Thanks TSE - Although I preferred hearing about the Mensch contributions. Scary to think that some of these real westminster people may take what we are saying seriously.
I didn't personally bet on anything this weekend (computer issues, being a bit wary of financial sites for now), but got 1 tip right and 1 tip wrong. Mildly green, overall. Given the tech (and some other) issues I'm reasonably pleased with that.
Mr. Eagles, it wasn't a Eurovision thread, was it?
Absolutely not, everyone loves Eurovision and my profitable tips.
It was this thread, apparently a significant number of Tory MPs were approvingly quoting this piece, which was published a few hours before the result of the Eastleigh by-election.
On topic I really can't help with this but I would make one observation that might be worth some debate: I can pretty much guarantee than none of your 10 seats will be in Scotland.
Immigration really is not an issue up here at all. Even in the central belt there is nothing like the sort of pressures and congestion that I see in my trips south. In this respect at least we are indeed a different country.
Although I'd guess it would become an issue in southern England in the wake of a Yes vote?
With all due respect to our esteemed Scottish brethren, immigration lacks salience as an issue in Scotland not because the Scots are so lovely and anti-racist, but because so few immigrants show any desire to move to Scotland.
Since 1970 Scotland's population fell for several decades, and has only just rebounded to exceed its previous peak.
Compare and contrast with England, where all the immigrants want to go.
I believe a site which we cannot name has just passed its Indiegogo funding target of £2500
So crowd sourcing raised 0.1% of the funding compared to a single Lottery win donation.
Wow, that really does refute the claim in the article that the Lottery winners are funding 80% of the campaign.
Oh, wait...
I know maths is not a strong point for the YeSNP
In what sense is it supposed to be a refutation of your tedious regurgitations? As it happens crowdfunding has raised over £300k for Yes causes. What's the total for No?
Sorry to give you language and maths lessons this early in the morning.
Going to clarify your "war criminals" comment? Wouldn't want to get OGH into trouble.....
Ok, for clarity, Bettertogether's SECOND largest donor (formerly largest) is an employer of war criminals and sanction buster.
You missed a bit:
Ms Baillie also pointed out that Mr Taylor had made important investments in the Harris tweed industry on the Western Isles, a constituency represented at Holyrood and Westminster by the SNP.
"Is the first minister equally suggesting that Mr Taylor should disinvest from Harris tweed?" she said. "I don't think he's said that today."
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie also defended the use of Mr Taylor's money.
He said: "If it's good enough for Harris tweed, it should be good enough for Better Together."
Are you suggesting the Scottish Government should stick a moralising oar into private business investments?
Labour has been accused of trying to cover up warnings over high death rates and lengthy waiting times at hospitals in Wales.
An email written by Sir Bruce Keogh, the medical director in England, said mortality rates at six sites were ‘persistently high’ and criticised ‘worrying’ waits for cancer tests.
But it has emerged that officials in the devolved government tried to suppress the message’s release because the information it contained would ‘prejudice the conduct of public affairs.........
The situation in Wales has prompted thousands of patients to cross the border to English hospitals in the hope of better treatment and shorter waits.
Concerns have also been raised by Labour MP Ann Clwyd who emotionally revealed the shocking care of her husband Owen in 2012 at one of those hospitals with high death rates, University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff.
Latest figures show that 15 out of the 18 district general hospitals in Wales have higher than average mortality rates.
Unlike the NHS in England, whose budget has been protected from public spending cuts, the Welsh Government have slashed theirs by eight per cent since 2009.......
Figures show that almost 50 per cent of patients wait six weeks or more for vital scans and tests to diagnose cancer compared with a 1 per cent figure in England.
And Wales refused to implement a National Cancer Drugs Fund, which pays for treatments rejected by the NHS or awaiting approval, meaning many patients are denied life-saving drugs they can get in England.
On topic I really can't help with this but I would make one observation that might be worth some debate: I can pretty much guarantee than none of your 10 seats will be in Scotland.
Immigration really is not an issue up here at all. Even in the central belt there is nothing like the sort of pressures and congestion that I see in my trips south. In this respect at least we are indeed a different country.
Although I'd guess it would become an issue in southern England in the wake of a Yes vote?
because so few immigrants show any desire to move to Scotland.
On the bright side, even fewer Chinese students will want to study in an Independent Scotland - freeing up some space for the Scots who have lost their places to students from EWNI getting free tuition:
Independence 'threat' to vital fees paid by Chinese students A SIGNIFICANT proportion of Chinese students at Scottish universities would be less likely to study here if the country was independent, a new survey shows.
The poll of 200 overseas students from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Glasgow Caledonian and Strathclyde universities found 45% of those from China would be more reluctant to come to Scotland in the event of a Yes vote.
Only 11% of Chinese students said they would be more likely to come to university in an independent Scotland, with the rest saying the issue made no difference.
And in Wales' national daily, not a word. We Welsh are renowned for our lack of common sense and failure to correctly prioritise. We've just bought the failing Cardiff Airport for £50-odd million and spent another half a million on so-called public art for it. And today we hear that the Welsh Assembly government have put up for sale for £500,000 a hotel that we bought as a kung-fu centre for almost 2 million. Then. of course we spend tens of millions on forcing the Welsh language down unwilling throats when we all speak English. Is it any wonder that our NHS is failing. We've always had a reputation for being rather stupid, this merely confirms it.
Mr. Briskin, it's odd. New members of the EU must join the euro, but the SNP wants to leave Britain and keep the pound. Sillier than a mongoose wearing a fez.
Ladbrokes Politics (@LadPolitics) 12/05/2014 09:38 UKIP to top vote in Euro elections now only 4/9. One way traffic in the betting. pic.twitter.com/rsITw0nDoe
At a loss to see what that's got to do with 'moralising', though I guess the PB Eunuchs Unionists have that note of Eck's permanently on their notepads for a quick c&p.
If you look at the crowdfunding by YES groups they are miles ahead of Better Together.
Very true. I believe a site which we cannot name has just passed its Indiegogo funding target of £2500 in less than 24 hrs. I'm sure James (if he wasn't banned) would like to thank all the PBers who still peruse his site for their no doubt substantial donations.
LOL, it was achieved very quickly. Given the Sunday Mail voodoo poll yesterday it needs someone to be analysing the polls. What is the betting we never see the detail behind their supposed "Demographics".
So two fatties that dont work and got money from a British institution are bankrolling the YES campaign - how apt.
The husband (at least) was IIRC a professional cameraman.
Would you rather he kept on working and deprived someone else of a job?
What would you have said if they had given money to the no campaign?
I dread to think what the yes campaign would be saying about them if they'd donated to no.
As it is, I'm all for people donating to political parties and/or campaigns. If they believe in what the party, or the campaign, is doing, then let them give their money. It's why I was totally unfussed by J.K. Rowling giving a million to the Labour Party before the last election.
We're supposed to be a democracy, with rule by the many. If we allow unlimited donations by very wealthy people, then their views become the one's politicians are guided by, rather than the views of the broader public. That's obviously a bad thing, and a far worse thing than a handful of rich people being limited in how much influence they can buy with their money.
Ladbrokes Politics (@LadPolitics) 12/05/2014 09:38 UKIP to top vote in Euro elections now only 4/9. One way traffic in the betting. pic.twitter.com/rsITw0nDoe
Hopfully UKIP can have a convincing win everywhere... except in London
I think @volcanopete mention this below but o/t for @mikesmithson, Great Yarmouth has very high levels of immigration and will be a key UKIP target to boot.
[Is it really conceivable that the great British public will throw out a government which has produced such stunning results in time for the election and bring back those responsible for the mess?]
Yes
Because the "stunning results" have benefitted so few. Whether it is still possible, in to-day's globalised economy, to spread them out in the way that social democracy (and indeed Tory "wets") sought to do in the second half of the last century is another question, of course.
