I told you a few months ago, they are going to do some creative re-branding.
Interestingly, that article (mainly) doesn't argue that balancing the books isn't important: it just says it should be done with tax rises rather than spending cuts.
Which is hardly unsurprising in the New Statesman.
The point is that all spending has to be paid for, eventually.
Government spending is always paid for. It’d paid for at the time it’s spent! Either the government uses taxes, or it prints money (OK, actually they borrow it from the BoE who magic it out of thin air in exchange for a debt they hold on their books, but the effect is the same.)
The real question is the state of the labour market & inflationary environment. If the labour market is slack & the money markets are deflationary then the government should spend, spend, spend!
Keynes was right, as always.
(It’s handy to keep the "debt" around as an excuse to raise taxes in the future in order to suck money out of an inflationary economy, but all these things are convenient fictions: the BoE can just hold on to the debt indefinitely if necessary.)
That's a remarkably relaxed attitude to public financing.
There's a certain level of debt (as a % of the economy) that can be sustained indefinitely, but it's not unlimited: that's why Osborne tried so hard to eliminate the deficit from 2010-2016. So our debt as % GDP didn't constantly grow. So it would peak, and then decline. And, we still have to pay interest on that debt - it won't have escaped your attention that we spend £40bn+ a year on interest - almost as much as Defence - and it requires regular re-financing through new bonds.
In other words, it needs to be both under control and sustainable within the medium-long-term capability of the economy.
Keynes would have understood this.
Yes, I agree that Osborne completely misunderstood how the economy actually functions and crippled the UK’s recovery as a result.
& it’s not a relaxed attitude to government spending. When the labour market is tight, government spending should be the minimum necessary to provide the services the government wishes to provide.
If Osborne crippled the economy why did the UK grow faster than the Eurozone in the past decade?
The Labour market has been at full employment for most of the past decade.
The euro-zone was crippled by the Euro & the restrictions placed on governments by the Bundesbank, sorry, the ECB.
The UK labour market has been "full", but the majority of jobs added were minimum-wage & very low-productivity. To take one tiny example: you can employ people to wash cars, or you can invest in a mechanised car wash & employ the same people to do something more productive (like build schools say, if you need more school buildings, but whatever...) elsewhere. Which would be better for the economy? The latter obviously. Yet the UK is full of people washing cars & the mechanised car washes have gone out of business. Which tells you that wage pressure is completely absent.
In some ways the UK economy has gone backwards in the decade.
Right, right now we are getting somewhere.
So despite the UK growing faster than other developed nations for the past decade, despite the UK having full employment for most of the past decade you still want more spending as you think the government is better at getting growth than the free market. Is that it? So you just want spend, spend, spend in all circumstances.
I think that coming off a deflationary bust is a great time for a government to spend on infrastructure projects.
When the labour market is tight & wages are growing, well that’s a very different story.
The Labour market was tight in recent years. So where were the calls for reduced spending in recent years?
Don't hide being fake economics to justify extra spending when the reality was the opposite. The UK was at full employment, growing faster than our economic peers and still people like you claim spending was too low.
Thank goodness we had someone like Osborne in charge so the economy was fixed, the roof was fixed while the sun was shining so that now we have a real crisis (which there wasn't any at all for the past decade) the economy is in fighting shape with a deficit under control despite what was inherited. Now is the time to spend countercyclically, not in the past.
Rubbish: Real average weekly earning growth was negative for /six/ years after 2008, briefly went positive for a couple of years after that, then slumped back to 0% in 2017. 2019 was OK & then the coronavirus hit.
There was plenty of room for counter-cyclical expenditure in the years after 2008.
Rubbish. 2007/08 is a false floor because it was the peak of an economic boom just before the crash and after half a decade of governmental overspending. If - as you claim - you believe that governmental spending increases real wages, then surely you must also accept that governmental overspending before the correction in the period of 2002-2007/8 had inflated wages beyond where they should have been and which could not be afforded.
Is it your intention that we never have a correction, we just keep inflating wages forever?
Adding that we were in the middle of a deflationary cycle driven by Chinese imports which at a stroke reduced prices for good we already didn't make which increased real disposable income rates. That has now unwound and chances are will go in the opposite direction as businesses diversify supply chains away from China and Chinese labour costs continue to rise due to a tight labour market.
If he had been appointed because of his skills and abilities (as suggested by Gove) and not simply because he drank the Kool-Aid, which Frank Spencer just confirmed was his only qualification.
I told you a few months ago, they are going to do some creative re-branding.
Interestingly, that article (mainly) doesn't argue that balancing the books isn't important: it just says it should be done with tax rises rather than spending cuts.
Which is hardly unsurprising in the New Statesman.
The point is that all spending has to be paid for, eventually.
Government spending is always paid for. It’d paid for at the time it’s spent! Either the government uses taxes, or it prints money (OK, actually they borrow it from the BoE who magic it out of thin air in exchange for a debt they hold on their books, but the effect is the same.)
The real question is the state of the labour market & inflationary environment. If the labour market is slack & the money markets are deflationary then the government should spend, spend, spend!
Keynes was right, as always.
(It’s handy to keep the "debt" around as an excuse to raise taxes in the future in order to suck money out of an inflationary economy, but all these things are convenient fictions: the BoE can just hold on to the debt indefinitely if necessary.)
That's a remarkably relaxed attitude to public financing.
There's a certain level of debt (as a % of the economy) that can be sustained indefinitely, but it's not unlimited: that's why Osborne tried so hard to eliminate the deficit from 2010-2016. So our debt as % GDP didn't constantly grow. So it would peak, and then decline. And, we still have to pay interest on that debt - it won't have escaped your attention that we spend £40bn+ a year on interest - almost as much as Defence - and it requires regular re-financing through new bonds.
In other words, it needs to be both under control and sustainable within the medium-long-term capability of the economy.
Keynes would have understood this.
Yes, I agree that Osborne completely misunderstood how the economy actually functions and crippled the UK’s recovery as a result.
& it’s not a relaxed attitude to government spending. When the labour market is tight, government spending should be the minimum necessary to provide the services the government wishes to provide.
If Osborne crippled the economy why did the UK grow faster than the Eurozone in the past decade?
The Labour market has been at full employment for most of the past decade.
The euro-zone was crippled by the Euro & the restrictions placed on governments by the Bundesbank, sorry, the ECB.
The UK labour market has been "full", but the majority of jobs added were minimum-wage & very low-productivity. To take one tiny example: you can employ people to wash cars, or you can invest in a mechanised car wash & employ the same people to do something more productive (like build schools say, if you need more school buildings, but whatever...) elsewhere. Which would be better for the economy? The latter obviously. Yet the UK is full of people washing cars & the mechanised car washes have gone out of business. Which tells you that wage pressure is completely absent.
In some ways the UK economy has gone backwards in the decade.
Right, right now we are getting somewhere.
