In spite of endless exhortations to Remoaners to 'get over it', it seems that any return to the dog vomit of Brexit sets off Brexiteers into a frenzy of not getting over it and excited speculation (yet again) on the future failure of the EU. Motes and beams lads.
Plenty of remainers here getting into a frenzy every time an event happens which they think might cause something which causes something which causes something which makes us Rejoin. Trump getting elected, for example.
Have you examples of that? As a remainer myself I don't remember ever claiming event X presaged a return to the EU.
(1) No mention of "hatred of foreigners" in that report (2) If you're conflating "control of immigration" with "hatred of foreigners"; then (a) that says more about you than Leave voters, and (b) in any case, that polling is complete bollocksdeeply flawed for several reasons.
But I'll shut up now, because you're another one of the deranged zealots who have missed that the Remain campaign totally failed to even try to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters who were receptive to it in principle.
I think the Remain campaign failed to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters, who were receptive to it in principle.
Absolutely the case. It’s because the leading proponents of the remain campaign were tentative at best, and often themselves Eurosceptic. Cameron’s “renegotiation” was all about distancing the UK from the heart of the project.
That and some voter complacency (“send a message to Cameron”) meant a close contest went one way when it might have gone the other.
I was just listening to the episodes Political Currency did on Brexit with Michael Gove last year. Gove said that for Leave to win everything had to go right for them, and that sounds right to me. If Remain had run a better campaign; if Labour at the time had had a leader who'd actively campaigned for Remain; if Boris (or Gove) hadn't opted to support Leave; etc etc. The result was so close that there are a lot of things you could point to and say "that's what swung it".
Per the header, the Scottish indyref had a harder task by not having "status quo" on their side, and although they got a lot of things going their way they didn't get enough -- Osborne reckoned the business about the currency was enough to persuade undecideds to stay put.
Currency remains a killer. Ten years on and still no answer.
In spite of endless exhortations to Remoaners to 'get over it', it seems that any return to the dog vomit of Brexit sets off Brexiteers into a frenzy of not getting over it and excited speculation (yet again) on the future failure of the EU. Motes and beams lads.
Meh, I fully expect that the zealots will have a go at a Rejoin referendum at some point in the future. If they do, it would be a good idea both for them and the country as a whole if they actually understood why they lost last time.
(1) No mention of "hatred of foreigners" in that report (2) If you're conflating "control of immigration" with "hatred of foreigners"; then (a) that says more about you than Leave voters, and (b) in any case, that polling is complete bollocksdeeply flawed for several reasons.
But I'll shut up now, because you're another one of the deranged zealots who have missed that the Remain campaign totally failed to even try to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters who were receptive to it in principle.
I think the Remain campaign failed to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters, who were receptive to it in principle.
Then why even mention "hating foreigners"?
The single biggest reason Remain lost was that the Remain campaign was shit.
The single biggest reason Leave won was that the Leave campaign pushed an anti-immigration message.
Or, flip it around, the EU’s inflexibility on Free Movement and the Labour government’s insane decision to throw open the borders to the Accession countries - gave Leave an invaluable boost in the referendum
But I agree in essence: there were not enough sovereignty/democracy Leavers like me to win the vote alone. Leave needed the “control the border” voters as well
And then the Tories won Brexit and entirely lost control of the borders
I'd also say that freedom of movement combined with Merkel's decision to invite millions of Middle Easterners to Germany - and hence to anywhere in Europe - combined with the Cologne rape parties which took place in the lead-up to the vote - was sub-optimal for Remain's case as it pertained to immigration.
I'd echo the case that there was definitely a hearts and minds case to be made for Remain which wasn't really attempted beyond "only really dreadful people vote Leave and if you vote Leave we're going to punish you."
"and hence to anywhere in Europe"
Well if accepted as a refugee by Germany it doesn't give you the right to live anywhere else in Europe.
(1) No mention of "hatred of foreigners" in that report (2) If you're conflating "control of immigration" with "hatred of foreigners"; then (a) that says more about you than Leave voters, and (b) in any case, that polling is complete bollocksdeeply flawed for several reasons.
But I'll shut up now, because you're another one of the deranged zealots who have missed that the Remain campaign totally failed to even try to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters who were receptive to it in principle.
I think the Remain campaign failed to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters, who were receptive to it in principle.
Absolutely the case. It’s because the leading proponents of the remain campaign were tentative at best, and often themselves Eurosceptic. Cameron’s “renegotiation” was all about distancing the UK from the heart of the project.
That and some voter complacency (“send a message to Cameron”) meant a close contest went one way when it might have gone the other.
I was just listening to the episodes Political Currency did on Brexit with Michael Gove last year. Gove said that for Leave to win everything had to go right for them, and that sounds right to me. If Remain had run a better campaign; if Labour at the time had had a leader who'd actively campaigned for Remain; if Boris (or Gove) hadn't opted to support Leave; etc etc. The result was so close that there are a lot of things you could point to and say "that's what swung it".
Per the header, the Scottish indyref had a harder task by not having "status quo" on their side, and although they got a lot of things going their way they didn't get enough -- Osborne reckoned the business about the currency was enough to persuade undecideds to stay put.
Currency remains a killer. Ten years on and still no answer.
Thank goodness at least one pillar of Project Fear (original and best) is settled.
The single biggest reason Remain lost was that the Remain campaign was shit.
Brexiteers cling to this fantasy that the "swivel eyed loons and closet racists" won because of the actions of people who didn't want Brexit, didn't advocate it, didn't campaign for it and didn't vote for it.
I guess it's more palatable than the truth
It would be hard to disagree with Driver that the Remain campaign was incredibly poor. One can counter that with the promises from the Leave campaigns were simple fantasies.
People don't buy fords cos they don't like Honda's adverts
The outcome of the vote reflected the desire of voters to "get rid of the forrin" which is what the leave campaign promised them
In spite of endless exhortations to Remoaners to 'get over it', it seems that any return to the dog vomit of Brexit sets off Brexiteers into a frenzy of not getting over it and excited speculation (yet again) on the future failure of the EU. Motes and beams lads.
Plenty of remainers here getting into a frenzy every time an event happens which they think might cause something which causes something which causes something which makes us Rejoin. Trump getting elected, for example.
Have you examples of that? As a remainer myself I don't remember ever claiming event X presaged a return to the EU.
(1) No mention of "hatred of foreigners" in that report (2) If you're conflating "control of immigration" with "hatred of foreigners"; then (a) that says more about you than Leave voters, and (b) in any case, that polling is complete bollocksdeeply flawed for several reasons.
But I'll shut up now, because you're another one of the deranged zealots who have missed that the Remain campaign totally failed to even try to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters who were receptive to it in principle.
I think the Remain campaign failed to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters, who were receptive to it in principle.
Then why even mention "hating foreigners"?
The single biggest reason Remain lost was that the Remain campaign was shit.
The single biggest reason Leave won was that the Leave campaign pushed an anti-immigration message.
Or, flip it around, the EU’s inflexibility on Free Movement and the Labour government’s insane decision to throw open the borders to the Accession countries - gave Leave an invaluable boost in the referendum
But I agree in essence: there were not enough sovereignty/democracy Leavers like me to win the vote alone. Leave needed the “control the border” voters as well
And then the Tories won Brexit and entirely lost control of the borders
I'd also say that freedom of movement combined with Merkel's decision to invite millions of Middle Easterners to Germany - and hence to anywhere in Europe - combined with the Cologne rape parties which took place in the lead-up to the vote - was sub-optimal for Remain's case as it pertained to immigration.
I'd echo the case that there was definitely a hearts and minds case to be made for Remain which wasn't really attempted beyond "only really dreadful people vote Leave and if you vote Leave we're going to punish you."
"and hence to anywhere in Europe"
Well if accepted as a refugee by Germany it doesn't give you the right to live anywhere else in Europe.
Not immediately - not for several years. But somewhere between a quarter and a half of all dutch somalis now live in the UK.
When you inherit a debt legacy that's 100% of GDP, a 1% rise in global interest rates implies an eventual rise in future interest costs that's something around around 2% of total government spending. And our debt is relatively short term compared to many major economies, so that feeds through fairly quickly to spending forecasts.
And Trump's presidency might see rates push higher still, as the US has rather more influence in the markets than does the UK Treasury.
However good or however crap the Chancellor is doesn't do much to change that.
Yeah
you spent most of the election arguing with me that cuts were impossible,
Now they're on the cards. And the debt position is pretty much the same.
The only bit of good news is Reeves is so crap she's having to cut now rather than next year.
I can help her out by saying anything involving Ed Miliband should be cut immediately.
That carbon capture nonsense being the obvious place to start.
It would be especially humiliating for Putin if Trump could pull off the peaceful annexation of Greenland by sheer force of personality.
Not really given Ukraine has a population of 37 million and 1.2 million in its armed forces and Greenland has a population of just 50,000 ie smaller than the Isle of Wight
Swinney doesn't seem focused particularly on independence and on current polls the SNP are projected to lose seats in 2026, so I can't see an indyref2 and independence imminently on the horizon.
Most likely it would need the SNP holding the balance of power in a hung parliament yes
Would Badenoch or Jenrick (as potential PM) view breaking the Union forever as value for five years of inch-perfect Conservative Government in England and Wales?
Given Reform are growing in Scotland now not just England and Wales I don't think that is really an issue.
Though of course any future Tory government would refuse indyref2 exactly as the last one did anyway. The only way indyref2 likely ever happens now is an SNP FM and a Labour UK government needing SNP confidence and supply
It's a strange sort who is prepared to die in a ditch over Latin teaching.
Ad munimenta, commilitones!
The same posters who are outraged that other people's children are incurring a huge debt to read for "Mickey Mouse" degrees".
So you are in favour of withdrawing teaching and effectively cancelling GCSEs that children have been studying for? As they head into the mocks and the final straight?
Why not end Latin teaching after the exams?
No, you like to put words on my page. Canning a programme in mid term is ridiculous. I also believe Latin should be available to be taught to those who want to learn Latin.
My point is not my inconsistency, which as you can see in the above paragraph is not inconsistent. My point was those crying loudest about the removal of Latin are happy to see the back of what they consider "Mickey Mouse" courses. Likewise I don't care if someone wants to complete a Masters degree on the hits of Madonna.
This is a government that you can tell was state educated. What a bunch of troglodytes.
State school pupils in England may have to drop GCSE Latin after funding pulled
DfE urged to delay ending funding of popular programme so that hundreds of students can complete their courses
State school pupils taking GCSE Latin may be forced to drop the subject or even have to teach themselves after the government ends funding for a popular programme that has increased the numbers learning Latin across England.
School leaders, scholars and authors are urging the Department for Education to offer a reprieve to the Latin excellenceprogramme, to enable hundreds of students to complete their GCSE courses and allow schools time to find additional support.
The DfE announced shortly before Christmas that it would end funding in February for the programme, which supports Latin lessons for more than 8,000 pupils at 40 non-selective state schools, as part of the government’s cost-cutting drive to stabilise public finances.
The cuts mean the programme will no longer be able to fund Latin teachers in schools from the end of next month, leaving some without qualified staff.
Tom Holland, the award-winning author and host of The Rest Is History podcast, said he supported continued funding for the programme, launched in 2021, arguing that Latin should not be abandoned to “posh ghettoes” within private schools.
When you inherit a debt legacy that's 100% of GDP, a 1% rise in global interest rates implies an eventual rise in future interest costs that's something around around 2% of total government spending. And our debt is relatively short term compared to many major economies, so that feeds through fairly quickly to spending forecasts.
And Trump's presidency might see rates push higher still, as the US has rather more influence in the markets than does the UK Treasury.
However good or however crap the Chancellor is doesn't do much to change that.
Yeah
you spent most of the election arguing with me that cuts were impossible,
Now they're on the cards. And the debt position is pretty much the same.
The only bit of good news is Reeves is so crap she's having to cut now rather than next year.
I can help her out by saying anything involving Ed Miliband should be cut immediately.
That carbon capture nonsense being the obvious place to start.