I think the fact that the early elements of the recovery did not in fact benefit the man in the street whose wages were, on average, still falling in real terms is the best explanation of the lack of traction to date. There may be more than another million in employment but that does not really help the 30m who already had a job.
If so there is still hope for the tories because this year will see increases in real earnings along with an increase in the value of most peoples' houses making them feel better off. As a country we still need to rebalance away from consumption and increase investment and production which means there is less of the growth available for joe public than would otherwise be the case but this year at least there should be some jam for all.
(snip)
Average annual earnings increases:
1983 May 8.9% 1987 May 8.6% 1992 Mar 9.1% 1997 Apr 4.0%
RPI annual increase
1983 May 3.7% 1987 May 4.1% 1992 Mar 4.0% 1997 Apr 2.4%
(snip)
Care to fill in the equivalent data for 1979, 2001, 2005 and 2010?
1979 Earnings +15.9% RPI +10.1%
Real earnings rising fast - perhaps connected with all those pay strikes - and helps explain why Labour lost so few votes compared with 1974 despite the disasters of the previous five years.
2001 Earnings +5.8% RPI +1.8%
Solid growth in real earnings underpins easy Labour reelection
2005 Earnings +4.4% RPI +3.2%
Weak earnings growth and big fall in Labour vote
2010 Earnings +0.4% but had been +6.7% the month before, a very variable year. RPI +5.3%
Ouch! Labour vote disintegrates. Public sector earnings though were still increasing at over 3% during the recession and leading up to the general election, which helps to explain how well Labour did among them.
Of course each election varies and there are numerous factors but real earnings growth is something the average voter personally experiences much more than most economic stats.
Thanks for that, it's an interesting correlation and one worth noting.
Immigration is not an issue in Scotland where the minority community has always been far more integrated. We also have had a long established group of communities from Central and Eastern Europe as a throwback from the end of WWII and Stalin's policy of murdering those who returned.
Scotland is still too busy with sectarianism to have got round to racism.
Alan, that is disingenious, there are a few pockets of the numpties left still living in the past , West of Scotland only but the majority of the population are not involved in any way with it. It is a Glasgow thing.
So two fatties that dont work and got money from a British institution are bankrolling the YES campaign - how apt.
Your post is SO Better Together Unionist, I am sure you are a bronzed adonis rather than the sad twisted bitter little envious nomark that you project in your posts.
If you look at the crowdfunding by YES groups they are miles ahead of Better Together.
Very true. I believe a site which we cannot name has just passed its Indiegogo funding target of £2500 in less than 24 hrs. I'm sure James (if he wasn't banned) would like to thank all the PBers who still peruse his site for their no doubt substantial donations.
If you look at the crowdfunding by YES groups they are miles ahead of Better Together.
Very true. I believe a site which we cannot name has just passed its Indiegogo funding target of £2500 in less than 24 hrs. I'm sure James (if he wasn't banned) would like to thank all the PBers who still peruse his site for their no doubt substantial donations.
LOL, it was achieved very quickly. Given the Sunday Mail voodoo poll yesterday it needs someone to be analysing the polls. What is the betting we never see the detail behind their supposed "Demographics".
I don't think Progressive Scotland have ever published detailed methodology. Despite Bettertogether & associated numpties trying to promote it as another Yougov poll, Anthony Wells on UK Polling Report says not.
'Anthony Wells
Barbazenzero – I couldn’t find it on their site either, but it’s generally safe to trust John Curtice.
Progressive Polling polls are NOT YouGov polls. In the past I think YouGov have done some of their fieldwork, but that doesn’t mean they are weighted the same way as YG polls so you should compare them to the last PP poll, not to YG polls (as far as I’m aware this last one was nothing at all to do with YG and had fieldwork done elsewhere, but I couldn’t vouch for that 100%, it may be something done without my knowledge).'
I think @volcanopete mention this below but o/t for @mikesmithson, Great Yarmouth has very high levels of immigration and will be a key UKIP target to boot.
Once more the perception vs reality of UKIP is troubing.
Perception: reasoned debate about the EU, immigration levels, etc
Reality: targeting high-immigration areas with a strong anti-immigration message.
Advice to UKIP: come out with a revolutionary and incendiary agricultural or education policy (not involving eastern european fruit-pickers or faith-based free schools).
Start positioning yourself as a broad-based political party before your current approach goes sour and you are written off.
Could someone direct me to a recent poll with a forced choice between Ed Miliband/Labour and David Cameron/Conservatives? My particular interest is the split of current Lib Dem supporters.
So two fatties that dont work and got money from a British institution are bankrolling the YES campaign - how apt.
The husband (at least) was IIRC a professional cameraman.
Would you rather he kept on working and deprived someone else of a job?
What would you have said if they had given money to the no campaign?
I dread to think what the yes campaign would be saying about them if they'd donated to no.
As it is, I'm all for people donating to political parties and/or campaigns. If they believe in what the party, or the campaign, is doing, then let them give their money. It's why I was totally unfussed by J.K. Rowling giving a million to the Labour Party before the last election.
You stupid twerp the YES campaign would be saying nothing about them. Its diehard unionists the like you and TGOHF that throw insults all the time. Then whinge when anybody replies in kind.
[Yes Scotland] Smaller donations - classed as those under £7500 - were more numerous and more generous than in the previous year, with more than 11,000 people giving a total of £473,000.
The pro-Union Better Together campaign has declared donations of just £2.8m up to December 2013. ......... 17,400 people gave less than £7500, for a total of £341,600.
Better Together's largest donor to date is Donald Houston, owner of the Ardnamurchan Estate and the Adelphi distillery, who has given a total of £600,000 personally and via companies.
So Better Together small donors are more numerous, if parsimonious.......
I has no idea Donald Houston worked with war criminals - perhaps TUD could clarify?
Not that great from pool of 65 million versus YES limited to participants of 5 million. Unionists are happy with any kind of money mind you. Add in that BT have no other organisations being funded and it looks pretty paltry.
As a fan of the site I think it's great that OGH is going to be at the House of Commons.
Do we think Cameron still reads it or was that all just a bit of nonsense spin??
Every three months or so, I pull off a list of all the IPs that access the site, and run a reverse DNS look-up.
From this, I am able to conclude there are regular readers at the Houses of Parliament, the Conservative Party HQ, and the Labour Party HQ. There don't seem to be any LibDem HQ readers, but this may simply be because a reverse DNS on it comes up with "BT" or somesuch.
Some of the most prolific readers (and non-commentators) are the big national newspapers!
No Ashes test matches next year at either Headingley or Old Trafford.
No test match North of Nottingham, bloody Welsh get one.
You have an excuse for not going to watch us lose then. I am already wondering whether my Sunday at this year's Oval test will be good value for money.
But I am surprised at the Welsh one, I thought the last one at Sophia Gardens (or whatever it's called these days) lost money?
Anyway, isn't Nottingham quite a long way north? At least they are not having one at the Rose Bowl, it might be my closest major ground but it's nasty and draughty, and the Oval is easier to get to.
No Ashes test matches next year at either Headingley or Old Trafford.
No test match North of Nottingham, bloody Welsh get one.
Shocking. I'm not sure what the Welsh have done to keep getting awarded test matches - it's not like they show up anyway. If it was me the 'regional' ones would be alternated within a similar large region... - So you have 2 London Tests, Cardiff and Soton alternate; Brum and Trent Bridge alternate, and OT, Headingley (and I guess Durham) alternate.
Is it really conceivable that the great British public will throw out a government which has produced such stunning results in time for the election and bring back those responsible for the mess? As the economic results move from good to excellent surely some credit will accrue? There is not a lot of evidence of this so far but the Labour vote is starting to soften which gives some hope.
