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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The future of Scottish LAB and Holyrood 2016: This week’s P

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    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 76,028
    Alistair said:

    HYUFD said:

    malcolmg said:

    Sandpit said:

    Okay, just listened to it. A good discussion on a number of issues in Scottish politics at the moment.

    As an outsider I still don't get how the SNP will manage to get away with not defending their record in Scotland running up to next year's election. The Scottish government runs policing, education and health, these should be the issues discussed when electing the politicians to the Scottish government rather than constitutional stuff.

    On the point made in towards the end of the podcast, I really hope that the debate around the EU referendum is of better quality than what we got in Scotland last year - although from last week's discussions on here I'm not too sure!

    The point is they are more popular than ever and seen to be doing a good job against the evil empire. It will be a Tsunami in 2016 with the London parties scrambling for consolation list seats. Hence Davidson fleeing Glasgow and chucking one of her minions out in Edinburgh list. Labour will follow suit.
    Counting chickens a little Mr G on the day the Tories beat the SNP in an Aberdeen by election
    You mean like they did in 2012?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_local_elections,_2017 SNP 'failure' as other parties take "seats"
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    Oh dear, the BBC have had their guns spiked by the Russians cancelling their flights to Sharm, just when they were getting into their narrative "has the PM "jumped the gun?"
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    Plato_SaysPlato_Says Posts: 11,822
    How avoiding our citizens potentially being blown up is *jumping the gun* seems an odd criticism. Jumping afterwards = being an ex-citizen.

    Oh dear, the BBC have had their guns spiked by the Russians cancelling their flights to Sharm, just when they were getting into their narrative "has the PM "jumped the gun?"

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    Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453
    @UK__News: The Scottish Conservatives have beaten the SNP to first place in a by-election in Alex Salmond's constituency. https://t.co/DSrqMsmTQC

    It's a great result for the SNP...
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    Plato_SaysPlato_Says Posts: 11,822
    The SNP didn't actually lose apparently

    #context #reasons
    Scott_P said:

    @UK__News: The Scottish Conservatives have beaten the SNP to first place in a by-election in Alex Salmond's constituency. https://t.co/DSrqMsmTQC

    It's a great result for the SNP...

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    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,510

    Incidentally, our local Conservative branch is having a policy discussion next week on Refugees, Asylum and Immigration. I've been given the hot potato of preparing the briefing paper and chairing the discussion. I hope to get out alive, but if I suddenly stop posting you'll know why!

    I would be interested in what you came up with for that. I am attending a dinner where that is the subject of debate the week after next.
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    watford30watford30 Posts: 3,474
    edited November 2015

    Oh dear, the BBC have had their guns spiked by the Russians cancelling their flights to Sharm, just when they were getting into their narrative "has the PM "jumped the gun?"

    John Humphries spent 10 minutes giving a government spokesman a good working over on Today this morning.

    He seemed disgusted and appalled that someone had dared to have the audacity to come up with a workable plan on how to extract British citizens safely and swiftly.

    Having said that, in the last hour, a large number of British aircraft appear to have been turned away from Egyptian air space or are held in a stack.
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    OT for Freesat viewers - PBS America is new on Channel 160 - some great looking docu shows.

    Yep been on sky for a while - their programs run to funny slots as they have adverts in programs that weren't meant to but at least they don't cut them down.

    The schedule repeats/loops quiet frequently, but they have the excellent Ken Burns documentaries like his American Civil War one which I hadn't seen years since the History channel went aliens & truckers.
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    Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453

    The SNP didn't actually lose apparently

    #context #reasons

    Right, it was one of those "deferred wins"...
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    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:
    Me too.

    I've always felt that Sauron wasn't as bad as people made out.

    He was a fairly poor military commander and strategist.

    I mean two Hobbits managed to walk up to his front door and destroy the ring he wanted.

    I'm sure Tolkien based him on someone from Carthage.
    LOL!

