people decided not to bother) a bunch of U.K. passports were issued to people who have no right to them, for example.
The fact you haven't even mentioned what stalking (which is a crime) I'm supposed to have committed, rather couch it in adjectives like "weird", "stalky" and sundry euphemisms speaks volumes. So I'll spell it out, and yes, it's all about me. I'll put it in bold.
Hey everyone - I googled Stuart Dickson and clicked on his LinkedIn profile. SOZ!!!! I'm virtually a sex offender!!!! I'm weird and creepy according to the Scot Nats!!! Somewhere on Earth, maybe Scotland, by using social media exactly as it is supposed to be used, I've committed, literally, the crime of stalking!!!
Because, as I explain, I think that tactics are morally neutral and the reason behind those tactics matter.
I think, for example, it is pretty reasonable to say that you would kill members of or supporters of a genocidal government - indeed we went to war with Nazi Germany in part because of that.
I do not think, for example, saying "I would like to kill anti-Apartheid activists" and "I would like to kill Apartheid enforcers" are the same, morally, if they were uttered during South Africa's apartheid regime.
Forbes (who I am politically against) understands that independence is achieved, if at all, by centrist consensus building by which about 60%+ of Scots, including the non political and the centre right, come to believe they can run their own affairs well. I am against the whole of this programme and I hope it fails, but if I wanted it done Forbes is the candidate.
For running politics as usual there is a plethora of choice.
In fact, it's almost like somebody wrote an article about how history resolves a social issue in the UK
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/04/21/the-history-of-gambling/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_Australia_Fair
I think the idea that the Free Church are a kind of 'British Trumpite' tendency is a bit lazy. They are often socially conservative, like the US evangelical right, and in the same areas but that's where the similarities end. Again, most of the people I know in the Church tend to be horrified by the Evangelical Right's complete disregard for human life and indifference to suffering.
Which is precisely what James VI / I mother did as well.
Shakespeare must have been in a complete panic when James turned up in London to be King.
Teeside - Houchen
West Mids - TCTC, within 2% either way
East Mids - Labour
N Yorks - Tory by a kittens whisker
London - Khan by 12%
London Assembly - Lab gains, Reform get representation
Councillors - 420 Tory losses
PCCs - who cares about the rozzers?!
Edit - Driscoll will be 10% short
Whenever we consult his works, we come away with a deeper insight into the heart of our own mystery.
Theodore Dalrymple"
https://www.city-journal.org/article/why-shakespeare-is-for-all-time
Doing so enables us to see that young men have a big problem with suicide, or that women disproportionality suffer from domestic violence. It's a difference that matters. It's silly to say that it's arbitrary.
On a related point, my children's first school was a CofE school but there was no religious requirement to go there. I didn't have to do any fibbing. There was little religious content as well, other than the vicar in the next door church popping in. @hyufd is this normal or is it normally more restrictive e.g I have to show I am a regular attender of the church for instance.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/cv2rd53gnr6o
But not impossible.
2026 is another kettle of fish.
I think we can say that sex / gender is significant and of course useful when it comes to studying human behaviour, but also accept that a lot of human behaviour is arbitrary. Another good example could be race - there are no objective races, there are no significant genetic bases for race, it is arbitrary that the idea of race evolved as it did - but it is still important now.
*https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC170877/
I'm really struggling. It seems to be that setting up some of your own party as a scapegoat is a chosen ready to send a message to the voters about where a politician stands. I don't think it's healthy.
But, unlike Ulster, I've never come across any creationism to speak of outwith the likes of the fringe groups. No protests about dinosaurs or NTS display panels in Scotland.
All in all there's a bit more religion as fact than I'd like, but I just gently make sure my son is aware of alternative views - he comes home with something he's been told and I say something like "yes, Christians believe that, but other people believe this". Occasionally he asks me directly what I believe and I am honest. My wife is more of a believer and so he gets a pretty balanced view overall.
Overall, I think it's very similar to my own childhood school which wasn't CofE but we sang hymns in assembly, many of the teachers would do bible stories as fact and the local vicar would visit.
Interesting.
I hear you're a racist* now, 148!
*Islamophobe, whatever.
I personally think Street will lose although he will outpoll the current Tory polling numbers.
That's where cultural relativism leads.
I guess what I'm trying to say is there is no objective reason why we must separate humans by their bimodal sexual characteristics outside of the cultural significance placed on these characteristics.
It is, indeed, very complex, and it's one of the few issues on which I'm inclined to agree with 148grss on. A lot of our gendered behaviour seems to be hormonal, rather than chromosomal.
Since you mentioned the idea of your DNA defining you as male, here's a paper from 2009 suggesting precisely the opposite - that in MtF transgender people, their DNA means they can't process androgens (male sex hormones) properly, "resulting in a more feminized brain and a female gender identity".
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3402034/
So, in fact, if you're a man born with DNA that can't fully process male hormones properly, your brain tells you that you're female.
So yes, you're right about one thing - biology is fabulously complex, and things are not always as they first appear.
Shakespeareans have been kinder with other nations and haven't, for example, tried to monopolise The theatre of Denmark, Rome, Athens, or shipwrecked desert islands with sounds and sweet airs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_London_mayoral_election#After_May_2020
Biology shouldn't affect how you dress, what job you do, what films you like. But to say that the man Vs woman is an arbitrary split is nonsense.
The continuum of Advocates of a Palestinian State range from pacifists to forceful advocates of literal genocide.
The continuum of Anti-Apartheid activists ranged (and range) from pacifists to forceful advocates of literal genocide.
TSE might find material in Lindsay's Ane Satire as noted by me a moment ago.
And he might find a resonance in Liz Lochhead’s 1987 Mary Queen of Scots Got her Head Chopped Off.
Some more ideas here:
https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/library/files/special/collections/STA/articles/political/index.html
Just because they might assert they were on "the right side of history" on one big issue doesn't mean they always are, which is what they'd like to be thought as being, and if you take all of them in the round they have been "wrong" on a great many.
For Outstanding CofE secondary schools which are oversubscribed then yes you normally need a Vicar's reference of a certain amount of church attendance to get your children in
So at least one voter was considering voting against Street on the assumption he is responsible. (Had I not made the point that's the council. But also the second point that it's because of Tory cuts).