Labour's vote, like the other parties, is being gnawed at by UKIP, but that's nothing to do with any economic success. Leaving aside the bits we won't agree on, the problem is that economic revival is fuelling the "Tories only care about the rich" view, since most people don't feel that things are getting much easier for them, yet apparently the economy is doing better, so who is benefiting? "Ah, it's the super-rich who got that tax cut." It's easier to bear austerity if it's seen to be essential and shared. And a great deal of the austerity cuts have been punted into the next Parliament.
A more sophisticated point is that it's not clear that the recovery is being achieved sustainably, as evidenced by the balance of payments: arguably, it's principally built on credit and consumer borrowing.
Trade figures are volatile but there is a clear trend that our deficit is at least reducing and the last figures were particularly good. The fact we are achieving this despite growing faster than most of our trading partners is something of an achievement and, unfortunately, reflects the increase in competitiveness achieved by the cuts in real wages.
This growth, after an uncertain beginning, is now looking very healthy with manufacturing benefiting significantly. And, as you know, the super rich paraded in all their glory yesterday in the ST are paying more tax and a greater share of the tax than ever. Labour are going to need some new tunes as this year progresses.
A LibDem told me that that's what his Party have achieved in this Parliament. I take it he's wrong, and that the Tories should indeed take the credit? (I'm only asking...)
No he would be right. The Lib Dems have made a material contribution to the economic success of the government. Without the Lib Dems I suspect we would have had less emphasis on tax cuts for the lower paid, probably greater emphasis on spending cuts than tax increases in deficit reduction and, more than likely, a sharper rate of deficit reduction.
Whether the economy would have been better or worse with that mix is harder to say but things have turned out well and Danny Alexander in particular is due credit.
Could someone direct me to a recent poll with a forced choice between Ed Miliband/Labour and David Cameron/Conservatives? My particular interest is the split of current Lib Dem supporters.
YouGov occasionally do the question, I'm on my mobile, so can't do a search of the yougov website.
No Ashes test matches next year at either Headingley or Old Trafford.
No test match North of Nottingham, bloody Welsh get one.
You have an excuse for not going to watch us lose then. I am already wondering whether my Sunday at this year's Oval test will be good value for money.
But I am surprised at the Welsh one, I thought the last one at Sophia Gardens (or whatever it's called these days) lost money?
Anyway, isn't Nottingham quite a long way north? At least they are not having one at the Rose Bowl, it might be my closest major ground but it's nasty and draughty, and the Oval is easier to get to.
The Welsh lose money on test matches held in May/June and don't involve Australia.
It is bloody hard not to make money on an Ashes test match.
No Ashes test matches next year at either Headingley or Old Trafford.
No test match North of Nottingham, bloody Welsh get one.
Shocking. I'm not sure what the Welsh have done to keep getting awarded test matches - it's not like they show up anyway. If it was me the 'regional' ones would be alternated within a similar large region... - So you have 2 London Tests, Cardiff and Soton alternate; Brum and Trent Bridge alternate, and OT, Headingley (and I guess Durham) alternate.
Counties bid (pay money to the ECB) to host test matches.
In the past, the Welsh Government has helped subsidise the cost.
This was no ordinary election. Some of our colleagues saw people putting multiple papers into the ballot box, there were no independent monitors at the polls. This was a vote that was organised, run and then counted by the activists behind it; so we can't take the results at face value in any way.
When talking to people going to vote and asking them what they were voting for, they had very different opinions. Some people thought they were casting their ballot to join Russia, some people believed they were voting just to have more power in eastern Ukraine. Even the leaders of the referendum have different comments when you ask them what this is about.
How many Scots are there in London - could it be Scotland's 2nd, 3rd, 1st largest city, a la France/London?
Exactly. Mes sentiments exactement as they say in south Kensington, Hackney, and Highbury.
If the number of French in London is the 400,000 often given, then London is already France's fifth-largest city, ahead of Nice and just behind Toulouse.
It is often said that the UK needs to do more to develop metropolitan centres other than London. The trouble is, this is a perpetually moving target. Countries like France and Sweden keep increasing the size and significance of London by developing it as a metropolitan centre of their own country other than Paris or Stockholm.
Clearly nobody has ever tried to count the number of Scots who have given up on Scotland. It wouldn't even be possible to fill in "Scottish" as your nationality on a UK census form. One can, though, do a Fermi estimate of how many Scotch expats there may be, as follows.
- 83% of Scotland votes for envy parties, and only 17% or so for enterprise parties. - In England, the comparable figures are 60% or so versus 40%. - One may surmise, therefore, that the difference is accounted for by enterprising Scotch who've left Scotland to better their lives.
About 2.5 million votes were cast in the GE in Scotland of which ~16% were Conservative, i.e. 400,000. If we say 35% Conservative would be more representative, then that says 19% of the 35% are not in Scotland, i.e. 475,000. So a ballpark estimate of Scots in England would be that sort of number. This would make London Scotland's second-largest city after Glasgow. Of course, it's not clear that all 475,000 are in London, but probably one could estimate where in the world they all are, based on where other UK citizens tend to move to.
I am tempted to add to this London number those Scots who can be found drunk at 7am in a pool of urine in a London shop doorway, shouting angrily at themselves. But to be fair, this cannot be more than a few thousand more, at the most, and not enough to allow London to overtake Glasgow.
A colleague of mine once opined that there are some countries - he cited Australia, Ireland, and Canada - that produce more top-quality graduates than their economies can employ, and lack sufficient world-class industries for them all to work in. These folk thus have to emigrate to get decent jobs. I think we'd have to add iScotland to that list, and indeed it may be the basket case it is because this exodus has already happened. The French diaspora is tax-driven and clearly temporary; it's a lot less obvious what will eventually lure enterprising and prosperous Scots "haem the noo".
So two fatties that dont work and got money from a British institution are bankrolling the YES campaign - how apt.
The husband (at least) was IIRC a professional cameraman.
Would you rather he kept on working and deprived someone else of a job?
What would you have said if they had given money to the no campaign?
I dread to think what the yes campaign would be saying about them if they'd donated to no.
As it is, I'm all for people donating to political parties and/or campaigns. If they believe in what the party, or the campaign, is doing, then let them give their money. It's why I was totally unfussed by J.K. Rowling giving a million to the Labour Party before the last election.
You stupid twerp the YES campaign would be saying nothing about them. Its diehard unionists the like you and TGOHF that throw insults all the time. Then whinge when anybody replies in kind.
When have I insulted you or your fellow Yes'ers? Go on, find some examples for me. Then compare to the number of times that you throw unwarranted insults in my direction.
And for the record (yet again): my position on Scottish Independence is that I think it would be better if we were together. But that is an instinctual view, and I firmly believe it is up to you Scots to decide. But above every thing else, I want both countries to remain friends afterwards, whatever the result.
On topic I really can't help with this but I would make one observation that might be worth some debate: I can pretty much guarantee than none of your 10 seats will be in Scotland.
Immigration really is not an issue up here at all. Even in the central belt there is nothing like the sort of pressures and congestion that I see in my trips south. In this respect at least we are indeed a different country.
Although I'd guess it would become an issue in southern England in the wake of a Yes vote?
because so few immigrants show any desire to move to Scotland.
On the bright side, even fewer Chinese students will want to study in an Independent Scotland - freeing up some space for the Scots who have lost their places to students from EWNI getting free tuition:
Independence 'threat' to vital fees paid by Chinese students A SIGNIFICANT proportion of Chinese students at Scottish universities would be less likely to study here if the country was independent, a new survey shows.
The poll of 200 overseas students from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Glasgow Caledonian and Strathclyde universities found 45% of those from China would be more reluctant to come to Scotland in the event of a Yes vote.
Only 11% of Chinese students said they would be more likely to come to university in an independent Scotland, with the rest saying the issue made no difference.
So two fatties that dont work and got money from a British institution are bankrolling the YES campaign - how apt.
The husband (at least) was IIRC a professional cameraman.
Would you rather he kept on working and deprived someone else of a job?
What would you have said if they had given money to the no campaign?
I dread to think what the yes campaign would be saying about them if they'd donated to no.