It does make me wonder whether anyone in parliament really does read PB - surely if they did then someone would be pointing Starmer in the direction of the numerous sensible posts here debunking the benefits of Carbon Capture and it would be scrapped - an easy easing of the financial issues.
Re: Phillipson. I read (admitedly in "The Telegraph") that she wants to make English Literature taught in schools more "inclusive". So goodbye to the classics. One headteacher was quoted as saying that English in schools should look at Instagram and Tiktok.
Then there was a thinktank report that school trips were "too middleclass" Instead of going to museums and the theatre, there should be graffiti workshops.
I really despair of the Phillipson Philistinism. I was naive to think that Labour cared about the Arts. Whereas the Conservative Government had the attitude "we can't pour public money into the Arts as everything should be profit making", Labour seems to have the attitude "we can't pour public money into the Arts, as the Arts are middle-class."
Phillipson claims she represents the working class as she grew up in a house "with no upstairs heating." I grew up in a house with no heating, except the one coal fire we could afford. I love Shakespeare and the classics, so Phuck you Phillipson.
New Labour and Blair to be fair invested a bit in the arts, Boris promoted Classics and loved literature, Heath was a musician, the Majors loved Opera, Brown was a historian, Cameron and Clegg added languages and history to the EBACC via Gove.
Starmer however is obviously a complete philistine, he couldn't even name a favourite book or poem in the general election campaign and Phillipson and Reeves are also just drone automatons equally uninterested in the arts or classics.
In fact I would say Starmer has even less interest in the arts than Thatcher did
Swinney doesn't seem focused particularly on independence and on current polls the SNP are projected to lose seats in 2026, so I can't see an indyref2 and independence imminently on the horizon.
Most likely it would need the SNP holding the balance of power in a hung parliament yes
Would Badenoch or Jenrick (as potential PM) view breaking the Union forever as value for five years of inch-perfect Conservative Government in England and Wales?
Given Reform are growing in Scotland now not just England and Wales I don't think that is really an issue.
Though of course any future Tory government would refuse indyref2 exactly as the last one did anyway. The only way indyref2 likely ever happens now is an SNP FM and a Labour UK government needing SNP confidence and supply
This is a government that you can tell was state educated. What a bunch of troglodytes.
State school pupils in England may have to drop GCSE Latin after funding pulled
DfE urged to delay ending funding of popular programme so that hundreds of students can complete their courses
State school pupils taking GCSE Latin may be forced to drop the subject or even have to teach themselves after the government ends funding for a popular programme that has increased the numbers learning Latin across England.
School leaders, scholars and authors are urging the Department for Education to offer a reprieve to the Latin excellenceprogramme, to enable hundreds of students to complete their GCSE courses and allow schools time to find additional support.
The DfE announced shortly before Christmas that it would end funding in February for the programme, which supports Latin lessons for more than 8,000 pupils at 40 non-selective state schools, as part of the government’s cost-cutting drive to stabilise public finances.
The cuts mean the programme will no longer be able to fund Latin teachers in schools from the end of next month, leaving some without qualified staff.
Tom Holland, the award-winning author and host of The Rest Is History podcast, said he supported continued funding for the programme, launched in 2021, arguing that Latin should not be abandoned to “posh ghettoes” within private schools.
Good old Grauniad, getting 'gsce' typo in the url..
You'd hope the URL was autogenerated in some way. So either the typo was in the original version of the article, or some poor bugger is manually typing out URLs all day.
(1) No mention of "hatred of foreigners" in that report (2) If you're conflating "control of immigration" with "hatred of foreigners"; then (a) that says more about you than Leave voters, and (b) in any case, that polling is complete bollocksdeeply flawed for several reasons.
But I'll shut up now, because you're another one of the deranged zealots who have missed that the Remain campaign totally failed to even try to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters who were receptive to it in principle.
I think the Remain campaign failed to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters, who were receptive to it in principle.
Then why even mention "hating foreigners"?
The single biggest reason Remain lost was that the Remain campaign was shit.
The best justification for Brexit is that a Remain campaign 9 years ago was shit? You don't think that might raise questions about how good Brexit really is?
(1) No mention of "hatred of foreigners" in that report (2) If you're conflating "control of immigration" with "hatred of foreigners"; then (a) that says more about you than Leave voters, and (b) in any case, that polling is complete bollocksdeeply flawed for several reasons.
But I'll shut up now, because you're another one of the deranged zealots who have missed that the Remain campaign totally failed to even try to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters who were receptive to it in principle.
I think the Remain campaign failed to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters, who were receptive to it in principle.
Absolutely the case. It’s because the leading proponents of the remain campaign were tentative at best, and often themselves Eurosceptic. Cameron’s “renegotiation” was all about distancing the UK from the heart of the project.
That and some voter complacency (“send a message to Cameron”) meant a close contest went one way when it might have gone the other.
I was just listening to the episodes Political Currency did on Brexit with Michael Gove last year. Gove said that for Leave to win everything had to go right for them, and that sounds right to me. If Remain had run a better campaign; if Labour at the time had had a leader who'd actively campaigned for Remain; if Boris (or Gove) hadn't opted to support Leave; etc etc. The result was so close that there are a lot of things you could point to and say "that's what swung it".
Per the header, the Scottish indyref had a harder task by not having "status quo" on their side, and although they got a lot of things going their way they didn't get enough -- Osborne reckoned the business about the currency was enough to persuade undecideds to stay put.
Currency remains a killer. Ten years on and still no answer.
There is no answer to currency given that we aren’t in the Euro.
That shows the impact of not joining the Euro, if we were part of the euro leaving the EU would have been impossible but as Scotland would have left the Brexit referendum would have never occurred as we would have been dealing with the consequences of the separation
The single biggest reason Remain lost was that the Remain campaign was shit.
Brexiteers cling to this fantasy that the "swivel eyed loons and closet racists" won because of the actions of people who didn't want Brexit, didn't advocate it, didn't campaign for it and didn't vote for it.
I guess it's more palatable than the truth
It would be hard to disagree with Driver that the Remain campaign was incredibly poor. One can counter that with the promises from the Leave campaigns were simple fantasies.
That was somewhat intrinsic in the way Cameron designed the referendum - what "Leave" meant was deliberately undefined so as to allow Project Fear to be deployed to maximum effect; and the Leave campaign wasn't going to form a government so had no way to ensure that its vision of Leave would inform the A50 negotiations. This was calculated to make the Leave campaign promises be easy for the Remain campaign to destroy.
I am not sure they were even that Machiavellian.
Cameron didn't even stack the deck in his favour when he could. After the Scottish Referendum he might have imposed voting at 16, but the reality is after Scotland and GE2015 he didn't feel he could lose.
This is a government that you can tell was state educated. What a bunch of troglodytes.
State school pupils in England may have to drop GCSE Latin after funding pulled
DfE urged to delay ending funding of popular programme so that hundreds of students can complete their courses
State school pupils taking GCSE Latin may be forced to drop the subject or even have to teach themselves after the government ends funding for a popular programme that has increased the numbers learning Latin across England.
School leaders, scholars and authors are urging the Department for Education to offer a reprieve to the Latin excellenceprogramme, to enable hundreds of students to complete their GCSE courses and allow schools time to find additional support.
The DfE announced shortly before Christmas that it would end funding in February for the programme, which supports Latin lessons for more than 8,000 pupils at 40 non-selective state schools, as part of the government’s cost-cutting drive to stabilise public finances.
The cuts mean the programme will no longer be able to fund Latin teachers in schools from the end of next month, leaving some without qualified staff.
Tom Holland, the award-winning author and host of The Rest Is History podcast, said he supported continued funding for the programme, launched in 2021, arguing that Latin should not be abandoned to “posh ghettoes” within private schools.
Good old Grauniad, getting 'gsce' typo in the url..
You'd hope the URL was autogenerated in some way. So either the typo was in the original version of the article, or some poor bugger is manually typing out URLs all day.
Probably auto-generated from the first version of the headline, that seems to be fairly standard.
Swinney doesn't seem focused particularly on independence and on current polls the SNP are projected to lose seats in 2026, so I can't see an indyref2 and independence imminently on the horizon.
Most likely it would need the SNP holding the balance of power in a hung parliament yes
Would Badenoch or Jenrick (as potential PM) view breaking the Union forever as value for five years of inch-perfect Conservative Government in England and Wales?
Given Reform are growing in Scotland now not just England and Wales I don't think that is really an issue.
Though of course any future Tory government would refuse indyref2 exactly as the last one did anyway. The only way indyref2 likely ever happens now is an SNP FM and a Labour UK government needing SNP confidence and supply
What if the Tories needed c and s?
The SNP would never give the Tories C and S and the Tories would correctly refuse C and S from the SNP, even the LDs are more likely to give the Tories C and S than the SNP
(1) No mention of "hatred of foreigners" in that report (2) If you're conflating "control of immigration" with "hatred of foreigners"; then (a) that says more about you than Leave voters, and (b) in any case, that polling is complete bollocksdeeply flawed for several reasons.
But I'll shut up now, because you're another one of the deranged zealots who have missed that the Remain campaign totally failed to even try to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters who were receptive to it in principle.
I think the Remain campaign failed to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters, who were receptive to it in principle.
Then why even mention "hating foreigners"?
The single biggest reason Remain lost was that the Remain campaign was shit.
The best justification for Brexit is that a Remain campaign 9 years ago was shit? You don't think that might raise questions about how good Brexit really is?
I have no idea where you got that from, but it doesn't seem to follow at all from anything I wrote.
It's a strange sort who is prepared to die in a ditch over Latin teaching.
Ad munimenta, commilitones!
The same posters who are outraged that other people's children are incurring a huge debt to read for "Mickey Mouse degrees".
I did Highers in Latin and Chemistry at the same time. I enjoyed them both but of the 2 Latin has proved to be by far the most useful in my adult life. I accept that the scales were somewhat tipped by the fact that I did law but it gave me:
A better understanding of English grammar; A broader vocabulary; Useful education about historical events, their echoes in our own time and an understanding of how things work in the real world. I found that their teaching about this far better than the History higher I did at the same time. The ability to read and comprehend simple Italian to the extent of getting the gist.
Chemistry, I have used a couple of times at most. No doubt if I had studied medicine the balance would have been different.
(1) No mention of "hatred of foreigners" in that report (2) If you're conflating "control of immigration" with "hatred of foreigners"; then (a) that says more about you than Leave voters, and (b) in any case, that polling is complete bollocksdeeply flawed for several reasons.
But I'll shut up now, because you're another one of the deranged zealots who have missed that the Remain campaign totally failed to even try to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters who were receptive to it in principle.
I think the Remain campaign failed to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters, who were receptive to it in principle.
Absolutely the case. It’s because the leading proponents of the remain campaign were tentative at best, and often themselves Eurosceptic. Cameron’s “renegotiation” was all about distancing the UK from the heart of the project.
That and some voter complacency (“send a message to Cameron”) meant a close contest went one way when it might have gone the other.
I was just listening to the episodes Political Currency did on Brexit with Michael Gove last year. Gove said that for Leave to win everything had to go right for them, and that sounds right to me. If Remain had run a better campaign; if Labour at the time had had a leader who'd actively campaigned for Remain; if Boris (or Gove) hadn't opted to support Leave; etc etc. The result was so close that there are a lot of things you could point to and say "that's what swung it".
Per the header, the Scottish indyref had a harder task by not having "status quo" on their side, and although they got a lot of things going their way they didn't get enough -- Osborne reckoned the business about the currency was enough to persuade undecideds to stay put.
Would the referendum result have been different had there been somehow different campaigns from either side? Of course, we'll never know.
But my instinct is that professional politicians like Gove exaggerate the importance of campaigning, because it's what they, and the politically engaged they interact with constantly, do day in, day out. It could well be that the country was in a mood to leave, and did so despite, not because of, the relative strength of the campaigns.
But just an opinion, obviously unsupportable with evidence.