So despite the UK growing faster than other developed nations for the past decade, despite the UK having full employment for most of the past decade you still want more spending as you think the government is better at getting growth than the free market. Is that it? So you just want spend, spend, spend in all circumstances.
I think that coming off a deflationary bust is a great time for a government to spend on infrastructure projects.
When the labour market is tight & wages are growing, well that’s a very different story.
The Labour market was tight in recent years. So where were the calls for reduced spending in recent years?
Don't hide being fake economics to justify extra spending when the reality was the opposite. The UK was at full employment, growing faster than our economic peers and still people like you claim spending was too low.
Thank goodness we had someone like Osborne in charge so the economy was fixed, the roof was fixed while the sun was shining so that now we have a real crisis (which there wasn't any at all for the past decade) the economy is in fighting shape with a deficit under control despite what was inherited. Now is the time to spend countercyclically, not in the past.
Rubbish: Real average weekly earning growth was negative for /six/ years after 2008, briefly went positive for a couple of years after that, then slumped back to 0% in 2017. 2019 was OK & then the coronavirus hit.
I told you a few months ago, they are going to do some creative re-branding.
Interestingly, that article (mainly) doesn't argue that balancing the books isn't important: it just says it should be done with tax rises rather than spending cuts.
Which is hardly unsurprising in the New Statesman.
The point is that all spending has to be paid for, eventually.
Government spending is always paid for. It’d paid for at the time it’s spent! Either the government uses taxes, or it prints money (OK, actually they borrow it from the BoE who magic it out of thin air in exchange for a debt they hold on their books, but the effect is the same.)
The real question is the state of the labour market & inflationary environment. If the labour market is slack & the money markets are deflationary then the government should spend, spend, spend!
Keynes was right, as always.
(It’s handy to keep the "debt" around as an excuse to raise taxes in the future in order to suck money out of an inflationary economy, but all these things are convenient fictions: the BoE can just hold on to the debt indefinitely if necessary.)
That's a remarkably relaxed attitude to public financing.
There's a certain level of debt (as a % of the economy) that can be sustained indefinitely, but it's not unlimited: that's why Osborne tried so hard to eliminate the deficit from 2010-2016. So our debt as % GDP didn't constantly grow. So it would peak, and then decline. And, we still have to pay interest on that debt - it won't have escaped your attention that we spend £40bn+ a year on interest - almost as much as Defence - and it requires regular re-financing through new bonds.
In other words, it needs to be both under control and sustainable within the medium-long-term capability of the economy.
Keynes would have understood this.
Yes, I agree that Osborne completely misunderstood how the economy actually functions and crippled the UK’s recovery as a result.
& it’s not a relaxed attitude to government spending. When the labour market is tight, government spending should be the minimum necessary to provide the services the government wishes to provide.
If Osborne crippled the economy why did the UK grow faster than the Eurozone in the past decade?
The Labour market has been at full employment for most of the past decade.
The euro-zone was crippled by the Euro & the restrictions placed on governments by the Bundesbank, sorry, the ECB.
The UK labour market has been "full", but the majority of jobs added were minimum-wage & very low-productivity. To take one tiny example: you can employ people to wash cars, or you can invest in a mechanised car wash & employ the same people to do something more productive (like build schools say, if you need more school buildings, but whatever...) elsewhere. Which would be better for the economy? The latter obviously. Yet the UK is full of people washing cars & the mechanised car washes have gone out of business. Which tells you that wage pressure is completely absent.
In some ways the UK economy has gone backwards in the decade.
Right, right now we are getting somewhere.
So despite the UK growing faster than other developed nations for the past decade, despite the UK having full employment for most of the past decade you still want more spending as you think the government is better at getting growth than the free market. Is that it? So you just want spend, spend, spend in all circumstances.
I think that coming off a deflationary bust is a great time for a government to spend on infrastructure projects.
When the labour market is tight & wages are growing, well that’s a very different story.
The Labour market was tight in recent years. So where were the calls for reduced spending in recent years?
Don't hide being fake economics to justify extra spending when the reality was the opposite. The UK was at full employment, growing faster than our economic peers and still people like you claim spending was too low.
Thank goodness we had someone like Osborne in charge so the economy was fixed, the roof was fixed while the sun was shining so that now we have a real crisis (which there wasn't any at all for the past decade) the economy is in fighting shape with a deficit under control despite what was inherited. Now is the time to spend countercyclically, not in the past.
Rubbish: Real average weekly earning growth was negative for /six/ years after 2008, briefly went positive for a couple of years after that, then slumped back to 0% in 2017. 2019 was OK & then the coronavirus hit.
There was plenty of room for counter-cyclical expenditure in the years after 2008.
Rubbish. 2007/08 is a false floor because it was the peak of an economic boom just before the crash and after half a decade of governmental overspending. If - as you claim - you believe that governmental spending increases real wages, then surely you must also accept that governmental overspending before the correction in the period of 2002-2007/8 had inflated wages beyond where they should have been and which could not be afforded.
Is it your intention that we never have a correction, we just keep inflating wages forever?
Debt driven deflation is very, very bad for a modern credit money economy, so yes, that is what we have to do. It’s not ideal, but you go to war with the monetary system you have not the one you want, etc etc.
Or perhaps you would have preferred a repeat of the 1930s?
“I don’t buy into this whole systemic racism thing at all,” he later said.
“I’m not saying there’s not hurdles to overcome. We all have hurdles to overcome. You know, as a quote-unquote rich, white, Christian male, people look at me a certain way. And it’s not always good. So, everybody has obstacles to overcome,”
I told you a few months ago, they are going to do some creative re-branding.
Interestingly, that article (mainly) doesn't argue that balancing the books isn't important: it just says it should be done with tax rises rather than spending cuts.
Which is hardly unsurprising in the New Statesman.
The point is that all spending has to be paid for, eventually.
Government spending is always paid for. It’d paid for at the time it’s spent! Either the government uses taxes, or it prints money (OK, actually they borrow it from the BoE who magic it out of thin air in exchange for a debt they hold on their books, but the effect is the same.)
The real question is the state of the labour market & inflationary environment. If the labour market is slack & the money markets are deflationary then the government should spend, spend, spend!
Keynes was right, as always.
(It’s handy to keep the "debt" around as an excuse to raise taxes in the future in order to suck money out of an inflationary economy, but all these things are convenient fictions: the BoE can just hold on to the debt indefinitely if necessary.)
That's a remarkably relaxed attitude to public financing.
There's a certain level of debt (as a % of the economy) that can be sustained indefinitely, but it's not unlimited: that's why Osborne tried so hard to eliminate the deficit from 2010-2016. So our debt as % GDP didn't constantly grow. So it would peak, and then decline. And, we still have to pay interest on that debt - it won't have escaped your attention that we spend £40bn+ a year on interest - almost as much as Defence - and it requires regular re-financing through new bonds.
In other words, it needs to be both under control and sustainable within the medium-long-term capability of the economy.
Keynes would have understood this.