As it is, I'm all for people donating to political parties and/or campaigns. If they believe in what the party, or the campaign, is doing, then let them give their money. It's why I was totally unfussed by J.K. Rowling giving a million to the Labour Party before the last election.
We're supposed to be a democracy, with rule by the many. If we allow unlimited donations by very wealthy people, then their views become the one's politicians are guided by, rather than the views of the broader public. That's obviously a bad thing, and a far worse thing than a handful of rich people being limited in how much influence they can buy with their money.
I agree to a certain extent, but that gets us into the difficult world of campaign financing once again. My original comment was about anyone donating to a party, however small, but I picked a large example. ;-)
It is difficult to see political parties having the base support from small donations to do away with large donors, and without them, we're looking at either smaller parties and more independent MP's (yay!) or state funding.
Tell that to TUD who posted it in support of the original claim that YES were better at crowd sourcing than Better Together, which of course is not what the official figures submitted by YES show
You show your stupidity yet again. The figures you mentioned are for the official YES and NO campaigns and therefore have nothing to do or connection with crowdfunding. I know conflate will confuse you but you conflated the two in your pathetic response.
I believe a site which we cannot name has just passed its Indiegogo funding target of £2500
So crowd sourcing raised 0.1% of the funding compared to a single Lottery win donation.
Wow, that really does refute the claim in the article that the Lottery winners are funding 80% of the campaign.
Oh, wait...
I know maths is not a strong point for the YeSNP
In what sense is it supposed to be a refutation of your tedious regurgitations? As it happens crowdfunding has raised over £300k for Yes causes. What's the total for No?
Sorry to give you language and maths lessons this early in the morning.
Going to clarify your "war criminals" comment? Wouldn't want to get OGH into trouble.....
It is often claimed that “immigrants work hard and pay taxes”. We know from the Labour Force Survey that some groups of migrants have a high employment rate. For example the average employment rate in the UK is 71.3%, with UK born people having an employment rate of 72% and the non-UK born a rate of 70%. Within that, migrants from the A8 countries have a higher rate of employment at almost 80%. However, some other migrants have a very low employment rate: the rate of employment amongst those born in Pakistan and Bangladesh is 50%. The reasons behind this are beyond the scope of this paper. Migrants also work at widely different rates of pay, for example the average hourly rate of an Australian born male in the UK in 2012 was £18.98, slightly higher than that of £17.79 for a UK-born male, while in contrast the rate for a male from the EU A8 was only £9.34
Can MalcolmG please translate Carnyx's Scottish sectarianism paragraph for me into English.
Thanks
Gladly. There are still some morons living in the West of Scotland who like to disagree about Irish history from 300 hundred years ago. They are a dying breed and are now an endangered species only left in the Glasgow and some parts of south West.
Certainly possible. Massa, apparently suffered difficulty getting heat into his tyres, hence his poor finish. I would've expected Williams to be worse in Monaco, but the qualifying sector 3 time of Bottas was better than the Ferraris and only beaten by the Mercedes and Ricciardo.
As a fan of the site I think it's great that OGH is going to be at the House of Commons.
Do we think Cameron still reads it or was that all just a bit of nonsense spin??
Every three months or so, I pull off a list of all the IPs that access the site, and run a reverse DNS look-up.
From this, I am able to conclude there are regular readers at the Houses of Parliament, the Conservative Party HQ, and the Labour Party HQ. There don't seem to be any LibDem HQ readers, but this may simply be because a reverse DNS on it comes up with "BT" or somesuch.
Some of the most prolific readers (and non-commentators) are the big national newspapers!
That latter comment figures. If you want a thoughtful and well-reasoned political story on a slow news day there is a good chance you'll find it here. It's what they do instead of research, I guess.
I believe a site which we cannot name has just passed its Indiegogo funding target of £2500
So crowd sourcing raised 0.1% of the funding compared to a single Lottery win donation.
Wow, that really does refute the claim in the article that the Lottery winners are funding 80% of the campaign.
Oh, wait...
I know maths is not a strong point for the YeSNP
In what sense is it supposed to be a refutation of your tedious regurgitations? As it happens crowdfunding has raised over £300k for Yes causes. What's the total for No?
Sorry to give you language and maths lessons this early in the morning.
Going to clarify your "war criminals" comment? Wouldn't want to get OGH into trouble.....
Ok, for clarity, Bettertogether's SECOND largest donor (formerly largest) is an employer of war criminals and sanction buster.
You missed a bit:
Ms Baillie also pointed out that Mr Taylor had made important investments in the Harris tweed industry on the Western Isles, a constituency represented at Holyrood and Westminster by the SNP.
"Is the first minister equally suggesting that Mr Taylor should disinvest from Harris tweed?" she said. "I don't think he's said that today."
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie also defended the use of Mr Taylor's money.
He said: "If it's good enough for Harris tweed, it should be good enough for Better Together."
We all know the unionist cabal will accept money from anywhere. It would be very interesting to know how much of the NO money was actually raised in Scotland, where you keep telling us it should be Scots only that are involved, and how much came from elsewhere. YES only accept money from people who are involved in the referendum and have a VOTE.
It is often claimed that “immigrants work hard and pay taxes”. We know from the Labour Force Survey that some groups of migrants have a high employment rate. For example the average employment rate in the UK is 71.3%, with UK born people having an employment rate of 72% and the non-UK born a rate of 70%. Within that, migrants from the A8 countries have a higher rate of employment at almost 80%. However, some other migrants have a very low employment rate: the rate of employment amongst those born in Pakistan and Bangladesh is 50%. The reasons behind this are beyond the scope of this paper. Migrants also work at widely different rates of pay, for example the average hourly rate of an Australian born male in the UK in 2012 was £18.98, slightly higher than that of £17.79 for a UK-born male, while in contrast the rate for a male from the EU A8 was only £9.34
I've just been reading through the last thread, and I was struck by something Nick P said:
Some Tory strategists think that an intensive anti-Miliband campaign will swing lots of votes in the final weeks. The problem is that it sits uneasily with the positive "Things are getting better" message - "Things are getting better and the Opposition leader is a swine" doesn't scan well.
It's a very odd comment, firstly because no-one says or intends to say that Ed M is a swine (generally it is only Labour, and occasionally some LibDems, who attack the motives of their opponents), and secondly because, if that really is how Nick sees it, it suggests a curious strategic blindspot. It is not hard to see what the Tory message will be, and indeed already is: ""Things are getting better, slowly, there is more to be done, so vote for us otherwise it will all be wrecked".
That scans very well. Whether it scans well enough to overcome populist nonsense remains to be seen: that is the choice voters will have to make.
Immigration is not an issue in Scotland where the minority community has always been far more integrated. We also have had a long established group of communities from Central and Eastern Europe as a throwback from the end of WWII and Stalin's policy of murdering those who returned.
I seem to recall a scottish ICM that found the majority of scots opposed to immigration.
On topic I really can't help with this but I would make one observation that might be worth some debate: I can pretty much guarantee than none of your 10 seats will be in Scotland.
Immigration really is not an issue up here at all. Even in the central belt there is nothing like the sort of pressures and congestion that I see in my trips south. In this respect at least we are indeed a different country.
Although I'd guess it would become an issue in southern England in the wake of a Yes vote?
because so few immigrants show any desire to move to Scotland.
On the bright side, even fewer Chinese students will want to study in an Independent Scotland - freeing up some space for the Scots who have lost their places to students from EWNI getting free tuition:
Independence 'threat' to vital fees paid by Chinese students A SIGNIFICANT proportion of Chinese students at Scottish universities would be less likely to study here if the country was independent, a new survey shows.
The poll of 200 overseas students from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Glasgow Caledonian and Strathclyde universities found 45% of those from China would be more reluctant to come to Scotland in the event of a Yes vote.
Only 11% of Chinese students said they would be more likely to come to university in an independent Scotland, with the rest saying the issue made no difference.