I'm a Remainer/Rejoiner, and still, at my advanced age, hope to live to see the UK back in the European fold. I've held that view since the late 1950's, and campaigned in both Referenda. While we had an Empire and, more importantly perhaps, both a Merchant and a Royal Navy 'isolation' from Europe perhaps made sense, but given that we now, effectively have neither and both international trade and travel between neighbouring countries is so much easier it makes no sense to me to cut ourselves off from our immediate neighbours. I'm particularly distressed to see the reduction in youth travel between Britain and our immediate neighbours; my children and grandchildren all had beneficial experiences from such experiences. We share a culture with, particularly, Western Europe and turning our backs on that seems to me to reduce our country. I will admit that I wasn't too happy about the expansion of the EU East and South-East-ward, but unquestionably the accession of Poland and Czechia has been beneficial to both them and the EU. So I repeat my opening thought; I hope to live to live to see us Rejoin, and take a full part in the development of our continent.
A piece of genuine, but abstruse, good news, and a Christmas present I had missed.
26 December 2024
Today, the UK government has announced it will remove the 2031 deadline to record historic rights of way in England, ending the threat to over 41,000 miles of unrecorded paths.
That sounds abtruse - it means that if evidence of public use of rights of way can be established, then the RoW will be recognised. The proposal previously was that the historic right of claiming prescriptive use where sue is evidenced should be abolished. This has had a bit of to and fro over the last decade or two - this is another low profile but important area where this Government are moving in the right direction - slowly.
It's a strange sort who is prepared to die in a ditch over Latin teaching.
Ad munimenta, commilitones!
The same posters who are outraged that other people's children are incurring a huge debt to read for "Mickey Mouse degrees".
I did Highers in Latin and Chemistry at the same time. I enjoyed them both but of the 2 Latin has proved to be by far the most useful in my adult life. I accept that the scales were somewhat tipped by the fact that I did law but it gave me:
A better understanding of English grammar; A broader vocabulary; Useful education about historical events, their echoes in our own time and an understanding of how things work in the real world. I found that their teaching about this far better than the History higher I did at the same time. The ability to read and comprehend simple Italian to the extent of getting the gist.
Chemistry, I have used a couple of times at most. No doubt if I had studied medicine the balance would have been different.
My belief is learning, any learning is beneficial. The knowledge you learned in Chemistry may not be directly transferable to the law, but the skills learned can be applied elsewhere.
Anyway if I had a big toxic tort case involving leukemia derived from the use of a specific recycled kerosene product, you would be just the lawyer I'd need.
(1) No mention of "hatred of foreigners" in that report (2) If you're conflating "control of immigration" with "hatred of foreigners"; then (a) that says more about you than Leave voters, and (b) in any case, that polling is complete bollocksdeeply flawed for several reasons.
But I'll shut up now, because you're another one of the deranged zealots who have missed that the Remain campaign totally failed to even try to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters who were receptive to it in principle.
I think the Remain campaign failed to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters, who were receptive to it in principle.
Absolutely the case. It’s because the leading proponents of the remain campaign were tentative at best, and often themselves Eurosceptic. Cameron’s “renegotiation” was all about distancing the UK from the heart of the project.
That and some voter complacency (“send a message to Cameron”) meant a close contest went one way when it might have gone the other.
I was just listening to the episodes Political Currency did on Brexit with Michael Gove last year. Gove said that for Leave to win everything had to go right for them, and that sounds right to me. If Remain had run a better campaign; if Labour at the time had had a leader who'd actively campaigned for Remain; if Boris (or Gove) hadn't opted to support Leave; etc etc. The result was so close that there are a lot of things you could point to and say "that's what swung it".
Per the header, the Scottish indyref had a harder task by not having "status quo" on their side, and although they got a lot of things going their way they didn't get enough -- Osborne reckoned the business about the currency was enough to persuade undecideds to stay put.
Currency remains a killer. Ten years on and still no answer.
Actually the killer was Brexit as Sturgeon seems to have acknowledged. In 2014 the story told was that Scotland would remain a part of the Single Market with rUK at which point many of the most problematic issues disappear ( whether this would have in fact happened is beside the point).
Brexit meant that Scotland would need to choose between its largest market (rUK) and the SM. The NI example showed just how hard that would be. Furthermore, there would be no seamless transition but the rigours of a new application to the EU with all fiscal problems that would cause an independent Scotland. Years and years of uncertainty and economic mess. There are no good answers to this.
(1) No mention of "hatred of foreigners" in that report (2) If you're conflating "control of immigration" with "hatred of foreigners"; then (a) that says more about you than Leave voters, and (b) in any case, that polling is complete bollocksdeeply flawed for several reasons.
But I'll shut up now, because you're another one of the deranged zealots who have missed that the Remain campaign totally failed to even try to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters who were receptive to it in principle.
I think the Remain campaign failed to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters, who were receptive to it in principle.
Absolutely the case. It’s because the leading proponents of the remain campaign were tentative at best, and often themselves Eurosceptic. Cameron’s “renegotiation” was all about distancing the UK from the heart of the project.
That and some voter complacency (“send a message to Cameron”) meant a close contest went one way when it might have gone the other.
I was just listening to the episodes Political Currency did on Brexit with Michael Gove last year. Gove said that for Leave to win everything had to go right for them, and that sounds right to me. If Remain had run a better campaign; if Labour at the time had had a leader who'd actively campaigned for Remain; if Boris (or Gove) hadn't opted to support Leave; etc etc. The result was so close that there are a lot of things you could point to and say "that's what swung it".
Per the header, the Scottish indyref had a harder task by not having "status quo" on their side, and although they got a lot of things going their way they didn't get enough -- Osborne reckoned the business about the currency was enough to persuade undecideds to stay put.
Would the referendum result have been different had there been somehow different campaigns from either side? Of course, we'll never know.
But my instinct is that professional politicians like Gove exaggerate the importance of campaigning, because it's what they, and the politically engaged they interact with constantly, do day in, day out. It could well be that the country was in a mood to leave, and did so despite, not because of, the relative strength of the campaigns.
But just an opinion, obviously unsupportable with evidence.
It's a while ago now but worth remembering that both campaigns were dire, yet Remain was absolutely catastrophically awful.
On a happier note, I might actually have a little work. Not a huge amount, but something. Gosh.
Re: Phillipson. I read (admitedly in "The Telegraph") that she wants to make English Literature taught in schools more "inclusive". So goodbye to the classics. One headteacher was quoted as saying that English in schools should look at Instagram and Tiktok.
Then there was a thinktank report that school trips were "too middleclass" Instead of going to museums and the theatre, there should be graffiti workshops.
I really despair of the Phillipson Philistinism. I was naive to think that Labour cared about the Arts. Whereas the Conservative Government had the attitude "we can't pour public money into the Arts as everything should be profit making", Labour seems to have the attitude "we can't pour public money into the Arts, as the Arts are middle-class."
Phillipson claims she represents the working class as she grew up in a house "with no upstairs heating." I grew up in a house with no heating, except the one coal fire we could afford. I love Shakespeare and the classics, so Phuck you Phillipson.
New Labour and Blair to be fair invested a bit in the arts, Boris promoted Classics and loved literature, Heath was a musician, the Majors loved Opera, Brown was a historian, Cameron and Clegg added languages and history to the EBACC via Gove.
Starmer however is obviously a complete philistine, he couldn't even name a favourite book or poem in the general election campaign and Phillipson and Reeves are also just drone automatons equally uninterested in the arts or classics.
In fact I would say Starmer has even less interest in the arts than Thatcher did
I’m not entirely sure I could tell you anything Starmer professes to be interested in, other than Arsenal. He is somewhat unknowable. Or is a personality vacuum.
It's a strange sort who is prepared to die in a ditch over Latin teaching.
Ad munimenta, commilitones!
The same posters who are outraged that other people's children are incurring a huge debt to read for "Mickey Mouse degrees".
I did Highers in Latin and Chemistry at the same time. I enjoyed them both but of the 2 Latin has proved to be by far the most useful in my adult life. I accept that the scales were somewhat tipped by the fact that I did law but it gave me:
A better understanding of English grammar; A broader vocabulary; Useful education about historical events, their echoes in our own time and an understanding of how things work in the real world. I found that their teaching about this far better than the History higher I did at the same time. The ability to read and comprehend simple Italian to the extent of getting the gist.
Chemistry, I have used a couple of times at most. No doubt if I had studied medicine the balance would have been different.
My belief is learning, any learning is beneficial. The knowledge you learned in Chemistry may not be directly transferable to the law, but the skills learned can be applied elsewhere.
Anyway if I had a big toxic tort case involving leukemia derived from the use of a specific recycled kerosene product, you would be just the lawyer I'd need.
I don’t disagree. I have mentioned before that I found the concept of the rate determining step really useful as an analytical tool. I did a case against Du Pont about chemicals where some understanding of the underlying science helped. Nothing is wasted. But Latin proved particularly useful.
The single biggest reason Remain lost was that the Remain campaign was shit.
Brexiteers cling to this fantasy that the "swivel eyed loons and closet racists" won because of the actions of people who didn't want Brexit, didn't advocate it, didn't campaign for it and didn't vote for it.
I guess it's more palatable than the truth
It would be hard to disagree with Driver that the Remain campaign was incredibly poor. One can counter that with the promises from the Leave campaigns were simple fantasies.
That was somewhat intrinsic in the way Cameron designed the referendum - what "Leave" meant was deliberately undefined so as to allow Project Fear to be deployed to maximum effect; and the Leave campaign wasn't going to form a government so had no way to ensure that its vision of Leave would inform the A50 negotiations. This was calculated to make the Leave campaign promises be easy for the Remain campaign to destroy.
I am not sure they were even that Machiavellian.
Cameron didn't even stack the deck in his favour when he could. After the Scottish Referendum he might have imposed voting at 16, but the reality is after Scotland and GE2015 he didn't feel he could lose.
Hubris. You have some big successes, you're riding high, and you get to thinking you're the special one and can do anything. Blair got a dose of this too. It was a factor in Iraq imo.
The problem with the UK at the moment is that politicians are too political. Just heard a bbc report about some Labour economic plans and Labour MPs were complaining to the reporter that the plans were for the long term and so wouldn’t make people feel better in time for the next election.
So bugger the country, it’s all about the electoral cycle. And all parties are bad on this.
Maybe we need ten year gaps between elections to allow longer term thinking.
This is what the Biden team blame for Trump 2.0. Biden was fixing the economy for the long term but voters had to pay their bills in the short term.
Biden's efforts were too focused on shifting policies that take years to translate into economic benefits for average American workers.
"I think that the time horizon associated with those big pieces of legislation was way out of sync with the exigencies of the presidential election," he said.
Biden would have been better served finding ways to bring the tangible benefits to voters more quickly – a sentiment Biden himself expressed during a recent newspaper interview. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7vd5n3el6no
I'm a Remainer/Rejoiner, and still, at my advanced age, hope to live to see the UK back in the European fold. I've held that view since the late 1950's, and campaigned in both Referenda. While we had an Empire and, more importantly perhaps, both a Merchant and a Royal Navy 'isolation' from Europe perhaps made sense, but given that we now, effectively have neither and both international trade and travel between neighbouring countries is so much easier it makes no sense to me to cut ourselves off from our immediate neighbours. I'm particularly distressed to see the reduction in youth travel between Britain and our immediate neighbours; my children and grandchildren all had beneficial experiences from such experiences. We share a culture with, particularly, Western Europe and turning our backs on that seems to me to reduce our country. I will admit that I wasn't too happy about the expansion of the EU East and South-East-ward, but unquestionably the accession of Poland and Czechia has been beneficial to both them and the EU. So I repeat my opening thought; I hope to live to live to see us Rejoin, and take a full part in the development of our continent.
I voted Remain. We voted to leave. I could not care either way about rejoining. The EU is nothing to admire to be frank.
Turns out it wasn't a choice after all. Who'd have thought?
I wonder if all those who told us no cuts could be made will be dining on crow ?
Probably not.
The crow is perhaps better reserved for all the "speaking words of wisdom" types who assured us they'd be back for more tax because that's what Labour always do.
