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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » How the United Kingdom is changing almost without comment
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » How the United Kingdom is changing almost without comment
On Wednesday, John Swinney stood up to deliver his draft budget for Scotland. The consensus was that the event was a damp squib. With no changes to income tax and only copycat changes to stamp duty on second homes, it was less of a fiscal fiesta and more of a monetary mundanity.
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Edit: I'll read Alastair's header now...
I'm so lucky that it is my flag, and that I've got two other awesome flags that represent me.
Very interesting piece Alastair
Tossers....
I think UK citizens came to accept UK federalisation per se, as a consequence of the formation of a Scottish Government and a Welsh Assembly. Isn’t it just another name for devolution and vice versa?
It may well be that Hague is right and that a vote to Leave is a vote to end the UK.
OT the bookies are still underpricing Leicester City. Vardy has a minor groin niggle but played well at Everton, otherwise our first team are in fine fettle. Liverpool have an injury crisis all over the pitch but particularly in defence and have poor home form, they were hopless last week. Leicester last lost away in the League in March. Ditto Man City who have poor away form, not winning for 2 months, and also multiple injuries.
Yet LCFC are at 14/5 on Skybet at Liverpool, and good odds are out there against Man City too. The footballing gods love Leicester still.
It's all a huge constitutional fudge in perfect non written British tradition stretching back at least three centuries and probably more. After all the Cof E was set up be as outwardly Catholic as possible by the Tudors without actually having that awkward bit of papal primacy, and the Civil War was resolved in the latter 17th Cent by arriving at a compromise of really having a Republic except we'll have a fairly powerless monarch (now completely vestigial) so we can still call it a "Kingdom".
So hey ho in the grand sweep of time all fine, but for us poor sods living through it it's a dog's dinner, and will remain so until the English question is resolved. Blair of course swept this under the carpet believing he could gerrymander eternal Labour Govt in Scotland and Wales and yah boo sucks to anyone that pointed out it was all terribly lopsided and would creak at the seams. Therefore the photo of Ed in Salmond's pocket, which did so much damage back in May was nothing short of poetic justice biting Labour roundly on the bum for ignoring England. Had they had a proper federal settlement the poster would not have had the resonance it did, but of course that would've meant Labour risking Tory Govt in England six years out of ten or so.
How we are going to cope with differing income tax rates between Chepstow and Bristol or Wrexham and Chester is going to be "interesting" and an accountant's delight.
Eventually we will have to cobble together something more equitable towards England unless Scotland clears off before it's done, in which case Wales and N Ireland (if still around) are so tiny as to be "put upable with" as constitutional oddities like larger versions of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.
Another fascinating expose by Seymour Hersh. Almost like a reverse Seven Days in May, this time a deranged incompetent President hell bent on sparking a global conflict, against the national interest, undermined surreptitiously by the Pentagon and JCS.
Hi expose on Turkey being behind the gas attack in Ghouta has only been reinforced as more information has come to light.
http://original.antiwar.com/Veteran-Intelligence-Professionals-for-Sanity2/2015/12/22/call-proof-syria-sarin-attack/
No wonder that the American people continue to revolt against the political/media class by backing Trump.
Try another. Pew.
Americans divided on whether Islam more likely to encourage violence than other religions https://t.co/Kuf2DRgo7Y https://t.co/5A6W5bDqc8
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/jeremy-corbyn-interview/
"Hilary: Well, Dave from Witney did not come up with anything, but Tim, from Barking, has a question about democratisation of the state: he asks what your views are on a federal UK, given that new politics and democratisation surely involve sharing power?
Jeremy: Yeah, I’m glad that question has come up because of the problems that have arisen out of the UK being such a highly centralised state. It is changing, because Scotland is obviously very different now – as government in Scotland is devolved, it now has tax-raising powers which they may or may not want to use. But whatever the outcome in Scotland – whether independence or otherwise – England is still not decentralised at all. George Osborne is offering city-devolution to some places – over which I have some concerns because it is devolution to big cities and it doesn’t necessarily include adequate funding of the services that have been devolved. So you could end up with a form of devolution that doesn’t include any kind of financial autonomy or alternative source of income. You negotiate every year on limited funding with a central government which relies on you running even more services on its behalf.