    Possibly, that's the wisdom of hindsight. Sauron believed, reasonably enough, that anyone who got the ring would want to use it against him. It never crossed his mind that anyone could or would want to destroy it.
    Also worth remembering that Sauron did have ten thousand orcs in the way until he moved them to face the army at the Black Gate, believing, given both the evidence before him and also what he'd seen in the palantir, that the Ring must be held by one of that army's leaders.

    Still stupid to leave the mountain without even a token force though.
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    Plato_SaysPlato_Says Posts: 11,822
    Oh that Civil War one looks excellent - there's another about stealth tech next week too.

    I'm bingeing on true crime on CBSReality right now. The series I Survived is just white knuckle first person narratives.

    OT for Freesat viewers - PBS America is new on Channel 160 - some great looking docu shows.

    Yep been on sky for a while - their programs run to funny slots as they have adverts in programs that weren't meant to but at least they don't cut them down.

    The schedule repeats/loops quiet frequently, but they have the excellent Ken Burns documentaries like his American Civil War one which I hadn't seen years since the History channel went aliens & truckers.
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    DavidL said:

    Incidentally, our local Conservative branch is having a policy discussion next week on Refugees, Asylum and Immigration. I've been given the hot potato of preparing the briefing paper and chairing the discussion. I hope to get out alive, but if I suddenly stop posting you'll know why!

    I would be interested in what you came up with for that. I am attending a dinner where that is the subject of debate the week after next.
    Send me a Vanillamail with your email address and I'll email you a copy.
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    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,510

    DavidL said:

    Incidentally, our local Conservative branch is having a policy discussion next week on Refugees, Asylum and Immigration. I've been given the hot potato of preparing the briefing paper and chairing the discussion. I hope to get out alive, but if I suddenly stop posting you'll know why!

    I would be interested in what you came up with for that. I am attending a dinner where that is the subject of debate the week after next.
    Send me a Vanillamail with your email address and I'll email you a copy.
    Done. Many thanks.
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    Plato_SaysPlato_Says Posts: 11,822
    Any chance you could share with me too for my local association if they're not already on your dislist?

    DavidL said:

    Incidentally, our local Conservative branch is having a policy discussion next week on Refugees, Asylum and Immigration. I've been given the hot potato of preparing the briefing paper and chairing the discussion. I hope to get out alive, but if I suddenly stop posting you'll know why!

    I would be interested in what you came up with for that. I am attending a dinner where that is the subject of debate the week after next.
    Send me a Vanillamail with your email address and I'll email you a copy.
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    I never understood why, with its apparent huge advantages in men and materiel, Mordor collapsed so suddenly when the Ring was destroyed. They should still have won the war comfortably.
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    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,510
    My concern about the Egypt thing is that we seem to have disclosed that we were successfully monitoring traffic in the Sinai, something the US, the Egyptians and Russia were not apparently doing. We might just have got lucky but I hope we have not disclosed a capability that might have been more usefully kept quiet.

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    Any chance you could share with me too for my local association if they're not already on your dislist?

    Sure - let me know an email address and I'll send you a copy.

    Same for anyone else who's interested.
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    Plato_SaysPlato_Says Posts: 11,822
    platosays at gmail dot com

    Much appreciated.

    Any chance you could share with me too for my local association if they're not already on your dislist?

    Sure - let me know an email address and I'll send you a copy.

    Same for anyone else who's interested.
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    DavidL said:

    My concern about the Egypt thing is that we seem to have disclosed that we were successfully monitoring traffic in the Sinai, something the US, the Egyptians and Russia were not apparently doing. We might just have got lucky but I hope we have not disclosed a capability that might have been more usefully kept quiet.

    I doubt if that's much of a secret, TBH. We have a base not far away...
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    New Thread New Thread

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    antifrank said:

    I never understood why, with its apparent huge advantages in men and materiel, Mordor collapsed so suddenly when the Ring was destroyed. They should still have won the war comfortably.