Confess I’m a little stunned by the Sturgeon/Murrell divorce
There are relationships and relationships and then there are great love affairs of the ages, two souls dancing as one, a duet of passion that will resound forever: that, for me, was Nicola Sturgeon and that bloke she was with to cover her being a tuppence licker
If even a love like that must find its end, wherefore, and whither, any of us?
(1) No mention of "hatred of foreigners" in that report (2) If you're conflating "control of immigration" with "hatred of foreigners"; then (a) that says more about you than Leave voters, and (b) in any case, that polling is complete bollocksdeeply flawed for several reasons.
But I'll shut up now, because you're another one of the deranged zealots who have missed that the Remain campaign totally failed to even try to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters who were receptive to it in principle.
I think the Remain campaign failed to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters, who were receptive to it in principle.
Then why even mention "hating foreigners"?
The single biggest reason Remain lost was that the Remain campaign was shit.
The single biggest reason Leave won was that the Leave campaign pushed an anti-immigration message.
Or, flip it around, the EU’s inflexibility on Free Movement and the Labour government’s insane decision to throw open the borders to the Accession countries - gave Leave an invaluable boost in the referendum
But I agree in essence: there were not enough sovereignty/democracy Leavers like me to win the vote alone. Leave needed the “control the border” voters as well
And then the Tories won Brexit and entirely lost control of the borders
I'd also say that freedom of movement combined with Merkel's decision to invite millions of Middle Easterners to Germany - and hence to anywhere in Europe - combined with the Cologne rape parties which took place in the lead-up to the vote - was sub-optimal for Remain's case as it pertained to immigration.
I'd echo the case that there was definitely a hearts and minds case to be made for Remain which wasn't really attempted beyond "only really dreadful people vote Leave and if you vote Leave we're going to punish you."
"and hence to anywhere in Europe"
Well if accepted as a refugee by Germany it doesn't give you the right to live anywhere else in Europe.
Not immediately - not for several years. But somewhere between a quarter and a half of all dutch somalis now live in the UK.
Somalis have links to the UK - South Shields and Cardiff.
NB: Quite q dodgy pollster, but a more reliable Danish pollster also has a majority of Greenlanders wanting to join the USA. At the same time, some polls show Greenlanders wanting to join the EU...
Whatever the case, it looks like they will vote for full independence from Denmark ASAP
The Greenlandic PM has said Greenlanders want to be neither Danish or American but independent yes.
Though with a population of 50,000 ie less than Harlow he might find it difficult to hold off Trump on that
Re: Phillipson. I read (admitedly in "The Telegraph") that she wants to make English Literature taught in schools more "inclusive". So goodbye to the classics. One headteacher was quoted as saying that English in schools should look at Instagram and Tiktok.
Then there was a thinktank report that school trips were "too middleclass" Instead of going to museums and the theatre, there should be graffiti workshops.
I really despair of the Phillipson Philistinism. I was naive to think that Labour cared about the Arts. Whereas the Conservative Government had the attitude "we can't pour public money into the Arts as everything should be profit making", Labour seems to have the attitude "we can't pour public money into the Arts, as the Arts are middle-class."
Phillipson claims she represents the working class as she grew up in a house "with no upstairs heating." I grew up in a house with no heating, except the one coal fire we could afford. I love Shakespeare and the classics, so Phuck you Phillipson.
Go Phillipson! She's not excluding Shakespeare. Shakespeare will still be there. But I am all for making English lit more inclusive and relevant to the materials people meet in their lives.
Nor do I see this as anti-middle class. I can't think of anything more middle class than a graffiti workshop.
Re: Phillipson. I read (admitedly in "The Telegraph") that she wants to make English Literature taught in schools more "inclusive". So goodbye to the classics. One headteacher was quoted as saying that English in schools should look at Instagram and Tiktok.
Then there was a thinktank report that school trips were "too middleclass" Instead of going to museums and the theatre, there should be graffiti workshops.
I really despair of the Phillipson Philistinism. I was naive to think that Labour cared about the Arts. Whereas the Conservative Government had the attitude "we can't pour public money into the Arts as everything should be profit making", Labour seems to have the attitude "we can't pour public money into the Arts, as the Arts are middle-class."
Phillipson claims she represents the working class as she grew up in a house "with no upstairs heating." I grew up in a house with no heating, except the one coal fire we could afford. I love Shakespeare and the classics, so Phuck you Phillipson.
New Labour and Blair to be fair invested a bit in the arts, Boris promoted Classics and loved literature, Heath was a musician, the Majors loved Opera, Brown was a historian, Cameron and Clegg added languages and history to the EBACC via Gove.
Starmer however is obviously a complete philistine, he couldn't even name a favourite book or poem in the general election campaign and Phillipson and Reeves are also just drone automatons equally uninterested in the arts or classics.
In fact I would say Starmer has even less interest in the arts than Thatcher did
The whole notion that art, high culture, academic rigour, are not for the lower classes, would have appalled earlier generations of socialists.
For those wondering, Starship launch is now not before Wednesday.
Finger crossed. A monopoly on launch services isn't a particularly good thing.
It's interesting how the different rockets have different strengths (*). New Glenn can lift less than SS to LEO, but NG is *much* better currently at getting things to GTO and beyond. SS has a bigger 'fairing', but someone claimed that the difference isn't that great, as SS has lots of structural stuff getting in the way.
SLS is best at wasting money.
It's interesting how the planned capabilities of both rockets has decreased over time. SS is nowhere near the planned 100 tonnes to orbit, and NG is well under its target of 45 tonnes (figures from memory; may be wrong).
(*) As far as we know, given neither is currently operational.
Meanwhile, Stéphane Israël had one job
(Snip)
If things continue the way they are, a non-American and non-Musk route to space for Europe might seem a *very* wise thing...
For those wondering, Starship launch is now not before Wednesday.
Finger crossed. A monopoly on launch services isn't a particularly good thing.
It's interesting how the different rockets have different strengths (*). New Glenn can lift less than SS to LEO, but NG is *much* better currently at getting things to GTO and beyond. SS has a bigger 'fairing', but someone claimed that the difference isn't that great, as SS has lots of structural stuff getting in the way.
SLS is best at wasting money.
It's interesting how the planned capabilities of both rockets has decreased over time. SS is nowhere near the planned 100 tonnes to orbit, and NG is well under its target of 45 tonnes (figures from memory; may be wrong).
(*) As far as we know, given neither is currently operational.
Meanwhile, Stéphane Israël had one job
(Snip)
If things continue the way they are, a non-American and non-Musk route to space for Europe might seem a *very* wise thing...
Like I said, Stéphane had one job. Making sure Europe had an independent and competitive space launch capability.
That's my point: "competitive" is not the vital point.
Arianespace fluked into getting a competitive commercial rocket with the Ariane 4. It wasn't meant to be competitive; but (perhaps thanks to the changing market after the Challenger disaster), it was. That continued with Ariane 5 until SpaceX changed the market again.
The whole thing started because the US government were ****s and stopped the Franco-German Symphonie satellites from being commercially used, despite (or because of) their being more advanced than any US satellites.
*That's* what Arianespace is meant to prevent. Cost is very much a secondary factor.
That’s Stéphane Israël‘s excuse.
(Snip)
It isn't an 'excuse'. It's the blooming reality of *why* Arianespace exists. It's at the very core of their being.
Now, you can say the world's changed. But what hasn't changed is the US's ability to be sh*ts, as they were in 1970 over Symphonie.
It was the reason that Arianespace was started.
Half a century ago.
(Snip)
Lordy. It is the reason Arianespace exists *today*. It is central to their core and purpose.
And as a result of Stéphane Israël‘s (and others) obduracy, that ability is not being updated. Which will make it increasingly useless.
(Snip)
Okay, let me show you where you're going wrong. You're blaming Stéphane Israël.
Stéphane Israël was the CEO of Arianespace for eleven years until last year.
Unlike Musk or Bezos, he does not own the space company. The owners are Airbus and Safran, and they themselves get political interference from France, Germany, Italy, etc, etc. As such, Israel did as he was told.
As such, his situation is more like the great Tory Bruno at ULA. There's loads of things Bruno would like to do, such as SMART reuse, in-space tugs, propellent depots etc, but he can only do what his owners, Boeing and Lockheed, allow him to do.
Blaming Israel for Arianespace not going full-on on reuse is stupid. He is doing what his bosses want him to do: to ensure Europe has an independent route into space.
(And they are updating that ability - Ariane 6 should be launching again next month.)
POCA is a particularly pernicious piece of legislation. Fair enough to get the Maserati back from the coke dealer, but the Environmental regulators use it as an additional punishment beating.
A client of mine was personally prosecuted for a breach of (environmental) duty of care undertaken by his employer. He was personally singled out because he was a Director (in name only). He pleaded guilty for an easy life (I had advised him, in my unqualified capacity as a Management Consultant, under no circumstances plead guilty to something he had no hand in, but he did anyway). When it came to sentencing, the magistrate hit him with a fine of a couple of grand, which his employer had agreed to pay, so he momentarily thought happy days, that's me done. Then the regulator's brief stood up and asked to apply (vexatiously) the POCA. The Director (in name only) and his wife couldn't buy a pint of milk for three months. The employer paid his mortgage repayments and provided cash for essentials which had to be paid back once the request was dropped. The environmental Inspector did it because she could, she self styled herself as a "Rottweiler with lipstick".
It's a strange sort who is prepared to die in a ditch over Latin teaching.
Ad munimenta, commilitones!
The same posters who are outraged that other people's children are incurring a huge debt to read for "Mickey Mouse" degrees".
So you are in favour of withdrawing teaching and effectively cancelling GCSEs that children have been studying for? As they head into the mocks and the final straight?
Why not end Latin teaching after the exams?
No, you like to put words on my page. Canning a programme in mid term is ridiculous. I also believe Latin should be available to be taught to those who want to learn Latin.
My point is not my inconsistency, which as you can see in the above paragraph is not inconsistent. My point was those crying loudest about the removal of Latin are happy to see the back of what they consider "Mickey Mouse" courses. Likewise I don't care if someone wants to complete a Masters degree on the hits of Madonna.
The actual problem with degrees is that for a large number of people, they need a degree to get the same job that was previously non-degree. And which has a low-to-non-existent premium over not doing the degree.
Meanwhile the government caps medical degrees (and associated training), and companies import graduates from other countries.
The problem with the UK at the moment is that politicians are too political. Just heard a bbc report about some Labour economic plans and Labour MPs were complaining to the reporter that the plans were for the long term and so wouldn’t make people feel better in time for the next election.
So bugger the country, it’s all about the electoral cycle. And all parties are bad on this.
Maybe we need ten year gaps between elections to allow longer term thinking.
It is a flaw. You're getting judged on growth over the short term which you can't do much about other than create froth. What you can do more about is growth in the longer term but you won't get the credit for that.
So if "it's the economy, stupid" is true about elections, that's rather er ... stupid.
Re: Phillipson. I read (admitedly in "The Telegraph") that she wants to make English Literature taught in schools more "inclusive". So goodbye to the classics. One headteacher was quoted as saying that English in schools should look at Instagram and Tiktok.
Then there was a thinktank report that school trips were "too middleclass" Instead of going to museums and the theatre, there should be graffiti workshops.
I really despair of the Phillipson Philistinism. I was naive to think that Labour cared about the Arts. Whereas the Conservative Government had the attitude "we can't pour public money into the Arts as everything should be profit making", Labour seems to have the attitude "we can't pour public money into the Arts, as the Arts are middle-class."
Phillipson claims she represents the working class as she grew up in a house "with no upstairs heating." I grew up in a house with no heating, except the one coal fire we could afford. I love Shakespeare and the classics, so Phuck you Phillipson.
New Labour and Blair to be fair invested a bit in the arts, Boris promoted Classics and loved literature, Heath was a musician, the Majors loved Opera, Brown was a historian, Cameron and Clegg added languages and history to the EBACC via Gove.
Starmer however is obviously a complete philistine, he couldn't even name a favourite book or poem in the general election campaign and Phillipson and Reeves are also just drone automatons equally uninterested in the arts or classics.