So two fatties that dont work and got money from a British institution are bankrolling the YES campaign - how apt.
The husband (at least) was IIRC a professional cameraman.
Would you rather he kept on working and deprived someone else of a job?
What would you have said if they had given money to the no campaign?
I dread to think what the yes campaign would be saying about them if they'd donated to no.
As it is, I'm all for people donating to political parties and/or campaigns. If they believe in what the party, or the campaign, is doing, then let them give their money. It's why I was totally unfussed by J.K. Rowling giving a million to the Labour Party before the last election.
You stupid twerp the YES campaign would be saying nothing about them. Its diehard unionists the like you and TGOHF that throw insults all the time. Then whinge when anybody replies in kind.
The lottery winners want to create a nation in their own image - early retirement from the public sector, bloated and dependent on unearned income.
Hardly the picture of a young, vibrant, lean nation...
I believe a site which we cannot name has just passed its Indiegogo funding target of £2500
So crowd sourcing raised 0.1% of the funding compared to a single Lottery win donation.
Wow, that really does refute the claim in the article that the Lottery winners are funding 80% of the campaign.
Oh, wait...
I know maths is not a strong point for the YeSNP
In what sense is it supposed to be a refutation of your tedious regurgitations? As it happens crowdfunding has raised over £300k for Yes causes. What's the total for No?
Sorry to give you language and maths lessons this early in the morning.
Going to clarify your "war criminals" comment? Wouldn't want to get OGH into trouble.....
Ok, for clarity, Bettertogether's SECOND largest donor (formerly largest) is an employer of war criminals and sanction buster.
You missed a bit:
Ms Baillie also pointed out that Mr Taylor had made important investments in the Harris tweed industry on the Western Isles, a constituency represented at Holyrood and Westminster by the SNP.
"Is the first minister equally suggesting that Mr Taylor should disinvest from Harris tweed?" she said. "I don't think he's said that today."
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie also defended the use of Mr Taylor's money.
He said: "If it's good enough for Harris tweed, it should be good enough for Better Together."
It would be very interesting to know how much of the NO money was actually raised in Scotland
Well, we know 80% of the YES money came from the Euro lottery - so how much of that was raised in Scotland?
Off topic, I was in northern Ireland over the weekend. They've taken to the EU elections with great enthusiasm, with posters everywhere. I saw posters for the DUP, UUP, TUV, Sinn Fein, SDLP, Alliance, the Conservatives, UKIP and NI21. The Greens were the only party standing for whom I didn't see a poster. There were also numerous local election posters everywhere.
My other half had his 40th birthday party in northern Ireland just after the 2005 election. My Kenyan friend took one look at all the posters and said: "I like this country: they take their politics seriously". The rest of us stared at her.
I believe a site which we cannot name has just passed its Indiegogo funding target of £2500
So crowd sourcing raised 0.1% of the funding compared to a single Lottery win donation.
Wow, that really does refute the claim in the article that the Lottery winners are funding 80% of the campaign.
Oh, wait...
I know maths is not a strong point for the YeSNP
In what sense is it supposed to be a refutation of your tedious regurgitations? As it happens crowdfunding has raised over £300k for Yes causes. What's the total for No?
Sorry to give you language and maths lessons this early in the morning.
Going to clarify your "war criminals" comment? Wouldn't want to get OGH into trouble.....
Oh look a squirrel
No, it was a serious libel, which TUD has corrected.
Of course, what TUD didn't mention was that the top two donors to Better Together are significant investors in Scottish business - Whisky and Harris Tweed respectively.....
As a fan of the site I think it's great that OGH is going to be at the House of Commons.
Do we think Cameron still reads it or was that all just a bit of nonsense spin??
Every three months or so, I pull off a list of all the IPs that access the site, and run a reverse DNS look-up.
From this, I am able to conclude there are regular readers at the Houses of Parliament, the Conservative Party HQ, and the Labour Party HQ. There don't seem to be any LibDem HQ readers, but this may simply be because a reverse DNS on it comes up with "BT" or somesuch.
Some of the most prolific readers (and non-commentators) are the big national newspapers!
I'm sure this website and UKPR are the two most influential political blogs in the UK.
I noticed that when I made a post on here about the AV referendum (I posted a video of the scene in Auf Weidersehen Pet where they use something close to get AV to pick a colour to paint their hut and on second preferences end up with "the one colour nobody voted for") newspapers and commentators very quickly picked up on the scene and started flagging it up.
It is often claimed that “immigrants work hard and pay taxes”. We know from the Labour Force Survey that some groups of migrants have a high employment rate. For example the average employment rate in the UK is 71.3%, with UK born people having an employment rate of 72% and the non-UK born a rate of 70%. Within that, migrants from the A8 countries have a higher rate of employment at almost 80%. However, some other migrants have a very low employment rate: the rate of employment amongst those born in Pakistan and Bangladesh is 50%. The reasons behind this are beyond the scope of this paper. Migrants also work at widely different rates of pay, for example the average hourly rate of an Australian born male in the UK in 2012 was £18.98, slightly higher than that of £17.79 for a UK-born male, while in contrast the rate for a male from the EU A8 was only £9.34
That's the thing about immigration. It works brilliant well from some countries, and not so well from others.
When people talk about immigration, they're not thinking of people from those 'A8' countries...
Even on a country-basis it's too generalised. Ideally, I would love to see some of these splits by the qualification level of migrants at the time of entry. However, even the qualification statistics are a bit dodgy: clearly a degree from LSE and one from the National Open University of Nigeria are not equivalent.
Independence 'threat' to vital fees paid by Chinese students A SIGNIFICANT proportion of Chinese students at Scottish universities would be less likely to study here if the country was independent, a new survey shows.
The poll of 200 overseas students from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Glasgow Caledonian and Strathclyde universities found 45% of those from China would be more reluctant to come to Scotland in the event of a Yes vote.
Only 11% of Chinese students said they would be more likely to come to university in an independent Scotland, with the rest saying the issue made no difference.
London immigration policy is itself a major obstacle to students coming from overseas, as I am told by my contacts in universities.
Yup, if Scotland sets its own immigration policy while rUK does things like suddenly yanking TOEFL tests from the requirements for immigration and making everyone throw away their scores and go and study for IELTS instead, Scotland will totally clean up.
You may even see rUK having to relax its immigration requirements to avoid losing students and businesses to Scotland, in the same way that Scotland will have to cut taxes and regulation to avoid bleeding jobs to rUK.
It is often claimed that “immigrants work hard and pay taxes”. We know from the Labour Force Survey that some groups of migrants have a high employment rate. For example the average employment rate in the UK is 71.3%, with UK born people having an employment rate of 72% and the non-UK born a rate of 70%. Within that, migrants from the A8 countries have a higher rate of employment at almost 80%. However, some other migrants have a very low employment rate: the rate of employment amongst those born in Pakistan and Bangladesh is 50%. The reasons behind this are beyond the scope of this paper. Migrants also work at widely different rates of pay, for example the average hourly rate of an Australian born male in the UK in 2012 was £18.98, slightly higher than that of £17.79 for a UK-born male, while in contrast the rate for a male from the EU A8 was only £9.34
That's the thing about immigration. It works brilliant well from some countries, and not so well from others.
When people talk about immigration, they're not thinking of people from those 'A8' countries...
Even on a country-basis it's too generalised. Ideally, I would love to see some of these splits by the qualification level of migrants at the time of entry. However, even the qualification statistics are a bit dodgy: clearly a degree from LSE and one from the National Open University of Nigeria are not equivalent.
Yes people from the LSE are usually either investment bankers or left-wing firebrands. (See Yes, Minister.)
Independence 'threat' to vital fees paid by Chinese students A SIGNIFICANT proportion of Chinese students at Scottish universities would be less likely to study here if the country was independent, a new survey shows.