    IIRC, the creatures of darkness were linked to the will and lifeforce of Sauron, and Sauron's linked to the Ring. The destruction of the One Ring destroyed not only Sauron, the ringwraiths and the like directly, but also enfeebled all other agents acting under his commands (and of course there was the physical destruction in Mordor itself).
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    Listening to the BBC discussing Russia's decision to stop all flights to all of Egypt they simply can't say they are following the UK's decision now describing it as a Western decision. They really are so disappointed that the UK have been vindicated
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    Listening to the BBC discussing Russia's decision to stop all flights to all of Egypt they simply can't say they are following the UK's decision now describing it as a Western decision. They really are so disappointed that the UK have been vindicated

    What - they're implicitly describing David Cameron as Leader of the Free World? Well, I suppose there's been a vacancy for 14 years or so.
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    antifrank said:

    I never understood why, with its apparent huge advantages in men and materiel, Mordor collapsed so suddenly when the Ring was destroyed. They should still have won the war comfortably.

    IIRC, the creatures of darkness were linked to the will and lifeforce of Sauron, and Sauron's linked to the Ring. The destruction of the One Ring destroyed not only Sauron, the ringwraiths and the like directly, but also enfeebled all other agents acting under his commands (and of course there was the physical destruction in Mordor itself).
    Its just they did not have adequate special effects artists.
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    scotslass said:

    Huntly by-election

    Oh the joys - a seat I know something about and ScotP et al clearly know absolutely nothing about. The reason I know is that this is where my Aberdeenshire relatives come from.

    Top of the poll last time was an independent but really a Tory who is still in place and was part of the previous Tory/Independent coalition who ran the council.

    The other successful candidates were the SNP and the Liberals. The SNP lady was Joanna Strathdee who sadly passed away but was one of the most popular councillors in the whole of Aberdeenshire and former parliamentary candidate. The Liberal was OK and retires from ill health hence the double poll.

    The Tories chose a lady not previously known as a Tory but in many organisations. The SNP chose a young single Mum who is well thought of locally and works (I think) for the local MSP. Both selections are to their parties credit. Labour intervened for the first time.

    In that light for the SNP lady to increase the share of the vote is a very very good result. The Tories will be pleased to top the poll but their vote increase is a direct result of having no independent in this the most Tory inclined ward in the constituency.

    Both parties will be happy to secure the seat and for the Liberals to lose badly in what used to be their Parliamentary seat. I am very upset that the result does not fulfil the wet dreams of Scot P but there we are - facts are chiels that winna ding!


    An interesting analysis but it falls down in a number of areas. More Tory transfers went to the Lib Dems than the independent in 2012. Curious for such a well known Tory some would say. Secondly the impact of Labour standing is largely negated by the failure of the Green Party to stand (which you strangely omitted to mention). And thirdly the Tory vote is substantially up (by 9%) on 2007 when the independent wasn't a factor at all. Facts are chiels that winna ding and all that.

    Still an excellent attempt at spinning a 0.7% vote increase as very, very good compared to a meagre 9.8%.
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    Mr. Eagles, Sauron was the most stupid villain imaginable.

    There was one place in the whole world that could destroy him. It was within his territory and he had total military superiority.

    All he had to do was park ten thousand orcs there. Instead, there was not a single one guarding the open door.

    All? Mount Doom was an active volcano, with constant lava flows and earthquakes, not the easiest place to garrison, nor would it have helped if he had. All the garrison troops would have been overcome by lust for the Ring, and killed each other fighting to possess it. Remember, its power grew as it approached Mount Doom, the place of its creation.
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    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    The SNP didn't actually lose apparently

    #context #reasons

    Scott_P said:

    @UK__News: The Scottish Conservatives have beaten the SNP to first place in a by-election in Alex Salmond's constituency. https://t.co/DSrqMsmTQC

    It's a great result for the SNP...

    They put up 1 SNP candidate, 1 SNP candidate got elected.
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