In fact I would say Starmer has even less interest in the arts than Thatcher did
The whole notion that art, high culture, academic rigour, are not for the lower classes, would have appalled earlier generations of socialists.
Re: Phillipson. I read (admitedly in "The Telegraph") that she wants to make English Literature taught in schools more "inclusive". So goodbye to the classics. One headteacher was quoted as saying that English in schools should look at Instagram and Tiktok.
Then there was a thinktank report that school trips were "too middleclass" Instead of going to museums and the theatre, there should be graffiti workshops.
I really despair of the Phillipson Philistinism. I was naive to think that Labour cared about the Arts. Whereas the Conservative Government had the attitude "we can't pour public money into the Arts as everything should be profit making", Labour seems to have the attitude "we can't pour public money into the Arts, as the Arts are middle-class."
Phillipson claims she represents the working class as she grew up in a house "with no upstairs heating." I grew up in a house with no heating, except the one coal fire we could afford. I love Shakespeare and the classics, so Phuck you Phillipson.
Go Phillipson! She's not excluding Shakespeare. Shakespeare will still be there. But I am all for making English lit more inclusive and relevant to the materials people meet in their lives.
Nor do I see this as anti-middle class. I can't think of anything more middle class than a graffiti workshop.
Great, so we further narrow people’s experiences and exposure to ideas, thoughts and behaviours to what they see every day as opposed to the input of the past, wider vocabularies, great stories, different perspectives.
I would rather it was more expansive than more “inclusive”.
(1) No mention of "hatred of foreigners" in that report (2) If you're conflating "control of immigration" with "hatred of foreigners"; then (a) that says more about you than Leave voters, and (b) in any case, that polling is complete bollocksdeeply flawed for several reasons.
But I'll shut up now, because you're another one of the deranged zealots who have missed that the Remain campaign totally failed to even try to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters who were receptive to it in principle.
I think the Remain campaign failed to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters, who were receptive to it in principle.
Absolutely the case. It’s because the leading proponents of the remain campaign were tentative at best, and often themselves Eurosceptic. Cameron’s “renegotiation” was all about distancing the UK from the heart of the project.
That and some voter complacency (“send a message to Cameron”) meant a close contest went one way when it might have gone the other.
I was just listening to the episodes Political Currency did on Brexit with Michael Gove last year. Gove said that for Leave to win everything had to go right for them, and that sounds right to me. If Remain had run a better campaign; if Labour at the time had had a leader who'd actively campaigned for Remain; if Boris (or Gove) hadn't opted to support Leave; etc etc. The result was so close that there are a lot of things you could point to and say "that's what swung it".
Per the header, the Scottish indyref had a harder task by not having "status quo" on their side, and although they got a lot of things going their way they didn't get enough -- Osborne reckoned the business about the currency was enough to persuade undecideds to stay put.
Currency remains a killer. Ten years on and still no answer.
Actually the killer was Brexit as Sturgeon seems to have acknowledged. In 2014 the story told was that Scotland would remain a part of the Single Market with rUK at which point many of the most problematic issues disappear ( whether this would have in fact happened is beside the point).
Brexit meant that Scotland would need to choose between its largest market (rUK) and the SM. The NI example showed just how hard that would be. Furthermore, there would be no seamless transition but the rigours of a new application to the EU with all fiscal problems that would cause an independent Scotland. Years and years of uncertainty and economic mess. There are no good answers to this.
Thank goodness we avoided years and years of uncertainty and economic mess.
What they're doing is quite amazing - I spent 21 days walking the Pennine Way in summer, and they're doing it in well under a week - perhaps in under four days.
NB: Quite q dodgy pollster, but a more reliable Danish pollster also has a majority of Greenlanders wanting to join the USA. At the same time, some polls show Greenlanders wanting to join the EU...
Whatever the case, it looks like they will vote for full independence from Denmark ASAP
The Greenlandic PM has said Greenlanders want to be neither Danish or American but independent yes.
Though with a population of 50,000 ie less than Harlow he might find it difficult to hold off Trump on that
The single biggest reason Remain lost was that the Remain campaign was shit.
Brexiteers cling to this fantasy that the "swivel eyed loons and closet racists" won because of the actions of people who didn't want Brexit, didn't advocate it, didn't campaign for it and didn't vote for it.
I guess it's more palatable than the truth
It would be hard to disagree with Driver that the Remain campaign was incredibly poor. One can counter that with the promises from the Leave campaigns were simple fantasies.
That was somewhat intrinsic in the way Cameron designed the referendum - what "Leave" meant was deliberately undefined so as to allow Project Fear to be deployed to maximum effect; and the Leave campaign wasn't going to form a government so had no way to ensure that its vision of Leave would inform the A50 negotiations. This was calculated to make the Leave campaign promises be easy for the Remain campaign to destroy.
I am not sure they were even that Machiavellian.
Cameron didn't even stack the deck in his favour when he could. After the Scottish Referendum he might have imposed voting at 16, but the reality is after Scotland and GE2015 he didn't feel he could lose.
Hubris. You have some big successes, you're riding high, and you get to thinking you're the special one and can do anything. Blair got a dose of this too. It was a factor in Iraq imo.
He did indeed end up feeling the hand of history upon his shoulder, just not quite the mitt he was expecting.
(1) No mention of "hatred of foreigners" in that report (2) If you're conflating "control of immigration" with "hatred of foreigners"; then (a) that says more about you than Leave voters, and (b) in any case, that polling is complete bollocksdeeply flawed for several reasons.
But I'll shut up now, because you're another one of the deranged zealots who have missed that the Remain campaign totally failed to even try to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters who were receptive to it in principle.
I think the Remain campaign failed to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters, who were receptive to it in principle.
Absolutely the case. It’s because the leading proponents of the remain campaign were tentative at best, and often themselves Eurosceptic. Cameron’s “renegotiation” was all about distancing the UK from the heart of the project.
That and some voter complacency (“send a message to Cameron”) meant a close contest went one way when it might have gone the other.
I was just listening to the episodes Political Currency did on Brexit with Michael Gove last year. Gove said that for Leave to win everything had to go right for them, and that sounds right to me. If Remain had run a better campaign; if Labour at the time had had a leader who'd actively campaigned for Remain; if Boris (or Gove) hadn't opted to support Leave; etc etc. The result was so close that there are a lot of things you could point to and say "that's what swung it".
Per the header, the Scottish indyref had a harder task by not having "status quo" on their side, and although they got a lot of things going their way they didn't get enough -- Osborne reckoned the business about the currency was enough to persuade undecideds to stay put.
Currency remains a killer. Ten years on and still no answer.
Actually the killer was Brexit as Sturgeon seems to have acknowledged. In 2014 the story told was that Scotland would remain a part of the Single Market with rUK at which point many of the most problematic issues disappear ( whether this would have in fact happened is beside the point).
Brexit meant that Scotland would need to choose between its largest market (rUK) and the SM. The NI example showed just how hard that would be. Furthermore, there would be no seamless transition but the rigours of a new application to the EU with all fiscal problems that would cause an independent Scotland. Years and years of uncertainty and economic mess. There are no good answers to this.
Thank goodness we avoided years and years of uncertainty and economic mess.
The pandemic and associated panic was orthogonal to relations with the EU.
It's a strange sort who is prepared to die in a ditch over Latin teaching.
Ad munimenta, commilitones!
The same posters who are outraged that other people's children are incurring a huge debt to read for "Mickey Mouse" degrees".
So you are in favour of withdrawing teaching and effectively cancelling GCSEs that children have been studying for? As they head into the mocks and the final straight?
Why not end Latin teaching after the exams?
No, you like to put words on my page. Canning a programme in mid term is ridiculous. I also believe Latin should be available to be taught to those who want to learn Latin.
My point is not my inconsistency, which as you can see in the above paragraph is not inconsistent. My point was those crying loudest about the removal of Latin are happy to see the back of what they consider "Mickey Mouse" courses. Likewise I don't care if someone wants to complete a Masters degree on the hits of Madonna.
The actual problem with degrees is that for a large number of people, they need a degree to get the same job that was previously non-degree. And which has a low-to-non-existent premium over not doing the degree.
Meanwhile the government caps medical degrees (and associated training), and companies import graduates from other countries.
Now I am all for improving academic standards, in nursing for example, however I am not averse to more imaginative delivery. I don't see why Solicitors if they do wish can't go through the Articled Clerk route if they do desire, but equally those who want to attend University for three years despite the debt incurred should be allowed to go to University.
I am all for day and block release to complete a combined work and study degree course.
Re: Phillipson. I read (admitedly in "The Telegraph") that she wants to make English Literature taught in schools more "inclusive". So goodbye to the classics. One headteacher was quoted as saying that English in schools should look at Instagram and Tiktok.
Then there was a thinktank report that school trips were "too middleclass" Instead of going to museums and the theatre, there should be graffiti workshops.
I really despair of the Phillipson Philistinism. I was naive to think that Labour cared about the Arts. Whereas the Conservative Government had the attitude "we can't pour public money into the Arts as everything should be profit making", Labour seems to have the attitude "we can't pour public money into the Arts, as the Arts are middle-class."
Phillipson claims she represents the working class as she grew up in a house "with no upstairs heating." I grew up in a house with no heating, except the one coal fire we could afford. I love Shakespeare and the classics, so Phuck you Phillipson.
New Labour and Blair to be fair invested a bit in the arts, Boris promoted Classics and loved literature, Heath was a musician, the Majors loved Opera, Brown was a historian, Cameron and Clegg added languages and history to the EBACC via Gove.
Starmer however is obviously a complete philistine, he couldn't even name a favourite book or poem in the general election campaign and Phillipson and Reeves are also just drone automatons equally uninterested in the arts or classics.
In fact I would say Starmer has even less interest in the arts than Thatcher did
Confess I’m a little stunned by the Sturgeon/Murrell divorce
There are relationships and relationships and then there are great love affairs of the ages, two souls dancing as one, a duet of passion that will resound forever: that, for me, was Nicola Sturgeon and that bloke she was with to cover her being a tuppence licker
If even a love like that must find its end, wherefore, and whither, any of us?
Nicola Sturgeon had a husband problem so it doesn't surprise me that much. I am talking politically but Sturgeon is a political animal, including her marriage.
I suspect she won't be charged if she's giving wide ranging interviews to the FT, but we'll see.
(1) No mention of "hatred of foreigners" in that report (2) If you're conflating "control of immigration" with "hatred of foreigners"; then (a) that says more about you than Leave voters, and (b) in any case, that polling is complete bollocksdeeply flawed for several reasons.
But I'll shut up now, because you're another one of the deranged zealots who have missed that the Remain campaign totally failed to even try to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters who were receptive to it in principle.
I think the Remain campaign failed to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters, who were receptive to it in principle.
Then why even mention "hating foreigners"?
The single biggest reason Remain lost was that the Remain campaign was shit.
The single biggest reason Leave won was that the Leave campaign pushed an anti-immigration message.
Or, flip it around, the EU’s inflexibility on Free Movement and the Labour government’s insane decision to throw open the borders to the Accession countries - gave Leave an invaluable boost in the referendum
But I agree in essence: there were not enough sovereignty/democracy Leavers like me to win the vote alone. Leave needed the “control the border” voters as well
And then the Tories won Brexit and entirely lost control of the borders
I'd also say that freedom of movement combined with Merkel's decision to invite millions of Middle Easterners to Germany - and hence to anywhere in Europe - combined with the Cologne rape parties which took place in the lead-up to the vote - was sub-optimal for Remain's case as it pertained to immigration.
I'd echo the case that there was definitely a hearts and minds case to be made for Remain which wasn't really attempted beyond "only really dreadful people vote Leave and if you vote Leave we're going to punish you."
"and hence to anywhere in Europe"
Well if accepted as a refugee by Germany it doesn't give you the right to live anywhere else in Europe.
Not immediately - not for several years. But somewhere between a quarter and a half of all dutch somalis now live in the UK.