Yes, I agree that Osborne completely misunderstood how the economy actually functions and crippled the UK’s recovery as a result.
& it’s not a relaxed attitude to government spending. When the labour market is tight, government spending should be the minimum necessary to provide the services the government wishes to provide.
If Osborne crippled the economy why did the UK grow faster than the Eurozone in the past decade?
The Labour market has been at full employment for most of the past decade.
The euro-zone was crippled by the Euro & the restrictions placed on governments by the Bundesbank, sorry, the ECB.
The UK labour market has been "full", but the majority of jobs added were minimum-wage & very low-productivity. To take one tiny example: you can employ people to wash cars, or you can invest in a mechanised car wash & employ the same people to do something more productive (like build schools say, if you need more school buildings, but whatever...) elsewhere. Which would be better for the economy? The latter obviously. Yet the UK is full of people washing cars & the mechanised car washes have gone out of business. Which tells you that wage pressure is completely absent.
In some ways the UK economy has gone backwards in the decade.
Right, right now we are getting somewhere.
So despite the UK growing faster than other developed nations for the past decade, despite the UK having full employment for most of the past decade you still want more spending as you think the government is better at getting growth than the free market. Is that it? So you just want spend, spend, spend in all circumstances.
I think that coming off a deflationary bust is a great time for a government to spend on infrastructure projects.
When the labour market is tight & wages are growing, well that’s a very different story.
The Labour market was tight in recent years. So where were the calls for reduced spending in recent years?
Don't hide being fake economics to justify extra spending when the reality was the opposite. The UK was at full employment, growing faster than our economic peers and still people like you claim spending was too low.
Thank goodness we had someone like Osborne in charge so the economy was fixed, the roof was fixed while the sun was shining so that now we have a real crisis (which there wasn't any at all for the past decade) the economy is in fighting shape with a deficit under control despite what was inherited. Now is the time to spend countercyclically, not in the past.
Rubbish: Real average weekly earning growth was negative for /six/ years after 2008, briefly went positive for a couple of years after that, then slumped back to 0% in 2017. 2019 was OK & then the coronavirus hit.
There was plenty of room for counter-cyclical expenditure in the years after 2008.
Rubbish. 2007/08 is a false floor because it was the peak of an economic boom just before the crash and after half a decade of governmental overspending. If - as you claim - you believe that governmental spending increases real wages, then surely you must also accept that governmental overspending before the correction in the period of 2002-2007/8 had inflated wages beyond where they should have been and which could not be afforded.
Is it your intention that we never have a correction, we just keep inflating wages forever?
Debt driven deflation is very, very bad for a modern credit money economy, so yes, that is what we have to do. It’s not ideal, but you go to war with the monetary system you have not the one you want, etc etc.
Or perhaps you would have preferred a repeat of the 1930s?
We didn't have debt driven deflation though. We had inflation not deflation and a correction to the unsustainable spending from the disastrous Brown era.
In real terms there was a correction to wages but that had to happen because of the mess made of the finances by the prior disastrous government spending out of control during the growth period. Keynes famously observed that wages were "sticky downwards" and by having a few years where wages were frozen or growing slower than inflation the economy was able to be restored without a greater catastrophe.
If Labour look like they'll do well in England, Scottish Unionists will switch from Tory to Labour as their best hope of getting Scottish representation into the UK Government more in tune politically with most Scots and thus preserving the Union.
An independence vote won by 51/49? What could possibly go wrong?
No won indyref2 in Quebec 51/49 in 1995 and Canada has not had another Quebec referendum on independence since
Quebec got almost total control and full budget control to ensure there was no further referendum, that will never happen with the crooks and gangsters running England.
I know what Cameron, Miliband and Clegg ought to have done upon winning in 2014. They didn’t, and now it’s too late.
The 2 handle on betfair has gone - out to 3 now - but this rumour is probably nonsense and I hope it is. I will feel cheated if Trump does not run and dodges his (now inevitable) humiliation at the polls. Bets will pay out - which is great - but Nov 3rd will lose its magic. I also think a resounding rejection by the voters of him and everything he stands for - which is nothing - is needed. He should leave as he came in.
The 2 handle on betfair has gone - out to 3 now - but this rumour is probably nonsense and I hope it is. I will feel cheated if Trump does not run and dodges his (now inevitable) humiliation at the polls. Bets will pay out - which is great - but Nov 3rd will lose its magic. I also think a resounding rejection by the voters of him and everything he stands for - which is nothing - is needed. He should leave as he came in.
The government serves the people. The CS serves the government.
No
Government is the 'what'
CS is the 'how', which must, at times, include "can't be done"
The public sector uses the word "impossible" way too often.
It should have done so ahead of Iraq & Afghanistan but said "possible".
In what respect? If you mean legality, then that's a fair point.
If you mean in terms of achieving a goal, well that's much harder to do. I think Afghanistan in particular was a waste of time and lives, but it was certainly possible "to do something".
Anyone else who invents their own version of "facts and reality" to get in the way of the governments program it was elected to do. I don't know who first said it, but I've always liked the saying "do not tell me what can't be done, find a way to do it".
Or alternative "things change so fast nowadays that people saying "it can't be done" are constantly interrupted by those doing it".
The government serves the people. The CS serves the government.
No
Government is the 'what'
CS is the 'how', which must, at times, include "can't be done"
The public sector uses the word "impossible" way too often.
It should have done so ahead of Iraq & Afghanistan but said "possible".
In what respect? If you mean legality, then that's a fair point.
If you mean in terms of achieving a goal, well that's much harder to do. I think Afghanistan in particular was a waste of time and lives, but it was certainly possible "to do something".
For comparison, on the worst day of the outbreak in the UK, we recorded 8,600 cases, and then it fell away quite steeply. Florida is still going up fast.
A disaster is potentially unfolding there
I wonder if it's too late for Trump to get behind masks. Perhaps if they were red masks, with Make America Great Again on them.
I'm really not clear on the right wing objection to masks. You protect yourself with a gun, why not protect yourself with a mask? It has the added benefit of stopping the deep state from applying facial recognition software on you successfully. Lockdown - I completely see the objection to. Masks, not so much.
Indeed: especially as masks dramatically reduce the risk of needing lockdown.
Having thought about this, I think there are two reasons Trump hates masks:
1. It reminds him there is a problem. He's a massive fan of the Power of Positive Thinking (the book), and it has over the years worked for him. Wearing a mask goes against this, because it is in effect negative speech.
2. He's a bit vain. He thinks he looks good, and he thinks he'd look less good (and more scared) in a mask. And if he's not going to wear a mask, other people shouldn't either.
But it's also dumb. Modest mask etiquette reduces R substantially.
Masks are hugely uncomfortable, and a very significant social barrier.
I only wear them in close proximity environments in public (like trains or the tube) and I possibly would in a busy office too.
Otherwise, it's a rather dystopian placebo.
Masks are not really to protect you (they’re pretty crap at that role, although there is weak evidence is they do have some effect). What masks are very effective at is protecting everybody else from you, should you happen to be infected & not realise it.