The other end of the scale is the total federal model that Germany has, with not only the very powerful 'Lander' levels of regional governments but also very powerful cities and a relatively weak federal state. I think there is a very interesting debate on federal models to be had here. I don’t want us to go into government in 2020 saying simply that we are going to think about it. So I’ve asked Jon Trickett to set up a constitutional convention, which he’s doing – it’s under way now. It is looking at powers of government, powers of parliament, powers of the House of Lords, an elected second chamber. Then issues of rights and accountability in society, bill of rights kind of thing – protecting the Human Rights Act but moving on from that, of course, to how you sort English regional government.
Because there are no effective regional voices it means there is a disproportionate level of capital investment in London and the south-east compared to the north-west and north-east, for example. The East Midlands actually does the worst of every region. I put some ideas together on this during the leadership campaign as one of our consultative papers. I did 13 consultative papers on lots of different stuff. They are on the Jeremy4Leader website. Look at those and you’ll see some ideas there. All of those are open to comment. The difficulty we have at the moment is simply the capacity we have to respond to all this, because of the volume of stuff we’re getting in."
Not quite sure where we go from here.
I suppose we should just make federation official, with five nations, Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland, England, and London.
Sorry my mistake - the Port you know -I meant a Pony.
Arguably it is already working. How could labour hammer the tories on schoolsnhospitals in 2015 considering their dreadful performance in Wales?
EVEL has solved any issues I had except perhaps the Barnett formula being a broken outdated relic that needs tinkering with.
Mr. Pauly, what polling has bothered to ask (politicians and the BBC seem loath to consider it) shows strong support, perhaps even a majority, for an English Parliament.
I disagree whole-heartedly with those advocating division of England. London was a breed apart even in the 14th century. This is not a new phenomenon.
When the GE15 polling took place, there was a vast distortion in the overall London number created by East London.
North, South and West were finely balanced.
It's all the former socialist republics of Islington, Hackney and Lambeth that give a different media impression, though they resemble typical student constituencies, and they elect MPs with student-like views.
Brighton is London with a pier.
This is funny. Those poor journalists! I've been covering Trump and I need counselling!
And for the record, we in Hampstead are sick of having to share a council with Camden and a constituency with Kilbirn.
The Hampstead independence movement is coming.
Miss Plato, I preferred Ed Miliband's heaviest suicide note in history.
No idea where The 100 or Gotham are, though.
So, that's Supermodels, Gotham and then Banner Saga comes out on consoles. Not a bad three days (wanted to play Banner Saga for a while but I may wait for reviews, as it's digital only).
Hopefully, some Showtime stuff will get to UK TV sometime.
LOL
Hoping I don't miss the start of The Walking Dead's fifth series. It's happened so often it's practically traditional now...
Been rewatching Castle S1 et al on Amazon, and it's great feelgood procedural cop stuff.
So reporteth Twitter. And the Telegraph.
I once read in a gossip column of a very famous cricketer who requested lady partners to shout his name at the crucial moment.
Ah, yes, the SNP. I see your point.
Some of the Sri Lankan Batsmen would present a challenge in that respect.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/srilanka/content/player/218430.html
Perhaps I should be asking Paddy Power for an early payout, Trump is clearly already POTUS.
Trump mentions: 6
Obama mentions: 0.
It reminded me of the scene from Alien, when the alien burst out of John Hurt
*He said he had been hacked
Something tells me this might be a 'fun' holiday
Obama mentions: 0.
This isn;t really news. It's evidence of the media's paranoia with Trump.
Brian May accused of being minister's 'sugar daddy' in foxhunting row
Conservative sports minister Tracey Crouch hits back at head of Countryside Alliance after tweets relating to donation by former Queen guitarist
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/23/brian-may-foxhunting-row-sugar-daddy-tracey-crouch?CMP=twt_a-politics_b-gdnukpolitics