Which amounts to maybe 10-20k people. And the UK already had Europe's largest Somali community
Any figures on how many of the hundreds of thousands of Syrians granted asylum by Germany are now in other EU countries? I'm guessing not many
I’m at the gym. Expect recitations from d’Annunzio in 80-90 minutes
You keep accidentally posting this stuff on a political betting blog instead of whatever "my holiday" blog you mean to post it to. And you were the one poster who got so animated last year about Biden's cogency!
What they're doing is quite amazing - I spent 21 days walking the Pennine Way in summer, and they're doing it in well under a week - perhaps in under four days.
Mrs Eek knows someone who is running it. You have to remember there are multiple approaches to the race and running it flat out may result in you leading early and then falling behind later.
The person Mrs Eek knows (Matt Neale) adopts the approach of proper breaks so isn’t leading now but doesn’t look fast now but will likely catch a number of people later as they collapse
(1) No mention of "hatred of foreigners" in that report (2) If you're conflating "control of immigration" with "hatred of foreigners"; then (a) that says more about you than Leave voters, and (b) in any case, that polling is complete bollocksdeeply flawed for several reasons.
But I'll shut up now, because you're another one of the deranged zealots who have missed that the Remain campaign totally failed to even try to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters who were receptive to it in principle.
I think the Remain campaign failed to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters, who were receptive to it in principle.
Then why even mention "hating foreigners"?
The single biggest reason Remain lost was that the Remain campaign was shit.
The single biggest reason Leave won was that the Leave campaign pushed an anti-immigration message.
Or, flip it around, the EU’s inflexibility on Free Movement and the Labour government’s insane decision to throw open the borders to the Accession countries - gave Leave an invaluable boost in the referendum
But I agree in essence: there were not enough sovereignty/democracy Leavers like me to win the vote alone. Leave needed the “control the border” voters as well
And then the Tories won Brexit and entirely lost control of the borders
I'd also say that freedom of movement combined with Merkel's decision to invite millions of Middle Easterners to Germany - and hence to anywhere in Europe - combined with the Cologne rape parties which took place in the lead-up to the vote - was sub-optimal for Remain's case as it pertained to immigration.
I'd echo the case that there was definitely a hearts and minds case to be made for Remain which wasn't really attempted beyond "only really dreadful people vote Leave and if you vote Leave we're going to punish you."
"and hence to anywhere in Europe"
Well if accepted as a refugee by Germany it doesn't give you the right to live anywhere else in Europe.
Not immediately - not for several years. But somewhere between a quarter and a half of all dutch somalis now live in the UK.
Which amounts to maybe 10-20k people. And the UK already had Europe's largest Somali community
Any figures on how many of the hundreds of thousands of Syrians granted asylum by Germany are now in other EU countries? I'm guessing not many
I can't find any. But the question, I suppose, is whether that would have been different if there was still FoM with the UK.
It's a strange sort who is prepared to die in a ditch over Latin teaching.
Ad munimenta, commilitones!
The same posters who are outraged that other people's children are incurring a huge debt to read for "Mickey Mouse" degrees".
So you are in favour of withdrawing teaching and effectively cancelling GCSEs that children have been studying for? As they head into the mocks and the final straight?
Why not end Latin teaching after the exams?
No, you like to put words on my page. Canning a programme in mid term is ridiculous. I also believe Latin should be available to be taught to those who want to learn Latin.
My point is not my inconsistency, which as you can see in the above paragraph is not inconsistent. My point was those crying loudest about the removal of Latin are happy to see the back of what they consider "Mickey Mouse" courses. Likewise I don't care if someone wants to complete a Masters degree on the hits of Madonna.
The actual problem with degrees is that for a large number of people, they need a degree to get the same job that was previously non-degree. And which has a low-to-non-existent premium over not doing the degree.
Meanwhile the government caps medical degrees (and associated training), and companies import graduates from other countries.
Now I am all for improving academic standards, in nursing for example, however I am not averse to more imaginative delivery. I don't see why Solicitors if they do wish can't go through the Articled Clerk route if they do desire, but equally those who want to attend University for three years despite the debt incurred should be allowed to go to University.
I am all for day and block release to complete a combined work and study degree course.
It’s not about banning stuff. But it strikes me that it is mis-selling to claim that x of debt will get you y of monetary benefit, when it doesn’t.
The answers include, I think
- raising the quality of degrees at some institutions. Because many companies prefer grads from institutions abroad to quite screw universities in the U.K. - more honesty in selling the product. 16-18 year olds are vulnerable to mis-selling. - As you say, mix and match, part time degrees etc. I’d also add normalising doing a degree later than just after school.
(1) No mention of "hatred of foreigners" in that report (2) If you're conflating "control of immigration" with "hatred of foreigners"; then (a) that says more about you than Leave voters, and (b) in any case, that polling is complete bollocksdeeply flawed for several reasons.
But I'll shut up now, because you're another one of the deranged zealots who have missed that the Remain campaign totally failed to even try to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters who were receptive to it in principle.
I think the Remain campaign failed to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters, who were receptive to it in principle.
Absolutely the case. It’s because the leading proponents of the remain campaign were tentative at best, and often themselves Eurosceptic. Cameron’s “renegotiation” was all about distancing the UK from the heart of the project.
That and some voter complacency (“send a message to Cameron”) meant a close contest went one way when it might have gone the other.
I was just listening to the episodes Political Currency did on Brexit with Michael Gove last year. Gove said that for Leave to win everything had to go right for them, and that sounds right to me. If Remain had run a better campaign; if Labour at the time had had a leader who'd actively campaigned for Remain; if Boris (or Gove) hadn't opted to support Leave; etc etc. The result was so close that there are a lot of things you could point to and say "that's what swung it".
Per the header, the Scottish indyref had a harder task by not having "status quo" on their side, and although they got a lot of things going their way they didn't get enough -- Osborne reckoned the business about the currency was enough to persuade undecideds to stay put.
Currency remains a killer. Ten years on and still no answer.
Actually the killer was Brexit as Sturgeon seems to have acknowledged. In 2014 the story told was that Scotland would remain a part of the Single Market with rUK at which point many of the most problematic issues disappear ( whether this would have in fact happened is beside the point).
Brexit meant that Scotland would need to choose between its largest market (rUK) and the SM. The NI example showed just how hard that would be. Furthermore, there would be no seamless transition but the rigours of a new application to the EU with all fiscal problems that would cause an independent Scotland. Years and years of uncertainty and economic mess. There are no good answers to this.
Posts like this make me go, Independence Now! If the best argument for the Union is we've made Scotland a hostage, we might as well give up now. Yes there will be an economic cost as with Brexit, but at least we get something out of it as a nation!
NB: Quite q dodgy pollster, but a more reliable Danish pollster also has a majority of Greenlanders wanting to join the USA. At the same time, some polls show Greenlanders wanting to join the EU...
Whatever the case, it looks like they will vote for full independence from Denmark ASAP
The Greenlandic PM has said Greenlanders want to be neither Danish or American but independent yes.
Though with a population of 50,000 ie less than Harlow he might find it difficult to hold off Trump on that
It's a peculiar form of independence, which would require huge subsidies from Denmark, and the USA being responsible for defending Greenland.
It's not really a viable standalone state, is it. You need more people than that.
A tiny island, or city state, can survive with that sort of population. But, a vast island, of huge strategic significance? Not really,
Any independence which requires another country to subsidise you and defend you, is going to be independence in name only. My guess is that an independent Greenland would be de facto, a US protectorate.
Anyone here who understands “Section 21” evictions, and why making 200 households homeless to house a different 200 households can possibly be a net benefit to the council?
POCA is a particularly pernicious piece of legislation. Fair enough to get the Maserati back from the coke dealer, but the Environmental regulators use it as an additional punishment beating.
A client of mine was personally prosecuted for a breach of (environmental) duty of care undertaken by his employer. He was personally singled out because he was a Director (in name only). He pleaded guilty for an easy life (I had advised him, in my unqualified capacity as a Management Consultant, under no circumstances plead guilty to something he had no hand in, but he did anyway). When it came to sentencing, the magistrate hit him with a fine of a couple of grand, which his employer had agreed to pay, so he momentarily thought happy days, that's me done. Then the regulator's brief stood up and asked to apply (vexatiously) the POCA. The Director (in name only) and his wife couldn't buy a pint of milk for three months. The employer paid his mortgage repayments and provided cash for essentials which had to be paid back once the request was dropped. The environmental Inspector did it because she could, she self styled herself as a "Rottweiler with lipstick".
That sounds ridiculous. It is not even as if he personally benefitted from any offence (I would guess from the scenario).
This is the problem with laws in this country, or some of them.
They are introduced to penalise a certain group of people and we get mission creep. Same as anti terror legislation being used against those well known bastions of international terrorism, Icelandic Banks.
NB: Quite q dodgy pollster, but a more reliable Danish pollster also has a majority of Greenlanders wanting to join the USA. At the same time, some polls show Greenlanders wanting to join the EU...
Whatever the case, it looks like they will vote for full independence from Denmark ASAP
The Greenlandic PM has said Greenlanders want to be neither Danish or American but independent yes.
Though with a population of 50,000 ie less than Harlow he might find it difficult to hold off Trump on that
It's a peculiar form of independence, which would require huge subsidies from Denmark, and the USA being responsible for defending Greenland.
It's not really a viable standalone state, is it. You need more people than that.
A tiny island, or city state, can survive with that sort of population. But, a vast island, of huge strategic significance? Not really,
Any independence which requires another country to subsidise you and defend you, is going to be independence in name only. My guess is that an independent Greenland would be de facto, a US protectorate.
If the Greenlanders had any sense they’d lease both oil fields and military bases to the Americans, making millions for each of the 50k of the population.
Anyone here who understands “Section 21” evictions, and why making 200 households homeless to house a different 200 households can possibly be a net benefit to the council?
I imagine those evicted will be one and two member families living in four and five bedroom council houses - at a guess. I am NOT justifying it but housing officers whining about widows who want to live in the family house for the rest of thier days was just another reason for my detesting the left and everything associated with them.
Anyone here who understands “Section 21” evictions, and why making 200 households homeless to house a different 200 households can possibly be a net benefit to the council?
1) bin private tenants 2) house those on the housing waiting list. 3) people from 1) are now Someone Else’s Problem (SEP)
So they will meet some targets for housing the homeless. By making people homeless….
Of course, a chunk of 1) will end up on the housing waiting list…
(1) No mention of "hatred of foreigners" in that report (2) If you're conflating "control of immigration" with "hatred of foreigners"; then (a) that says more about you than Leave voters, and (b) in any case, that polling is complete bollocksdeeply flawed for several reasons.
But I'll shut up now, because you're another one of the deranged zealots who have missed that the Remain campaign totally failed to even try to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters who were receptive to it in principle.
I think the Remain campaign failed to sell a positive vision of the EU to the majority of voters, who were receptive to it in principle.
Then why even mention "hating foreigners"?
The single biggest reason Remain lost was that the Remain campaign was shit.
The single biggest reason Leave won was that the Leave campaign pushed an anti-immigration message.
Or, flip it around, the EU’s inflexibility on Free Movement and the Labour government’s insane decision to throw open the borders to the Accession countries - gave Leave an invaluable boost in the referendum
But I agree in essence: there were not enough sovereignty/democracy Leavers like me to win the vote alone. Leave needed the “control the border” voters as well
And then the Tories won Brexit and entirely lost control of the borders
I'd also say that freedom of movement combined with Merkel's decision to invite millions of Middle Easterners to Germany - and hence to anywhere in Europe - combined with the Cologne rape parties which took place in the lead-up to the vote - was sub-optimal for Remain's case as it pertained to immigration.
I'd echo the case that there was definitely a hearts and minds case to be made for Remain which wasn't really attempted beyond "only really dreadful people vote Leave and if you vote Leave we're going to punish you."
"and hence to anywhere in Europe"
Well if accepted as a refugee by Germany it doesn't give you the right to live anywhere else in Europe.
Not immediately - not for several years. But somewhere between a quarter and a half of all dutch somalis now live in the UK.
Somalis have links to the UK - South Shields and Cardiff.
POCA is a particularly pernicious piece of legislation. Fair enough to get the Maserati back from the coke dealer, but the Environmental regulators use it as an additional punishment beating.