So masks are essentially communitarian. We wear them & accept a certain mild level of discomfort in order to protect those around us from the possibility of being infected by a horrible disease. The more pro-social a society is, the more likely it is that people will wear masks & the less affected by Covid-19 that society will be.
(An aside: I bet the anti-vaxx conspiracy groups are full of anti-mask types.)
Sweden is essentially communitarian and a pro-social society, but I can tell you that mask-wearing is extremely unusual here.
Admittedly I almost never use public transport so I’m missing that environment, but I do work in a busy office and visit libraries, shops, hospital, tourist attractions and other public spaces, and I see a mask-wearer maybe once a week. Still taken aback every time I see one.
Jeez. I'm not repeating Phil's erroneous message which should be banned for spreading false virus info.
Face masks are clearly helpful for preventing the spread of this respiratory borne illness, both for those who have the virus and those who don't wish to catch it.
There will always be nay'sayers. There are some who think the moon landings never happened and that if you sail out beyond California you fall off the edge of the earth.
Spreading such nonsense in this case kills people.
Isn’t that what Phil is saying?
Wearing a mask protects other people not you. If everyone wears a mask everyone is safer
Except that masks do protect the wearer. Your last sentence is correct.
Really? I haven’t read the primary research personally but my impression from the reporting was that the main benefit was to other people
Teasing out cause and effect - particularly when differentiating the benefits of individual mask use versus universal community use - is difficult, as you can't subject volunteers to challenge trials. However we do now have considerable evidence suggesting that both surgical and cloth masks, if well fitted, provide some barrier to both respiratory droplets and aerosol.
The biggest recent study I'm aware of showing clear and direct empirical evidence of the benefit of mask wearing is this one.
Universal Masking is an Effective Strategy to Flatten the SARS-CoV-2 Healthcare Worker Epidemiologic Curve https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/9301E77612122039190A29CB7223F9C4/S0899823X2000313Xa.pdf/universal_masking_is_an_effective_strategy_to_flatten_the_sarscov2_healthcare_worker_epidemiologic_curve.pdf ...Of the healthcare-associated cases, 70% were related to unmasked exposure to another HCW for more than 10 minutes less than 6 feet apart and 30% were thought to be secondary to direct care of SARS- CoV-2 positive patients One week following the implementation of universal masking on March 31, 2020, we observed a significant decrease in the cumulative incidence rate of healthcare-acquired SARS-CoV-2 infections among HCWs (Figure) (LRT 4.38, p-value 0.03). The cumulative incidence rates in community-acquired cases and cases with no clear source of acquisition did not significantly change, however, and continued to mirror the cumulative incidence rates of SARS-CoV-2 in the communities surrounding Duke Health....
I think you are being unduly pessimistic about your team's prospects, CR.
Johnson's repeated and consistent electoral success is built on the fact that he tells the English a story about themselves that they very much like. He tells them they are special and can do things that other countries cannot. Furthermore they can do these things better when unencumbered by relations with other countries (apart from America), the woke box tickers of the civil service or an insufficiently compliant lamestream media. That story will still be appealing in 2024.
The government serves the people. The CS serves the government.
No
Government is the 'what'
CS is the 'how', which must, at times, include "can't be done"
The public sector uses the word "impossible" way too often.
It should have done so ahead of Iraq & Afghanistan but said "possible".
In what respect? If you mean legality, then that's a fair point.
If you mean in terms of achieving a goal, well that's much harder to do. I think Afghanistan in particular was a waste of time and lives, but it was certainly possible "to do something".
Militarily.
Isn't it up to the military brass to make that point rather than the civil service?
The government serves the people. The CS serves the government.
No
Government is the 'what'
CS is the 'how', which must, at times, include "can't be done"
The public sector uses the word "impossible" way too often.
It should have done so ahead of Iraq & Afghanistan but said "possible".
In what respect? If you mean legality, then that's a fair point.
If you mean in terms of achieving a goal, well that's much harder to do. I think Afghanistan in particular was a waste of time and lives, but it was certainly possible "to do something".
Militarily.
Isn't it up to the military brass to make that point rather than the civil service?
You said public sector. I count HMF as part of the public sector.
The government serves the people. The CS serves the government.
No
Government is the 'what'
CS is the 'how', which must, at times, include "can't be done"
The public sector uses the word "impossible" way too often.
It should have done so ahead of Iraq & Afghanistan but said "possible".
In what respect? If you mean legality, then that's a fair point.
If you mean in terms of achieving a goal, well that's much harder to do. I think Afghanistan in particular was a waste of time and lives, but it was certainly possible "to do something".
Militarily.
Isn't it up to the military brass to make that point rather than the civil service?
You said public sector. I count HMF as part of the public sector.
Fair enough, though I'd count it as a special category.
But but but yesterday ydoethur was after telling us that the shift to Yes was mythical and all MoE stuff and that Britannia would rule over Caledonia for a thousand years. Or something like that.
Now they imagine Scottish Tories will vote Labour , barking
Even if there is a significant SCon to SLab swing, it is actually a far less efficient use of the Unionist vote in Scotland.
If you simply switch the SLab and SCon percentage vote from last year (18.6% and 25.1% respectively) then these two parties actually end up with two fewer MPs (2 SLab + 3 SCon = 5; compared with current 1SLab + 6 SCon = 7).
There is of course the question of what happens to the 9.5% the SLDs got last year. I haven’t a scoobie, but I’m open to suggestions.
Strongly Unionist voters would probably be well-advised sticking with the SCons, but I’m sure SLab will do their utmost to muddy the waters and lure a significant chunk to waste their votes on them instead.
That's simplistic Stuart. In the north east, the borders and rural areas it makes sense to vote Tory. In Glasgow, where there is a whole crop of low hanging fruit just out of SLAB's grasp it doesn't. Voting Labour was deeply problematic with Corbyn in charge and beyond most Tory's comfort zone. They may not have the same problem with Sir Kneel.
Of course the 3 way split of the Unionist vote helps the SNP enormously. Unionists need to think about the efficiency of their votes.
Surely it depends how important unionism is as an issue.
Some people might be willing to vote No in a referendum but not care that much elsewhere in which case the notion of Tory or Lab being interchangeable is silly.
Scottish politics is dominated by the Independence debate. Its extremely unhealthy, leads to the neglect of various priorities and is deeply frustrating but it is what it is.
It is the most important political event in Scotland David so hardly surprising. Neglect and obstruction by Westminster and removal of the few powers we had are our main problems. We will never prosper whilst our bullying large neighbour controls our money and our economy.
We have control of schools but have had the uncorrected disaster of Curriculum for Excellence resulting in our falling down the Pisa tables because the government is scared of taking on the EIS and making teachers accountable for their results.
We have control of our police and the total embarrassment of Police Scotland and a police force that seems ever more focused on politics rather than actual crime prevention.