The poll of 200 overseas students from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Glasgow Caledonian and Strathclyde universities found 45% of those from China would be more reluctant to come to Scotland in the event of a Yes vote.
Only 11% of Chinese students said they would be more likely to come to university in an independent Scotland, with the rest saying the issue made no difference.
London immigration policy is itself a major obstacle to students coming from overseas, as I am told by my contacts in universities.
rUK does things like suddenly yanking TOEFL tests from the requirements for immigration
So Scotland should allow fraud to continue if it was happening there?
The Home Office has suspended English-language tests run by a major company after a TV investigation claimed Britain's student visa system is riddled with fraud.
BBC1's Panorama programme said it had found blatant, routine cheating in government-approved exams and a thriving market in false documents enabling people to stay in Britain illegally.
How many Scots are there in London - could it be Scotland's 2nd, 3rd, 1st largest city, a la France/London?
Exactly. Mes sentiments exactement as they say in south Kensington, Hackney, and Highbury.
If the number of French in London is the 400,000 often given, then London is already France's fifth-largest city, ahead of Nice and just behind Toulouse.
It is often said that the UK needs to do more to develop metropolitan centres other than London. The trouble is, this is a perpetually moving target. Countries like France and Sweden keep increasing the size and significance of London by developing it as a metropolitan centre of their own country other than Paris or Stockholm.
Clearly nobody has ever tried to count the number of Scots who have given up on Scotland. It wouldn't even be possible to fill in "Scottish" as your nationality on a UK census form. One can, though, do a Fermi estimate of how many Scotch expats there may be, as follows.
- 83% of Scotland votes for envy parties, and only 17% or so for enterprise parties. - In England, the comparable figures are 60% or so versus 40%. - One may surmise, therefore, that the difference is accounted for by enterprising Scotch who've left Scotland to better their lives.
About 2.5 million votes were cast in the GE in Scotland of which ~16% were Conservative, i.e. 400,000. If we say 35% Conservative would be more representative, then that says 19% of the 35% are not in Scotland, i.e. 475,000. So a ballpark estimate of Scots in England would be that sort of number. This would make London Scotland's second-largest city after Glasgow. Of course, it's not clear that all 475,000 are in London, but probably one could estimate where in the world they all are, based on where other UK citizens tend to move to.
I am tempted to add to this London number those Scots who can be found drunk at 7am in a pool of urine in a London shop doorway, shouting angrily at themselves. But to be fair, this cannot be more than a few thousand more, at the most, and not enough to allow London to overtake Glasgow.
A colleague of mine once opined that there are some countries - he cited Australia, Ireland, and Canada - that produce more top-quality graduates than their economies can employ, and lack sufficient world-class industries for them all to work in. These folk thus have to emigrate to get decent jobs. I think we'd have to add iScotland to that list, and indeed it may be the basket case it is because this exodus has already happened. The French diaspora is tax-driven and clearly temporary; it's a lot less obvious what will eventually lure enterprising and prosperous Scots "haem the noo".
Pathetic does not even begin to describe your dribblings.
This was no ordinary election. Some of our colleagues saw people putting multiple papers into the ballot box, there were no independent monitors at the polls. This was a vote that was organised, run and then counted by the activists behind it; so we can't take the results at face value in any way.
When talking to people going to vote and asking them what they were voting for, they had very different opinions. Some people thought they were casting their ballot to join Russia, some people believed they were voting just to have more power in eastern Ukraine. Even the leaders of the referendum have different comments when you ask them what this is about.
The ones that overthrew the legitimate government did not even bother with a fake ballot , they used a show of hands amongst MP's to take over the whole country. Bit harsh to expect the other side to follow Queensbury rules.
So two fatties that dont work and got money from a British institution are bankrolling the YES campaign - how apt.
The husband (at least) was IIRC a professional cameraman.
Would you rather he kept on working and deprived someone else of a job?
What would you have said if they had given money to the no campaign?
I dread to think what the yes campaign would be saying about them if they'd donated to no.
As it is, I'm all for people donating to political parties and/or campaigns. If they believe in what the party, or the campaign, is doing, then let them give their money. It's why I was totally unfussed by J.K. Rowling giving a million to the Labour Party before the last election.
You stupid twerp the YES campaign would be saying nothing about them. Its diehard unionists the like you and TGOHF that throw insults all the time. Then whinge when anybody replies in kind.
The lottery winners want to create a nation in their own image - early retirement from the public sector, bloated and dependent on unearned income.
Hardly the picture of a young, vibrant, lean nation...
More unionist lies. The guy worked in the private sector. Sad envious greedy Flash cannot get over someone being lucky.
I've said it before, you can largely ignore the polling at this stage.
We're in the phoney war stage.
Once the Euros are out of the way, the campaign proper starts.
Alex Salmond is a top campaigner, he can turn around a dozen point deficit quite easily.
Scots are going to be seeing a lot more of Alex Salmond in the next four months, and that can only help Yes.
Good point made by Liam Fox (did I just write that?) yday - if ASalmond has refused to say he will step down, as he did ("it's up to the voters" - a la Dave) then that might boost "No".
To be able to vote No and still have ASalmond and the SNP fighting for more/better Scottish rights will be quite an attractive option for many.
Independence 'threat' to vital fees paid by Chinese students A SIGNIFICANT proportion of Chinese students at Scottish universities would be less likely to study here if the country was independent, a new survey shows.
The poll of 200 overseas students from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Glasgow Caledonian and Strathclyde universities found 45% of those from China would be more reluctant to come to Scotland in the event of a Yes vote.
Only 11% of Chinese students said they would be more likely to come to university in an independent Scotland, with the rest saying the issue made no difference.
London immigration policy is itself a major obstacle to students coming from overseas, as I am told by my contacts in universities.
rUK does things like suddenly yanking TOEFL tests from the requirements for immigration
So Scotland should allow fraud to continue if it was happening there?
The Home Office has suspended English-language tests run by a major company after a TV investigation claimed Britain's student visa system is riddled with fraud.
BBC1's Panorama programme said it had found blatant, routine cheating in government-approved exams and a thriving market in false documents enabling people to stay in Britain illegally.
Of course it's riddled with fraud, if you make an English test a key component in your border security system then people are going to cheat it. You might as well fortify your tank silos with a protective bouncy castle.
But aside from the rights and wrongs of it, if you break countries into smaller parts and put them in competition with each other, they'll be more likely to cut back on laws that cause annoyance for customers and businesses to try to snaffle business from the other parts. This will mostly affect tax and regulations, and be to the benefit of the right and the dismay of the left. But there are a few areas, like immigration, where the mainstream right-wing world-view tends to be the one that's less conducive to making money, and in those areas the same effect will work against the right.
I believe a site which we cannot name has just passed its Indiegogo funding target of £2500
So crowd sourcing raised 0.1% of the funding compared to a single Lottery win donation.
Wow, that really does refute the claim in the article that the Lottery winners are funding 80% of the campaign.
Oh, wait...
I know maths is not a strong point for the YeSNP
In what sense is it supposed to be a refutation of your tedious regurgitations? As it happens crowdfunding has raised over £300k for Yes causes. What's the total for No?
Sorry to give you language and maths lessons this early in the morning.
Going to clarify your "war criminals" comment? Wouldn't want to get OGH into trouble.....
Ok, for clarity, Bettertogether's SECOND largest donor (formerly largest) is an employer of war criminals and sanction buster.
You missed a bit:
Ms Baillie also pointed out that Mr Taylor had made important investments in the Harris tweed industry on the Western Isles, a constituency represented at Holyrood and Westminster by the SNP.
"Is the first minister equally suggesting that Mr Taylor should disinvest from Harris tweed?" she said. "I don't think he's said that today."
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie also defended the use of Mr Taylor's money.
He said: "If it's good enough for Harris tweed, it should be good enough for Better Together."
It would be very interesting to know how much of the NO money was actually raised in Scotland
Well, we know 80% of the YES money came from the Euro lottery - so how much of that was raised in Scotland?