A client of mine was personally prosecuted for a breach of (environmental) duty of care undertaken by his employer. He was personally singled out because he was a Director (in name only). He pleaded guilty for an easy life (I had advised him, in my unqualified capacity as a Management Consultant, under no circumstances plead guilty to something he had no hand in, but he did anyway). When it came to sentencing, the magistrate hit him with a fine of a couple of grand, which his employer had agreed to pay, so he momentarily thought happy days, that's me done. Then the regulator's brief stood up and asked to apply (vexatiously) the POCA. The Director (in name only) and his wife couldn't buy a pint of milk for three months. The employer paid his mortgage repayments and provided cash for essentials which had to be paid back once the request was dropped. The environmental Inspector did it because she could, she self styled herself as a "Rottweiler with lipstick".
That sounds ridiculous. It is not even as if he personally benefitted from any offence (I would guess from the scenario).
This is the problem with laws in this country, or some of them.
They are introduced to penalise a certain group of people and we get mission creep. Same as anti terror legislation being used against those well known bastions of international terrorism, Icelandic Banks.
Not to mention all the black teenagers (not) in the PIRA…
Anyone here who understands “Section 21” evictions, and why making 200 households homeless to house a different 200 households can possibly be a net benefit to the council?
Gotta get it done before Labour ban Section 21. It's in the manifesto.
NB: Quite q dodgy pollster, but a more reliable Danish pollster also has a majority of Greenlanders wanting to join the USA. At the same time, some polls show Greenlanders wanting to join the EU...
Whatever the case, it looks like they will vote for full independence from Denmark ASAP
The Greenlandic PM has said Greenlanders want to be neither Danish or American but independent yes.
Though with a population of 50,000 ie less than Harlow he might find it difficult to hold off Trump on that
It's a peculiar form of independence, which would require huge subsidies from Denmark, and the USA being responsible for defending Greenland.
It's not really a viable standalone state, is it. You need more people than that.
A tiny island, or city state, can survive with that sort of population. But, a vast island, of huge strategic significance? Not really,
Any independence which requires another country to subsidise you and defend you, is going to be independence in name only. My guess is that an independent Greenland would be de facto, a US protectorate.
Yes. Although I'd give more slack to the "defend you" caveat. There are lots of 'proper' countries who if attacked by a stronger one would need outside help to survive. There's one such situation atm which is often in the news.
What they're doing is quite amazing - I spent 21 days walking the Pennine Way in summer, and they're doing it in well under a week - perhaps in under four days.
Mrs Eek knows someone who is running it. You have to remember there are multiple approaches to the race and running it flat out may result in you leading early and then falling behind later.
The person Mrs Eek knows (Matt Neale) adopts the approach of proper breaks so isn’t leading now but doesn’t look fast now but will likely catch a number of people later as they collapse
It's a strange sort who is prepared to die in a ditch over Latin teaching.
Ad munimenta, commilitones!
The same posters who are outraged that other people's children are incurring a huge debt to read for "Mickey Mouse" degrees".
So you are in favour of withdrawing teaching and effectively cancelling GCSEs that children have been studying for? As they head into the mocks and the final straight?
Why not end Latin teaching after the exams?
No, you like to put words on my page. Canning a programme in mid term is ridiculous. I also believe Latin should be available to be taught to those who want to learn Latin.
My point is not my inconsistency, which as you can see in the above paragraph is not inconsistent. My point was those crying loudest about the removal of Latin are happy to see the back of what they consider "Mickey Mouse" courses. Likewise I don't care if someone wants to complete a Masters degree on the hits of Madonna.
The actual problem with degrees is that for a large number of people, they need a degree to get the same job that was previously non-degree. And which has a low-to-non-existent premium over not doing the degree.
Meanwhile the government caps medical degrees (and associated training), and companies import graduates from other countries.
Now I am all for improving academic standards, in nursing for example, however I am not averse to more imaginative delivery. I don't see why Solicitors if they do wish can't go through the Articled Clerk route if they do desire, but equally those who want to attend University for three years despite the debt incurred should be allowed to go to University.
I am all for day and block release to complete a combined work and study degree course.
It’s not about banning stuff. But it strikes me that it is mis-selling to claim that x of debt will get you y of monetary benefit, when it doesn’t.
The answers include, I think
- raising the quality of degrees at some institutions. Because many companies prefer grads from institutions abroad to quite screw universities in the U.K. - more honesty in selling the product. 16-18 year olds are vulnerable to mis-selling. - As you say, mix and match, part time degrees etc. I’d also add normalising doing a degree later than just after school.
If they are being deliberately missold a guarantee of untold riches you are right. But I am not sure that is true.
When I signed up to a straight Politics BSc. (Econ) I wasn't sold a pup, I was sold an experience and not a guaranteed career (granted in my day it was all courtesy of the Local Authority).
Starmer isn’t sounding very strong on media questions on the economy.
Well he bloody shouldn't do. His actions and those of his Chancellor have been so perverse as to really make me wonder if he truly has a "want of reason" ?
The single biggest reason Remain lost was that the Remain campaign was shit.
Brexiteers cling to this fantasy that the "swivel eyed loons and closet racists" won because of the actions of people who didn't want Brexit, didn't advocate it, didn't campaign for it and didn't vote for it.
I guess it's more palatable than the truth
It would be hard to disagree with Driver that the Remain campaign was incredibly poor. One can counter that with the promises from the Leave campaigns were simple fantasies.
That was somewhat intrinsic in the way Cameron designed the referendum - what "Leave" meant was deliberately undefined so as to allow Project Fear to be deployed to maximum effect; and the Leave campaign wasn't going to form a government so had no way to ensure that its vision of Leave would inform the A50 negotiations. This was calculated to make the Leave campaign promises be easy for the Remain campaign to destroy.
I am not sure they were even that Machiavellian.
Cameron didn't even stack the deck in his favour when he could. After the Scottish Referendum he might have imposed voting at 16, but the reality is after Scotland and GE2015 he didn't feel he could lose.
Hubris. You have some big successes, you're riding high, and you get to thinking you're the special one and can do anything. Blair got a dose of this too. It was a factor in Iraq imo.
He did indeed end up feeling the hand of history upon his shoulder, just not quite the mitt he was expecting.
Could have been worse though. Could have been on his collar rather than his shoulder.
NB: Quite q dodgy pollster, but a more reliable Danish pollster also has a majority of Greenlanders wanting to join the USA. At the same time, some polls show Greenlanders wanting to join the EU...
Whatever the case, it looks like they will vote for full independence from Denmark ASAP
The Greenlandic PM has said Greenlanders want to be neither Danish or American but independent yes.
Though with a population of 50,000 ie less than Harlow he might find it difficult to hold off Trump on that
It's a peculiar form of independence, which would require huge subsidies from Denmark, and the USA being responsible for defending Greenland.
It's not really a viable standalone state, is it. You need more people than that.
A tiny island, or city state, can survive with that sort of population. But, a vast island, of huge strategic significance? Not really,
Any independence which requires another country to subsidise you and defend you, is going to be independence in name only. My guess is that an independent Greenland would be de facto, a US protectorate.
Yes. Although I'd give more slack to the "defend you" caveat. There are lots of 'proper' countries who if attacked by a stronger one would need outside help to survive. There's one such situation atm which is often in the news.
Ture, but with 50,000, you can honestly make no contribution at all to your own defence.
Re Sindy. My sister has retired to Scotland. She's a libdemy type, ex head of a private school, not what you'd call a natural indy supporter, but she surprised me last time I was up there when I asked her about it. Said she'd vote Yes. So this makes me think the polls are wrong and there's a big majority for it.
It's a strange sort who is prepared to die in a ditch over Latin teaching.
Ad munimenta, commilitones!
The same posters who are outraged that other people's children are incurring a huge debt to read for "Mickey Mouse" degrees".
So you are in favour of withdrawing teaching and effectively cancelling GCSEs that children have been studying for? As they head into the mocks and the final straight?
Why not end Latin teaching after the exams?
No, you like to put words on my page. Canning a programme in mid term is ridiculous. I also believe Latin should be available to be taught to those who want to learn Latin.
My point is not my inconsistency, which as you can see in the above paragraph is not inconsistent. My point was those crying loudest about the removal of Latin are happy to see the back of what they consider "Mickey Mouse" courses. Likewise I don't care if someone wants to complete a Masters degree on the hits of Madonna.
The actual problem with degrees is that for a large number of people, they need a degree to get the same job that was previously non-degree. And which has a low-to-non-existent premium over not doing the degree.
Meanwhile the government caps medical degrees (and associated training), and companies import graduates from other countries.
Now I am all for improving academic standards, in nursing for example, however I am not averse to more imaginative delivery. I don't see why Solicitors if they do wish can't go through the Articled Clerk route if they do desire, but equally those who want to attend University for three years despite the debt incurred should be allowed to go to University.
I am all for day and block release to complete a combined work and study degree course.
It’s not about banning stuff. But it strikes me that it is mis-selling to claim that x of debt will get you y of monetary benefit, when it doesn’t.
The answers include, I think
- raising the quality of degrees at some institutions. Because many companies prefer grads from institutions abroad to quite screw universities in the U.K. - more honesty in selling the product. 16-18 year olds are vulnerable to mis-selling. - As you say, mix and match, part time degrees etc. I’d also add normalising doing a degree later than just after school.
If they are being deliberately missold a guarantee of untold riches you are right. But I am not sure that is true.
When I signed up to a straight Politics BSc. (Econ) I wasn't sold a pup, I was sold an experience and not a guaranteed career (granted in my day it was all courtesy of the Local Authority).
Universities are now selling “a degree with us gets you job and more money” - literal advertising.
Complete with dodgy stats.
Until quite recently, they were trying to shout down anyone who pointed out there are massive differences in value between different degrees.
Many companies only hire grads from a list of universities - they hire foreign grads rather than from the lower tiers of U.K. universities.
At one company, my boss tried hiring without that limitation. We had interviewees who were plainly getting nothing from their education - one sticks in my mind - his final year electronics project was trivial, and even then, had learnt nearly nothing about it…
POCA is a particularly pernicious piece of legislation. Fair enough to get the Maserati back from the coke dealer, but the Environmental regulators use it as an additional punishment beating.
A client of mine was personally prosecuted for a breach of (environmental) duty of care undertaken by his employer. He was personally singled out because he was a Director (in name only). He pleaded guilty for an easy life (I had advised him, in my unqualified capacity as a Management Consultant, under no circumstances plead guilty to something he had no hand in, but he did anyway). When it came to sentencing, the magistrate hit him with a fine of a couple of grand, which his employer had agreed to pay, so he momentarily thought happy days, that's me done. Then the regulator's brief stood up and asked to apply (vexatiously) the POCA. The Director (in name only) and his wife couldn't buy a pint of milk for three months. The employer paid his mortgage repayments and provided cash for essentials which had to be paid back once the request was dropped. The environmental Inspector did it because she could, she self styled herself as a "Rottweiler with lipstick".
That sounds ridiculous. It is not even as if he personally benefitted from any offence (I would guess from the scenario).
This is the problem with laws in this country, or some of them.
They are introduced to penalise a certain group of people and we get mission creep. Same as anti terror legislation being used against those well known bastions of international terrorism, Icelandic Banks.
What happened was they exported a container of waste newsprint to a paper mill in Holland. When it arrived there it was rejected because there was plastic content in the consignment (the little cellophane bags the colour supplements come in). So it was sent back to the UK at an additional cost to the Company in question. On arrival back in Southampton it was impounded by the Regulator and the company and the individual Director were charged with mis-describing the waste. So it should have been consigned on the Annex VII form as plastic and newsprint with the appropriate EWC code but it had been consigned as newsprint, and hence with the incorrect EWC code. There was a little more to it, but in essence that was the offence, hence the relatively small fine.
So yes, in my view, the application although perfectly within the law, was quite simply spiteful.
What they're doing is quite amazing - I spent 21 days walking the Pennine Way in summer, and they're doing it in well under a week - perhaps in under four days.