We have control of our criminal justice system. Its a disgrace, constantly fiddling with new crimes to make political points, trying to tip the playing field in favour of complainers because the rape conviction rate is deemed not high enough and letting psychopaths out of overcrowded prisons because some boxes have been ticked.
We have control of our University sector. We are now in serious danger of real damage to our leading 3 Universities because of a dishonest system which involved Scottish students getting fewer and fewer places whilst being subsidised by the English students paying 5x as much for the same course.
The sad truth is that the opposition both Tory and Labour are not really addressing these issues either. Instead we have election after election dominated by the sterile debate of independence and Scotland's urgent problems remain neglected or an after thought.
It is of course an irony that the cumulative damage done by this neglect pushes Scotland further and further from being a viable country.
Actually in none of those polls is Yes over 50% and in 4 Yes is doing no better or even worse than the 45% it got in 2014
phew saved by our resident Scottish expert part time tank commander
HYUFD ready to power up the A68 at the first sign of referendal stirrings.
Is that Johnson’s new ground transport to help project the UK global image and to match his plane?
It's the ARTEC Boxer and is just your bog standard story of British defence procurement. The Army decided the future of battlefield mobility was 30 ton 8x8s and joined the Boxer program with France, Germany and the Netherlands in 1998. The British bailed in 2003, pissed around with various other projects that came to nothing for 14 years then rejoined (no laughing at the back) in 2017. Some may actually be delivered in time for the program' silver jubilee in 2023.
When was the last time the UK had a competent defence minister? The 1950s?
Its actually got better in some areas - the usual suspects have been told to go do one on their plans to "customise" equipment bought from abroad, on a number of contracts. Such as the sub hunting planes...
I had a chap I know who works for BAe rants about how, since the F35 aircraft are completely compatible with other nations, he will loose stuff to sell.
The reason is this - because of the common software/hardware and shared software updates, every time any nation in the program gets a new weapon or piece of equipment cleared to work on the F35B, the UK gets the update automatically. No need for a nice little contract to update things. But it gets worse...
The US Marine Corps is planning on flying a lot from UK carriers. This means that their weapons will be brought on board.
Some of which are of interest to the UK, to buy.
So the weapons will be on board, and the Marine Corps trained instructors on those weapons will be on hand.
And they will work on the UK aircraft.
So, if the UK decides to buy one of them, no big integration contract, no big training contract....
I told you a few months ago, they are going to do some creative re-branding.
Interestingly, that article (mainly) doesn't argue that balancing the books isn't important: it just says it should be done with tax rises rather than spending cuts.
Which is hardly unsurprising in the New Statesman.
The point is that all spending has to be paid for, eventually.
Government spending is always paid for. It’d paid for at the time it’s spent! Either the government uses taxes, or it prints money (OK, actually they borrow it from the BoE who magic it out of thin air in exchange for a debt they hold on their books, but the effect is the same.)
The real question is the state of the labour market & inflationary environment. If the labour market is slack & the money markets are deflationary then the government should spend, spend, spend!
Keynes was right, as always.
(It’s handy to keep the "debt" around as an excuse to raise taxes in the future in order to suck money out of an inflationary economy, but all these things are convenient fictions: the BoE can just hold on to the debt indefinitely if necessary.)
That's a remarkably relaxed attitude to public financing.
There's a certain level of debt (as a % of the economy) that can be sustained indefinitely, but it's not unlimited: that's why Osborne tried so hard to eliminate the deficit from 2010-2016. So our debt as % GDP didn't constantly grow. So it would peak, and then decline. And, we still have to pay interest on that debt - it won't have escaped your attention that we spend £40bn+ a year on interest - almost as much as Defence - and it requires regular re-financing through new bonds.
In other words, it needs to be both under control and sustainable within the medium-long-term capability of the economy.
Keynes would have understood this.
Yes, I agree that Osborne completely misunderstood how the economy actually functions and crippled the UK’s recovery as a result.
& it’s not a relaxed attitude to government spending. When the labour market is tight, government spending should be the minimum necessary to provide the services the government wishes to provide.
If Osborne crippled the economy why did the UK grow faster than the Eurozone in the past decade?
The Labour market has been at full employment for most of the past decade.
The euro-zone was crippled by the Euro & the restrictions placed on governments by the Bundesbank, sorry, the ECB.
The UK labour market has been "full", but the majority of jobs added were minimum-wage & very low-productivity. To take one tiny example: you can employ people to wash cars, or you can invest in a mechanised car wash & employ the same people to do something more productive (like build schools say, if you need more school buildings, but whatever...) elsewhere. Which would be better for the economy? The latter obviously. Yet the UK is full of people washing cars & the mechanised car washes have gone out of business. Which tells you that wage pressure is completely absent.
In some ways the UK economy has gone backwards in the decade.
Right, right now we are getting somewhere.
So despite the UK growing faster than other developed nations for the past decade, despite the UK having full employment for most of the past decade you still want more spending as you think the government is better at getting growth than the free market. Is that it? So you just want spend, spend, spend in all circumstances.
I think that coming off a deflationary bust is a great time for a government to spend on infrastructure projects.
When the labour market is tight & wages are growing, well that’s a very different story.
The Labour market was tight in recent years. So where were the calls for reduced spending in recent years?
Don't hide being fake economics to justify extra spending when the reality was the opposite. The UK was at full employment, growing faster than our economic peers and still people like you claim spending was too low.
Thank goodness we had someone like Osborne in charge so the economy was fixed, the roof was fixed while the sun was shining so that now we have a real crisis (which there wasn't any at all for the past decade) the economy is in fighting shape with a deficit under control despite what was inherited. Now is the time to spend countercyclically, not in the past.
Rubbish: Real average weekly earning growth was negative for /six/ years after 2008, briefly went positive for a couple of years after that, then slumped back to 0% in 2017. 2019 was OK & then the coronavirus hit.
There was plenty of room for counter-cyclical expenditure in the years after 2008.
Rubbish. 2007/08 is a false floor because it was the peak of an economic boom just before the crash and after half a decade of governmental overspending. If - as you claim - you believe that governmental spending increases real wages, then surely you must also accept that governmental overspending before the correction in the period of 2002-2007/8 had inflated wages beyond where they should have been and which could not be afforded.
Is it your intention that we never have a correction, we just keep inflating wages forever?
Debt driven deflation is very, very bad for a modern credit money economy, so yes, that is what we have to do. It’s not ideal, but you go to war with the monetary system you have not the one you want, etc etc.
Or perhaps you would have preferred a repeat of the 1930s?
We didn't have debt driven deflation though. We had inflation not deflation and a correction to the unsustainable spending from the disastrous Brown era.
In real terms there was a correction to wages but that had to happen because of the mess made of the finances by the prior disastrous government spending out of control during the growth period. Keynes famously observed that wages were "sticky downwards" and by having a few years where wages were frozen or growing slower than inflation the economy was able to be restored without a greater catastrophe.