LIAR. Not a penny came from there. It came from private individuals and you unionists are as sick as parrots. You lot have short arms and deep pockets, your people are too greedy to fund the losing NO campaign.
I believe a site which we cannot name has just passed its Indiegogo funding target of £2500
So crowd sourcing raised 0.1% of the funding compared to a single Lottery win donation.
Wow, that really does refute the claim in the article that the Lottery winners are funding 80% of the campaign.
Oh, wait...
I know maths is not a strong point for the YeSNP
In what sense is it supposed to be a refutation of your tedious regurgitations? As it happens crowdfunding has raised over £300k for Yes causes. What's the total for No?
Sorry to give you language and maths lessons this early in the morning.
Going to clarify your "war criminals" comment? Wouldn't want to get OGH into trouble.....
Oh look a squirrel
No, it was a serious libel, which TUD has corrected.
Of course, what TUD didn't mention was that the top two donors to Better Together are significant investors in Scottish business - Whisky and Harris Tweed respectively.....
Comments
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/spain-post-race-analysis.html
Edited extra bit: Raikkonen displeased by Ferrari's strategy calls, notably the way he was ahead but Alonso got the better deal:
http://www.espn.co.uk/spain/motorsport/story/157777.html
Edited extra bit 2: given Alonso might jump ship, Ferrari might want to avoid pissing off Raikkonen in case he goes walkies as well.
On the other hand, that could open the door to a Hulkenberg-Grosjean lineup.
But, if I were Ferrari, I'd stop dicking Raikkonen about strategically and try to make a car that is fast.
Barking
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2597454/We-Residents-deprived-borough-speak-predicted-Britain-need-Manchester-absorb-immigration.html
Doncaster North
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timwigmore/100254439/why-labour-should-be-terrified-of-ukip-2/
National Prediction: LAB short 75 of majority
Party 2010 Votes 2010 Seats Pred Votes Gains Losses Pred Seats
CON 36.97% 307 23.00% 0 139 168
LAB 29.66% 258 25.00% 22 29 251
LIB 23.56% 57 9.00% 0 37 20
UKIP 3.17% 0 31.00% 182 0 182
NAT 2.26% 9 2.26% 0 0 9
MIN 0.89% 19 0.89% 1 0 20
OTH 3.48% 0 8.85% 0 0 0
I didn't personally bet on anything this weekend (computer issues, being a bit wary of financial sites for now), but got 1 tip right and 1 tip wrong. Mildly green, overall. Given the tech (and some other) issues I'm reasonably pleased with that.
It was this thread, apparently a significant number of Tory MPs were approvingly quoting this piece, which was published a few hours before the result of the Eastleigh by-election.
http://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2013/02/28/are-we-entering-the-twilight-of-the-leadership-of-dave/
Talking of repeat performances .... are you intending to do a turn for Nick Palmer come the general election ?
Yours for Scotland
Alex
Labour has been accused of trying to cover up warnings over high death rates and lengthy waiting times at hospitals in Wales.
An email written by Sir Bruce Keogh, the medical director in England, said mortality rates at six sites were ‘persistently high’ and criticised ‘worrying’ waits for cancer tests.
But it has emerged that officials in the devolved government tried to suppress the message’s release because the information it contained would ‘prejudice the conduct of public affairs.........
The situation in Wales has prompted thousands of patients to cross the border to English hospitals in the hope of better treatment and shorter waits.
Concerns have also been raised by Labour MP Ann Clwyd who emotionally revealed the shocking care of her husband Owen in 2012 at one of those hospitals with high death rates, University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff.
Latest figures show that 15 out of the 18 district general hospitals in Wales have higher than average mortality rates.
Unlike the NHS in England, whose budget has been protected from public spending cuts, the Welsh Government have slashed theirs by eight per cent since 2009.......
Figures show that almost 50 per cent of patients wait six weeks or more for vital scans and tests to diagnose cancer compared with a 1 per cent figure in England.
And Wales refused to implement a National Cancer Drugs Fund, which pays for treatments rejected by the NHS or awaiting approval, meaning many patients are denied life-saving drugs they can get in England.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2625828/Labour-bid-cover-health-scandal-Wales-Party-accused-suppressing-email-said-death-rates-six-hospitals-persistently-high.html#ixzz31UMgX8Ac
Most seats G/E
Lab 1.84
Con 2.24
I'm always welcome back, wherever I perform, Young Jack.....unlike some I could mention.
Independence 'threat' to vital fees paid by Chinese students
A SIGNIFICANT proportion of Chinese students at Scottish universities would be less likely to study here if the country was independent, a new survey shows.
The poll of 200 overseas students from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Glasgow Caledonian and Strathclyde universities found 45% of those from China would be more reluctant to come to Scotland in the event of a Yes vote.
Only 11% of Chinese students said they would be more likely to come to university in an independent Scotland, with the rest saying the issue made no difference.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/education/independence-threat-to-vital-fees-paid-by-chinese-students.24202787
Another raid on the money tree?
Harri Parri, Cardiff, United Kingdom, 5 hours ago
And in Wales' national daily, not a word. We Welsh are renowned for our lack of common sense and failure to correctly prioritise. We've just bought the failing Cardiff Airport for £50-odd million and spent another half a million on so-called public art for it. And today we hear that the Welsh Assembly government have put up for sale for £500,000 a hotel that we bought as a kung-fu centre for almost 2 million. Then. of course we spend tens of millions on forcing the Welsh language down unwilling throats when we all speak English. Is it any wonder that our NHS is failing. We've always had a reputation for being rather stupid, this merely confirms it.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2625828/Labour-bid-cover-health-scandal-Wales-Party-accused-suppressing-email-said-death-rates-six-hospitals-persistently-high.html#ixzz31UNSpMPM
Note eastern european countries with the problem are looking to join a larger union. i.e EU while Scotland tries to do the opposite.
12/05/2014 09:38
UKIP to top vote in Euro elections now only 4/9. One way traffic in the betting. pic.twitter.com/rsITw0nDoe
Morris - there's a lot of very odd things about the whole indy debate if you want to find them.
Con -200.53
Most Votes Con 100
Lab -100
is where I'm at at the moment on this and the closely related votes market !
Simple matter of more money trees - or importing more Chinese students..
'Anthony Wells
Barbazenzero – I couldn’t find it on their site either, but it’s generally safe to trust John Curtice.
Progressive Polling polls are NOT YouGov polls. In the past I think YouGov have done some of their fieldwork, but that doesn’t mean they are weighted the same way as YG polls so you should compare them to the last PP poll, not to YG polls (as far as I’m aware this last one was nothing at all to do with YG and had fieldwork done elsewhere, but I couldn’t vouch for that 100%, it may be something done without my knowledge).'
No Ashes test matches next year at either Headingley or Old Trafford.
No test match North of Nottingham, bloody Welsh get one.
Perception: reasoned debate about the EU, immigration levels, etc
Reality: targeting high-immigration areas with a strong anti-immigration message.
Advice to UKIP: come out with a revolutionary and incendiary agricultural or education policy (not involving eastern european fruit-pickers or faith-based free schools).
Start positioning yourself as a broad-based political party before your current approach goes sour and you are written off.
From this, I am able to conclude there are regular readers at the Houses of Parliament, the Conservative Party HQ, and the Labour Party HQ. There don't seem to be any LibDem HQ readers, but this may simply be because a reverse DNS on it comes up with "BT" or somesuch.
Some of the most prolific readers (and non-commentators) are the big national newspapers!
But I am surprised at the Welsh one, I thought the last one at Sophia Gardens (or whatever it's called these days) lost money?
Anyway, isn't Nottingham quite a long way north? At least they are not having one at the Rose Bowl, it might be my closest major ground but it's nasty and draughty, and the Oval is easier to get to.
Load of rubbish.