Mrs Eek knows someone who is running it. You have to remember there are multiple approaches to the race and running it flat out may result in you leading early and then falling behind later.
The person Mrs Eek knows (Matt Neale) adopts the approach of proper breaks so isn’t leading now but doesn’t look fast now but will likely catch a number of people later as they collapse
Matt Neale who works for a certain NPA ?
There is a certain amount of - the people who work there are certifiably mad - and this is just one example.
Someone else does wild water swimming with little regard to personal safely to the extent that every 3 months there needs to be a reminder chat of don’t go to that lake by yourself.
Be honest I don’t know anyone who workers there who is 100% sane
NB: Quite q dodgy pollster, but a more reliable Danish pollster also has a majority of Greenlanders wanting to join the USA. At the same time, some polls show Greenlanders wanting to join the EU...
Whatever the case, it looks like they will vote for full independence from Denmark ASAP
The Greenlandic PM has said Greenlanders want to be neither Danish or American but independent yes.
Though with a population of 50,000 ie less than Harlow he might find it difficult to hold off Trump on that
It's a peculiar form of independence, which would require huge subsidies from Denmark, and the USA being responsible for defending Greenland.
It's not really a viable standalone state, is it. You need more people than that.
A tiny island, or city state, can survive with that sort of population. But, a vast island, of huge strategic significance? Not really,
Any independence which requires another country to subsidise you and defend you, is going to be independence in name only. My guess is that an independent Greenland would be de facto, a US protectorate.
Yes. Although I'd give more slack to the "defend you" caveat. There are lots of 'proper' countries who if attacked by a stronger one would need outside help to survive. There's one such situation atm which is often in the news.
Ture, but with 50,000, you can honestly make no contribution at all to your own defence.
Unless they had (which they don't) some truly fearsome weaponry.
I’m at the gym. Expect recitations from d’Annunzio in 80-90 minutes
You keep accidentally posting this stuff on a political betting blog instead of whatever "my holiday" blog you mean to post it to. And you were the one poster who got so animated last year about Biden's cogency!
Anyone here who understands “Section 21” evictions, and why making 200 households homeless to house a different 200 households can possibly be a net benefit to the council?
Wasn't the right-wing up in arms a few years ago about various well-paid people who lived in council flats? Some Union leader was involved, I think.
I'd guess they've decided that these tenants are able to find properties to rent on the private market, and are evicting them to make way for those who cannot. (I've no idea whether they're accurate in that assessment.)
Not my preferred approach, but I can see the logic given the constraints on local authorities. I would have thought it would have been a welcome policy for a right-winger like yourself?
Comments
The value of Greenland's resources are into the hundreds of billions, or trillions. Why take less?
Well if accepted as a refugee by Germany it doesn't give you the right to live anywhere else in Europe.
https://x.com/UK_Together/status/506899714923843584
The thread just before this one, for example:
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/12674/how-trump-could-ensure-the-uk-rejoins-the-eu-politicalbetting-com/p1
Take a scroll through...
Though of course any future Tory government would refuse indyref2 exactly as the last one did anyway. The only way indyref2 likely ever happens now is an SNP FM and a Labour UK government needing SNP confidence and supply
They need the money; Greenland doesn't.
My point is not my inconsistency, which as you can see in the above paragraph is not inconsistent. My point was those crying loudest about the removal of Latin are happy to see the back of what they consider "Mickey Mouse" courses. Likewise I don't care if someone wants to complete a Masters degree on the hits of Madonna.
Starmer however is obviously a complete philistine, he couldn't even name a favourite book or poem in the general election campaign and Phillipson and Reeves are also just drone automatons equally uninterested in the arts or classics.
In fact I would say Starmer has even less interest in the arts than Thatcher did
That shows the impact of not joining the Euro, if we were part of the euro leaving the EU would have been impossible but as Scotland would have left the Brexit referendum would have never occurred as we would have been dealing with the consequences of the separation
Cameron didn't even stack the deck in his favour when he could. After the Scottish Referendum he might have imposed voting at 16, but the reality is after Scotland and GE2015 he didn't feel he could lose.
A better understanding of English grammar;
A broader vocabulary;
Useful education about historical events, their echoes in our own time and an understanding of how things work in the real world. I found that their teaching about this far better than the History higher I did at the same time.
The ability to read and comprehend simple Italian to the extent of getting the gist.
Chemistry, I have used a couple of times at most. No doubt if I had studied medicine the balance would have been different.
But my instinct is that professional politicians like Gove exaggerate the importance of campaigning, because it's what they, and the politically engaged they interact with constantly, do day in, day out. It could well be that the country was in a mood to leave, and did so despite, not because of, the relative strength of the campaigns.
But just an opinion, obviously unsupportable with evidence.
I'm a Remainer/Rejoiner, and still, at my advanced age, hope to live to see the UK back in the European fold. I've held that view since the late 1950's, and campaigned in both Referenda.
While we had an Empire and, more importantly perhaps, both a Merchant and a Royal Navy 'isolation' from Europe perhaps made sense, but given that we now, effectively have neither and both international trade and travel between neighbouring countries is so much easier it makes no sense to me to cut ourselves off from our immediate neighbours. I'm particularly distressed to see the reduction in youth travel between Britain and our immediate neighbours; my children and grandchildren all had beneficial experiences from such experiences. We share a culture with, particularly, Western Europe and turning our backs on that seems to me to reduce our country.
I will admit that I wasn't too happy about the expansion of the EU East and South-East-ward, but unquestionably the accession of Poland and Czechia has been beneficial to both them and the EU.
So I repeat my opening thought; I hope to live to live to see us Rejoin, and take a full part in the development of our continent.
26 December 2024
Today, the UK government has announced it will remove the 2031 deadline to record historic rights of way in England, ending the threat to over 41,000 miles of unrecorded paths.
That sounds abtruse - it means that if evidence of public use of rights of way can be established, then the RoW will be recognised. The proposal previously was that the historic right of claiming prescriptive use where sue is evidenced should be abolished. This has had a bit of to and fro over the last decade or two - this is another low profile but important area where this Government are moving in the right direction - slowly.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy89yddgg7yo
What we need next is for all the uncategorised paths, especially in towns and rail trails etc, to be dedicated as Public Rights of Way.
Anyway if I had a big toxic tort case involving leukemia derived from the use of a specific recycled kerosene product, you would be just the lawyer I'd need.
Brexit meant that Scotland would need to choose between its largest market (rUK) and the SM. The NI example showed just how hard that would be.
Furthermore, there would be no seamless transition but the rigours of a new application to the EU with all fiscal problems that would cause an independent Scotland. Years and years of uncertainty and economic mess. There are no good answers to this.
Unless it gets POCA’d.
On a happier note, I might actually have a little work. Not a huge amount, but something. Gosh.
They’ve been split up for a while.
Biden's efforts were too focused on shifting policies that take years to translate into economic benefits for average American workers.
"I think that the time horizon associated with those big pieces of legislation was way out of sync with the exigencies of the presidential election," he said.
Biden would have been better served finding ways to bring the tangible benefits to voters more quickly – a sentiment Biden himself expressed during a recent newspaper interview.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7vd5n3el6no
But it is always good to see PB get onto Brexit.
There are relationships and relationships and then there are great love affairs of the ages, two souls dancing as one, a duet of passion that will resound forever: that, for me, was Nicola Sturgeon and that bloke she was with to cover her being a tuppence licker
If even a love like that must find its end, wherefore, and whither, any of us?
Nor do I see this as anti-middle class. I can't think of anything more middle class than a graffiti workshop.
Stéphane Israël was the CEO of Arianespace for eleven years until last year.
Unlike Musk or Bezos, he does not own the space company. The owners are Airbus and Safran, and they themselves get political interference from France, Germany, Italy, etc, etc. As such, Israel did as he was told.
As such, his situation is more like the great Tory Bruno at ULA. There's loads of things Bruno would like to do, such as SMART reuse, in-space tugs, propellent depots etc, but he can only do what his owners, Boeing and Lockheed, allow him to do.
Blaming Israel for Arianespace not going full-on on reuse is stupid. He is doing what his bosses want him to do: to ensure Europe has an independent route into space.
(And they are updating that ability - Ariane 6 should be launching again next month.)
A client of mine was personally prosecuted for a breach of (environmental) duty of care undertaken by his employer. He was personally singled out because he was a Director (in name only). He pleaded guilty for an easy life (I had advised him, in my unqualified capacity as a Management Consultant, under no circumstances plead guilty to something he had no hand in, but he did anyway). When it came to sentencing, the magistrate hit him with a fine of a couple of grand, which his employer had agreed to pay, so he momentarily thought happy days, that's me done. Then the regulator's brief stood up and asked to apply (vexatiously) the POCA. The Director (in name only) and his wife couldn't buy a pint of milk for three months. The employer paid his mortgage repayments and provided cash for essentials which had to be paid back once the request was dropped. The environmental Inspector did it because she could, she self styled herself as a "Rottweiler with lipstick".
Meanwhile the government caps medical degrees (and associated training), and companies import graduates from other countries.
So if "it's the economy, stupid" is true about elections, that's rather er ... stupid.
Maybe the US and China can do a deal to share Siberia and its O&G revenues, in exchange for the US continuing to protect Taiwan?
I would rather it was more expansive than more “inclusive”.
The lead woman is 99 miles in.
https://live.opentracking.co.uk/spinerace25/
What they're doing is quite amazing - I spent 21 days walking the Pennine Way in summer, and they're doing it in well under a week - perhaps in under four days.
I am all for day and block release to complete a combined work and study degree course.
I suspect she won't be charged if she's giving wide ranging interviews to the FT, but we'll see.
Any figures on how many of the hundreds of thousands of Syrians granted asylum by Germany are now in other EU countries? I'm guessing not many
The person Mrs Eek knows (Matt Neale) adopts the approach of proper breaks so isn’t leading now but doesn’t look fast now but will likely catch a number of people later as they collapse
The answers include, I think
- raising the quality of degrees at some institutions. Because many companies prefer grads from institutions abroad to quite screw universities in the U.K.
- more honesty in selling the product. 16-18 year olds are vulnerable to mis-selling.
- As you say, mix and match, part time degrees etc. I’d also add normalising doing a degree later than just after school.
Any independence which requires another country to subsidise you and defend you, is going to be independence in name only. My guess is that an independent Greenland would be de facto, a US protectorate.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/property/labour-run-council-evicts-200-tenants-cut-housing-waiting/
Anyone here who understands “Section 21” evictions, and why making 200 households homeless to house a different 200 households can possibly be a net benefit to the council?
This is the problem with laws in this country, or some of them.
They are introduced to penalise a certain group of people and we get mission creep. Same as anti terror legislation being used against those well known bastions of international terrorism, Icelandic Banks.
2) house those on the housing waiting list.
3) people from 1) are now Someone Else’s Problem (SEP)
So they will meet some targets for housing the homeless. By making people homeless….
Of course, a chunk of 1) will end up on the housing waiting list…
When I signed up to a straight Politics BSc. (Econ) I wasn't sold a pup, I was sold an experience and not a guaranteed career (granted in my day it was all courtesy of the Local Authority).
Complete with dodgy stats.
Until quite recently, they were trying to shout down anyone who pointed out there are massive differences in value between different degrees.
Many companies only hire grads from a list of universities - they hire foreign grads rather than from the lower tiers of U.K. universities.
At one company, my boss tried hiring without that limitation. We had interviewees who were plainly getting nothing from their education - one sticks in my mind - his final year electronics project was trivial, and even then, had learnt nearly nothing about it…
So yes, in my view, the application although perfectly within the law, was quite simply spiteful.
Someone else does wild water swimming with little regard to personal safely to the extent that every 3 months there needs to be a reminder chat of don’t go to that lake by yourself.
Be honest I don’t know anyone who workers there who is 100% sane
I'd guess they've decided that these tenants are able to find properties to rent on the private market, and are evicting them to make way for those who cannot. (I've no idea whether they're accurate in that assessment.)
Not my preferred approach, but I can see the logic given the constraints on local authorities. I would have thought it would have been a welcome policy for a right-winger like yourself?