Agreed; we didn’t have debt-deflation, because the BoE is not insane & nor was the government. But the realignment of the economy that we saw was around low-productivity service jobs, many of which are only viable thanks to government subsidies in the form of in-work benefits. We could have done so much better.
The government could have invested in training & infrastructure projects, but deliberately chose not to do so at a time when borrowing costs were the lowest they had been in a century. Pension funds everywhere were falling over themselves to lend money to the government at almost any rates offered. Honestly, I still don’t really understand why the government didn’t take the hint, but there it is.
But but but yesterday ydoethur was after telling us that the shift to Yes was mythical and all MoE stuff and that Britannia would rule over Caledonia for a thousand years. Or something like that.
Now they imagine Scottish Tories will vote Labour , barking
Even if there is a significant SCon to SLab swing, it is actually a far less efficient use of the Unionist vote in Scotland.
If you simply switch the SLab and SCon percentage vote from last year (18.6% and 25.1% respectively) then these two parties actually end up with two fewer MPs (2 SLab + 3 SCon = 5; compared with current 1SLab + 6 SCon = 7).
There is of course the question of what happens to the 9.5% the SLDs got last year. I haven’t a scoobie, but I’m open to suggestions.
Strongly Unionist voters would probably be well-advised sticking with the SCons, but I’m sure SLab will do their utmost to muddy the waters and lure a significant chunk to waste their votes on them instead.
That's simplistic Stuart. In the north east, the borders and rural areas it makes sense to vote Tory. In Glasgow, where there is a whole crop of low hanging fruit just out of SLAB's grasp it doesn't. Voting Labour was deeply problematic with Corbyn in charge and beyond most Tory's comfort zone. They may not have the same problem with Sir Kneel.
Of course the 3 way split of the Unionist vote helps the SNP enormously. Unionists need to think about the efficiency of their votes.
Surely it depends how important unionism is as an issue.
Some people might be willing to vote No in a referendum but not care that much elsewhere in which case the notion of Tory or Lab being interchangeable is silly.
Scottish politics is dominated by the Independence debate. Its extremely unhealthy, leads to the neglect of various priorities and is deeply frustrating but it is what it is.
It is the most important political event in Scotland David so hardly surprising. Neglect and obstruction by Westminster and removal of the few powers we had are our main problems. We will never prosper whilst our bullying large neighbour controls our money and our economy.
We have control of schools but have had the uncorrected disaster of Curriculum for Excellence resulting in our falling down the Pisa tables because the government is scared of taking on the EIS and making teachers accountable for their results.
We have control of our police and the total embarrassment of Police Scotland and a police force that seems ever more focused on politics rather than actual crime prevention.
We have control of our criminal justice system. Its a disgrace, constantly fiddling with new crimes to make political points, trying to tip the playing field in favour of complainers because the rape conviction rate is deemed not high enough and letting psychopaths out of overcrowded prisons because some boxes have been ticked.
We have control of our University sector. We are now in serious danger of real damage to our leading 3 Universities because of a dishonest system which involved Scottish students getting fewer and fewer places whilst being subsidised by the English students paying 5x as much for the same course.
The sad truth is that the opposition both Tory and Labour are not really addressing these issues either. Instead we have election after election dominated by the sterile debate of independence and Scotland's urgent problems remain neglected or an after thought.
It is of course an irony that the cumulative damage done by this neglect pushes Scotland further and further from being a viable country.
How do you see that ever ending without independence?
It is part of the reason why I support Scottish independence. To excise that issue from your body politic and give Scottish politicians nowhere to hide.
Given Scotland will always by definition be a minority of the UK I don't see any other plausible way for that to end now its been stirred.
I told you a few months ago, they are going to do some creative re-branding.
Interestingly, that article (mainly) doesn't argue that balancing the books isn't important: it just says it should be done with tax rises rather than spending cuts.
Which is hardly unsurprising in the New Statesman.
The point is that all spending has to be paid for, eventually.
Government spending is always paid for. It’d paid for at the time it’s spent! Either the government uses taxes, or it prints money (OK, actually they borrow it from the BoE who magic it out of thin air in exchange for a debt they hold on their books, but the effect is the same.)
The real question is the state of the labour market & inflationary environment. If the labour market is slack & the money markets are deflationary then the government should spend, spend, spend!
Keynes was right, as always.
(It’s handy to keep the "debt" around as an excuse to raise taxes in the future in order to suck money out of an inflationary economy, but all these things are convenient fictions: the BoE can just hold on to the debt indefinitely if necessary.)
That's a remarkably relaxed attitude to public financing.
There's a certain level of debt (as a % of the economy) that can be sustained indefinitely, but it's not unlimited: that's why Osborne tried so hard to eliminate the deficit from 2010-2016. So our debt as % GDP didn't constantly grow. So it would peak, and then decline. And, we still have to pay interest on that debt - it won't have escaped your attention that we spend £40bn+ a year on interest - almost as much as Defence - and it requires regular re-financing through new bonds.
In other words, it needs to be both under control and sustainable within the medium-long-term capability of the economy.
Keynes would have understood this.
Yes, I agree that Osborne completely misunderstood how the economy actually functions and crippled the UK’s recovery as a result.
& it’s not a relaxed attitude to government spending. When the labour market is tight, government spending should be the minimum necessary to provide the services the government wishes to provide.
If Osborne crippled the economy why did the UK grow faster than the Eurozone in the past decade?
The Labour market has been at full employment for most of the past decade.
The euro-zone was crippled by the Euro & the restrictions placed on governments by the Bundesbank, sorry, the ECB.
The UK labour market has been "full", but the majority of jobs added were minimum-wage & very low-productivity. To take one tiny example: you can employ people to wash cars, or you can invest in a mechanised car wash & employ the same people to do something more productive (like build schools say, if you need more school buildings, but whatever...) elsewhere. Which would be better for the economy? The latter obviously. Yet the UK is full of people washing cars & the mechanised car washes have gone out of business. Which tells you that wage pressure is completely absent.
In some ways the UK economy has gone backwards in the decade.
Right, right now we are getting somewhere.
So despite the UK growing faster than other developed nations for the past decade, despite the UK having full employment for most of the past decade you still want more spending as you think the government is better at getting growth than the free market. Is that it? So you just want spend, spend, spend in all circumstances.
I think that coming off a deflationary bust is a great time for a government to spend on infrastructure projects.
When the labour market is tight & wages are growing, well that’s a very different story.
The Labour market was tight in recent years. So where were the calls for reduced spending in recent years?
Don't hide being fake economics to justify extra spending when the reality was the opposite. The UK was at full employment, growing faster than our economic peers and still people like you claim spending was too low.
Thank goodness we had someone like Osborne in charge so the economy was fixed, the roof was fixed while the sun was shining so that now we have a real crisis (which there wasn't any at all for the past decade) the economy is in fighting shape with a deficit under control despite what was inherited. Now is the time to spend countercyclically, not in the past.