Whether the economy would have been better or worse with that mix is harder to say but things have turned out well and Danny Alexander in particular is due credit.
But that's the best place to look.
It is bloody hard not to make money on an Ashes test match.
In the past, the Welsh Government has helped subsidise the cost.
Bloody devolution.
*Aston Villa
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27369980
This was no ordinary election. Some of our colleagues saw people putting multiple papers into the ballot box, there were no independent monitors at the polls. This was a vote that was organised, run and then counted by the activists behind it; so we can't take the results at face value in any way.
When talking to people going to vote and asking them what they were voting for, they had very different opinions. Some people thought they were casting their ballot to join Russia, some people believed they were voting just to have more power in eastern Ukraine. Even the leaders of the referendum have different comments when you ask them what this is about.
If the number of French in London is the 400,000 often given, then London is already France's fifth-largest city, ahead of Nice and just behind Toulouse.
It is often said that the UK needs to do more to develop metropolitan centres other than London. The trouble is, this is a perpetually moving target. Countries like France and Sweden keep increasing the size and significance of London by developing it as a metropolitan centre of their own country other than Paris or Stockholm.
Clearly nobody has ever tried to count the number of Scots who have given up on Scotland. It wouldn't even be possible to fill in "Scottish" as your nationality on a UK census form. One can, though, do a Fermi estimate of how many Scotch expats there may be, as follows.
- 83% of Scotland votes for envy parties, and only 17% or so for enterprise parties.
- In England, the comparable figures are 60% or so versus 40%.
- One may surmise, therefore, that the difference is accounted for by enterprising Scotch who've left Scotland to better their lives.
About 2.5 million votes were cast in the GE in Scotland of which ~16% were Conservative, i.e. 400,000. If we say 35% Conservative would be more representative, then that says 19% of the 35% are not in Scotland, i.e. 475,000. So a ballpark estimate of Scots in England would be that sort of number. This would make London Scotland's second-largest city after Glasgow. Of course, it's not clear that all 475,000 are in London, but probably one could estimate where in the world they all are, based on where other UK citizens tend to move to.
I am tempted to add to this London number those Scots who can be found drunk at 7am in a pool of urine in a London shop doorway, shouting angrily at themselves. But to be fair, this cannot be more than a few thousand more, at the most, and not enough to allow London to overtake Glasgow.
A colleague of mine once opined that there are some countries - he cited Australia, Ireland, and Canada - that produce more top-quality graduates than their economies can employ, and lack sufficient world-class industries for them all to work in. These folk thus have to emigrate to get decent jobs. I think we'd have to add iScotland to that list, and indeed it may be the basket case it is because this exodus has already happened. The French diaspora is tax-driven and clearly temporary; it's a lot less obvious what will eventually lure enterprising and prosperous Scots "haem the noo".
And for the record (yet again): my position on Scottish Independence is that I think it would be better if we were together. But that is an instinctual view, and I firmly believe it is up to you Scots to decide. But above every thing else, I want both countries to remain friends afterwards, whatever the result.
Hardly diehard unionism.
In any case, EWNI won't be in the EU anyway, and neither will Scotland if you believe the No campaigners.
It is difficult to see political parties having the base support from small donations to do away with large donors, and without them, we're looking at either smaller parties and more independent MP's (yay!) or state funding.
I know conflate will confuse you but you conflated the two in your pathetic response.
http://news.sky.com/story/1259815/peer-should-be-suspended-for-clock-in-scam
It is often claimed that “immigrants work hard and pay taxes”. We know from the Labour Force Survey that some groups of migrants have a high employment rate. For example the average employment rate in the UK is 71.3%, with UK born people having an employment rate of 72% and the non-UK born a rate of 70%. Within that, migrants from the A8 countries have a higher rate of employment at almost 80%. However, some other migrants have a very low employment rate: the rate of employment amongst those born in Pakistan and Bangladesh is 50%. The reasons behind this are beyond the scope of this paper. Migrants also work at widely different rates of pay, for example the average hourly rate of an Australian born male in the UK in 2012 was £18.98, slightly higher than that of £17.79 for a UK-born male, while in contrast the rate for a male from the EU A8 was only £9.34
http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/1.38
Certainly possible. Massa, apparently suffered difficulty getting heat into his tyres, hence his poor finish. I would've expected Williams to be worse in Monaco, but the qualifying sector 3 time of Bottas was better than the Ferraris and only beaten by the Mercedes and Ricciardo.
YES only accept money from people who are involved in the referendum and have a VOTE.
When people talk about immigration, they're not thinking of people from those 'A8' countries...
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/wider-political-news/when-i-met-john-smith-i-saw-gravitas-decency-and-integrity.24190094
I've just been reading through the last thread, and I was struck by something Nick P said:
Some Tory strategists think that an intensive anti-Miliband campaign will swing lots of votes in the final weeks. The problem is that it sits uneasily with the positive "Things are getting better" message - "Things are getting better and the Opposition leader is a swine" doesn't scan well.
It's a very odd comment, firstly because no-one says or intends to say that Ed M is a swine (generally it is only Labour, and occasionally some LibDems, who attack the motives of their opponents), and secondly because, if that really is how Nick sees it, it suggests a curious strategic blindspot. It is not hard to see what the Tory message will be, and indeed already is: ""Things are getting better, slowly, there is more to be done, so vote for us otherwise it will all be wrecked".
That scans very well. Whether it scans well enough to overcome populist nonsense remains to be seen: that is the choice voters will have to make.
E: 18
S: 22
W: 19
NI: 12
http://www.ukcisa.org.uk/Info-for-universities-colleges--schools/Policy-research--statistics/Research--statistics/International-students-in-UK-HE/
Odd that 'London immigration policy' should lead to a decline in the number of Indian students, but an increase in the number of Chinese students.....
Hardly the picture of a young, vibrant, lean nation...
My other half had his 40th birthday party in northern Ireland just after the 2005 election. My Kenyan friend took one look at all the posters and said: "I like this country: they take their politics seriously". The rest of us stared at her.
Of course, what TUD didn't mention was that the top two donors to Better Together are significant investors in Scottish business - Whisky and Harris Tweed respectively.....
I noticed that when I made a post on here about the AV referendum (I posted a video of the scene in Auf Weidersehen Pet where they use something close to get AV to pick a colour to paint their hut and on second preferences end up with "the one colour nobody voted for") newspapers and commentators very quickly picked up on the scene and started flagging it up.
I really fancy the Oval this year.
You may even see rUK having to relax its immigration requirements to avoid losing students and businesses to Scotland, in the same way that Scotland will have to cut taxes and regulation to avoid bleeding jobs to rUK.
The Home Office has suspended English-language tests run by a major company after a TV investigation claimed Britain's student visa system is riddled with fraud.
BBC1's Panorama programme said it had found blatant, routine cheating in government-approved exams and a thriving market in false documents enabling people to stay in Britain illegally.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/10/student-visa-tests-suspended-fraud
We're in the phoney war stage.
Once the Euros are out of the way, the campaign proper starts.
Alex Salmond is a top campaigner, he can turn around a dozen point deficit quite easily.
Scots are going to be seeing a lot more of Alex Salmond in the next four months, and that can only help Yes.
Also, am I right that we might be due the ICM/Guardian May survey this evening?
To be able to vote No and still have ASalmond and the SNP fighting for more/better Scottish rights will be quite an attractive option for many.
But aside from the rights and wrongs of it, if you break countries into smaller parts and put them in competition with each other, they'll be more likely to cut back on laws that cause annoyance for customers and businesses to try to snaffle business from the other parts. This will mostly affect tax and regulations, and be to the benefit of the right and the dismay of the left. But there are a few areas, like immigration, where the mainstream right-wing world-view tends to be the one that's less conducive to making money, and in those areas the same effect will work against the right.
True, but all major politicians are terrified of saying this for fear of being called racists. As such, we accept the rough with the smooth.
*Goes off into a corner and sulks*