Rubbish: Real average weekly earning growth was negative for /six/ years after 2008, briefly went positive for a couple of years after that, then slumped back to 0% in 2017. 2019 was OK & then the coronavirus hit.
There was plenty of room for counter-cyclical expenditure in the years after 2008.
Rubbish. 2007/08 is a false floor because it was the peak of an economic boom just before the crash and after half a decade of governmental overspending. If - as you claim - you believe that governmental spending increases real wages, then surely you must also accept that governmental overspending before the correction in the period of 2002-2007/8 had inflated wages beyond where they should have been and which could not be afforded.
Is it your intention that we never have a correction, we just keep inflating wages forever?
Debt driven deflation is very, very bad for a modern credit money economy, so yes, that is what we have to do. It’s not ideal, but you go to war with the monetary system you have not the one you want, etc etc.
Or perhaps you would have preferred a repeat of the 1930s?
We didn't have debt driven deflation though. We had inflation not deflation and a correction to the unsustainable spending from the disastrous Brown era.
In real terms there was a correction to wages but that had to happen because of the mess made of the finances by the prior disastrous government spending out of control during the growth period. Keynes famously observed that wages were "sticky downwards" and by having a few years where wages were frozen or growing slower than inflation the economy was able to be restored without a greater catastrophe.
Agreed; we didn’t have debt-deflation, because the BoE is not insane & nor was the government. But the realignment of the economy that we saw was around low-productivity service jobs, many of which are only viable thanks to government subsidies in the form of in-work benefits. We could have done so much better.
The government could have invested in training & infrastructure projects, but deliberately chose not to do so at a time when borrowing costs were the lowest they had been in a century. Pension funds everywhere were falling over themselves to lend money to the government at almost any rates offered. Honestly, I still don’t really understand why the government didn’t take the hint, but there it is.
The government couldn't afford it. We needed to get the deficit under control after years of "investment" from Brown.
The government serves the people. The CS serves the government.
No
Government is the 'what'
CS is the 'how', which must, at times, include "can't be done"
The public sector uses the word "impossible" way too often.
It should have done so ahead of Iraq & Afghanistan but said "possible".
In what respect? If you mean legality, then that's a fair point.
If you mean in terms of achieving a goal, well that's much harder to do. I think Afghanistan in particular was a waste of time and lives, but it was certainly possible "to do something".
Afghanistan was clearly justified after 9/11 and we ousted the Taliban and the safe harbour for al'qaeda. Doing nothing after 9/11 was never possible.
But but but yesterday ydoethur was after telling us that the shift to Yes was mythical and all MoE stuff and that Britannia would rule over Caledonia for a thousand years. Or something like that.
Now they imagine Scottish Tories will vote Labour , barking
Even if there is a significant SCon to SLab swing, it is actually a far less efficient use of the Unionist vote in Scotland.
If you simply switch the SLab and SCon percentage vote from last year (18.6% and 25.1% respectively) then these two parties actually end up with two fewer MPs (2 SLab + 3 SCon = 5; compared with current 1SLab + 6 SCon = 7).
There is of course the question of what happens to the 9.5% the SLDs got last year. I haven’t a scoobie, but I’m open to suggestions.
Strongly Unionist voters would probably be well-advised sticking with the SCons, but I’m sure SLab will do their utmost to muddy the waters and lure a significant chunk to waste their votes on them instead.
That's simplistic Stuart. In the north east, the borders and rural areas it makes sense to vote Tory. In Glasgow, where there is a whole crop of low hanging fruit just out of SLAB's grasp it doesn't. Voting Labour was deeply problematic with Corbyn in charge and beyond most Tory's comfort zone. They may not have the same problem with Sir Kneel.
Of course the 3 way split of the Unionist vote helps the SNP enormously. Unionists need to think about the efficiency of their votes.
Surely it depends how important unionism is as an issue.
Some people might be willing to vote No in a referendum but not care that much elsewhere in which case the notion of Tory or Lab being interchangeable is silly.
Scottish politics is dominated by the Independence debate. Its extremely unhealthy, leads to the neglect of various priorities and is deeply frustrating but it is what it is.
It is the most important political event in Scotland David so hardly surprising. Neglect and obstruction by Westminster and removal of the few powers we had are our main problems. We will never prosper whilst our bullying large neighbour controls our money and our economy.
We have control of schools but have had the uncorrected disaster of Curriculum for Excellence resulting in our falling down the Pisa tables because the government is scared of taking on the EIS and making teachers accountable for their results.
We have control of our police and the total embarrassment of Police Scotland and a police force that seems ever more focused on politics rather than actual crime prevention.
We have control of our criminal justice system. Its a disgrace, constantly fiddling with new crimes to make political points, trying to tip the playing field in favour of complainers because the rape conviction rate is deemed not high enough and letting psychopaths out of overcrowded prisons because some boxes have been ticked.
We have control of our University sector. We are now in serious danger of real damage to our leading 3 Universities because of a dishonest system which involved Scottish students getting fewer and fewer places whilst being subsidised by the English students paying 5x as much for the same course.
The sad truth is that the opposition both Tory and Labour are not really addressing these issues either. Instead we have election after election dominated by the sterile debate of independence and Scotland's urgent problems remain neglected or an after thought.
It is of course an irony that the cumulative damage done by this neglect pushes Scotland further and further from being a viable country.
How do you see that ever ending without independence?
It is part of the reason why I support Scottish independence. To excise that issue from your body politic and give Scottish politicians nowhere to hide.
Given Scotland will always by definition be a minority of the UK I don't see any other plausible way for that to end now its been stirred.
I fear we are going to have to go through another referendum with yet more damage to our tax base (so many companies went south in the period before and after 2014) and our economy. When Independence loses again we will hopefully have an administration and opposition that actually wants to pay attention to the knitting.
The once in a generation referendum resolved nothing ultimately. I suppose you have to be sanguine about a second referendum doing any better but I don't see an alternative.
The government serves the people. The CS serves the government.
No
Government is the 'what'
CS is the 'how', which must, at times, include "can't be done"
The public sector uses the word "impossible" way too often.
It should have done so ahead of Iraq & Afghanistan but said "possible".
In what respect? If you mean legality, then that's a fair point.
If you mean in terms of achieving a goal, well that's much harder to do. I think Afghanistan in particular was a waste of time and lives, but it was certainly possible "to do something".
Afghanistan was clearly justified after 9/11 and we ousted the Taliban and the safe harbour for al'qaeda. Doing nothing after 9/11 was never possible.
I was thinking more about what happened after that. It became about fighting the Taliban rather than the terrorists.
But but but yesterday ydoethur was after telling us that the shift to Yes was mythical and all MoE stuff and that Britannia would rule over Caledonia for a thousand years. Or something like that.
Now they imagine Scottish Tories will vote Labour , barking
Even if there is a significant SCon to SLab swing, it is actually a far less efficient use of the Unionist vote in Scotland.
If you simply switch the SLab and SCon percentage vote from last year (18.6% and 25.1% respectively) then these two parties actually end up with two fewer MPs (2 SLab + 3 SCon = 5; compared with current 1SLab + 6 SCon = 7).
There is of course the question of what happens to the 9.5% the SLDs got last year. I haven’t a scoobie, but I’m open to suggestions.
Strongly Unionist voters would probably be well-advised sticking with the SCons, but I’m sure SLab will do their utmost to muddy the waters and lure a significant chunk to waste their votes on them instead.
That's simplistic Stuart. In the north east, the borders and rural areas it makes sense to vote Tory. In Glasgow, where there is a whole crop of low hanging fruit just out of SLAB's grasp it doesn't. Voting Labour was deeply problematic with Corbyn in charge and beyond most Tory's comfort zone. They may not have the same problem with Sir Kneel.
Of course the 3 way split of the Unionist vote helps the SNP enormously. Unionists need to think about the efficiency of their votes.
Surely it depends how important unionism is as an issue.
Some people might be willing to vote No in a referendum but not care that much elsewhere in which case the notion of Tory or Lab being interchangeable is silly.
Scottish politics is dominated by the Independence debate. Its extremely unhealthy, leads to the neglect of various priorities and is deeply frustrating but it is what it is.
It is the most important political event in Scotland David so hardly surprising. Neglect and obstruction by Westminster and removal of the few powers we had are our main problems. We will never prosper whilst our bullying large neighbour controls our money and our economy.
We have control of schools but have had the uncorrected disaster of Curriculum for Excellence resulting in our falling down the Pisa tables because the government is scared of taking on the EIS and making teachers accountable for their results.
We have control of our police and the total embarrassment of Police Scotland and a police force that seems ever more focused on politics rather than actual crime prevention.
We have control of our criminal justice system. Its a disgrace, constantly fiddling with new crimes to make political points, trying to tip the playing field in favour of complainers because the rape conviction rate is deemed not high enough and letting psychopaths out of overcrowded prisons because some boxes have been ticked.
We have control of our University sector. We are now in serious danger of real damage to our leading 3 Universities because of a dishonest system which involved Scottish students getting fewer and fewer places whilst being subsidised by the English students paying 5x as much for the same course.
The sad truth is that the opposition both Tory and Labour are not really addressing these issues either. Instead we have election after election dominated by the sterile debate of independence and Scotland's urgent problems remain neglected or an after thought.
It is of course an irony that the cumulative damage done by this neglect pushes Scotland further and further from being a viable country.
How do you see that ever ending without independence?
It is part of the reason why I support Scottish independence. To excise that issue from your body politic and give Scottish politicians nowhere to hide.
Given Scotland will always by definition be a minority of the UK I don't see any other plausible way for that to end now its been stirred.
I fear we are going to have to go through another referendum with yet more damage to our tax base (so many companies went south in the period before and after 2014) and our economy. When Independence loses again we will hopefully have an administration and opposition that actually wants to pay attention to the knitting.
The once in a generation referendum resolved nothing ultimately. I suppose you have to be sanguine about a second referendum doing any better but I don't see an alternative.
Regretfully your referendum didn't resolve anything because it gave the wrong answer.
The question of the UK's membership of the EU has been resolved. Its taking years to get through that to the other side, but the question has been answered. Your one hasn't.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
Starmer has the right approach. What he needs to do now is persuade everyone around him to also stop talking about culture issues.
Every time some lefty is on the TV screaming about trans rights or aslylum seekers, or how all white people are racist, another handful of votes move to the blue column.
The reason is this - because of the common software/hardware and shared software updates, every time any nation in the program gets a new weapon or piece of equipment cleared to work on the F35B, the UK gets the update automatically. No need for a nice little contract to update things. But it gets worse...
The UK are forking some of the F-35 software before Block 4 to get UK specific weapons (MDBA Spear and Meteor) integration. It's one of the reasons the program budget has over run 15% from 2017 to 2020. Only a billion and half. Chuck it on the tab.
It has an eerie echo of the infamous Change Proposal 193 on Block 5 Typhoon to get austere A2G capability ahead of the other Eurofighter partners - who didn't care about that capability at the time. There was no feasible or cost effective upgrade path from the RAF Block 5 back into the main software development effort which is at Block 8 so 53 Typhoons are at developmental dead end. 16 have already been scrapped. Only 300m quid each. Fuck it.
Punch Line: The Typhoon deployment to Afghanistan never happened anyway.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
Starmer has the right approach. What he needs to do now is persuade everyone around him to also stop talking about culture issues.
Every time some lefty is on the TV screaming about trans rights or aslylum seekers, another handful of votes move to the blue column.
Starmer seems to have managed to remove himself from the debate and this is why I think he outpolls Labour quite considerably.
He obviously can't control the nutters at Novara or whatever else (and I think in time as they start attacking him more than divide will become clear) but he can control his own MPs, particularly backbenchers.
But but but yesterday ydoethur was after telling us that the shift to Yes was mythical and all MoE stuff and that Britannia would rule over Caledonia for a thousand years. Or something like that.
Now they imagine Scottish Tories will vote Labour , barking
Even if there is a significant SCon to SLab swing, it is actually a far less efficient use of the Unionist vote in Scotland.
If you simply switch the SLab and SCon percentage vote from last year (18.6% and 25.1% respectively) then these two parties actually end up with two fewer MPs (2 SLab + 3 SCon = 5; compared with current 1SLab + 6 SCon = 7).
There is of course the question of what happens to the 9.5% the SLDs got last year. I haven’t a scoobie, but I’m open to suggestions.
Strongly Unionist voters would probably be well-advised sticking with the SCons, but I’m sure SLab will do their utmost to muddy the waters and lure a significant chunk to waste their votes on them instead.
That's simplistic Stuart. In the north east, the borders and rural areas it makes sense to vote Tory. In Glasgow, where there is a whole crop of low hanging fruit just out of SLAB's grasp it doesn't. Voting Labour was deeply problematic with Corbyn in charge and beyond most Tory's comfort zone. They may not have the same problem with Sir Kneel.
Of course the 3 way split of the Unionist vote helps the SNP enormously. Unionists need to think about the efficiency of their votes.
Surely it depends how important unionism is as an issue.
Some people might be willing to vote No in a referendum but not care that much elsewhere in which case the notion of Tory or Lab being interchangeable is silly.
Scottish politics is dominated by the Independence debate. Its extremely unhealthy, leads to the neglect of various priorities and is deeply frustrating but it is what it is.
It is the most important political event in Scotland David so hardly surprising. Neglect and obstruction by Westminster and removal of the few powers we had are our main problems. We will never prosper whilst our bullying large neighbour controls our money and our economy.
We have control of schools but have had the uncorrected disaster of Curriculum for Excellence resulting in our falling down the Pisa tables because the government is scared of taking on the EIS and making teachers accountable for their results.
We have control of our police and the total embarrassment of Police Scotland and a police force that seems ever more focused on politics rather than actual crime prevention.
We have control of our criminal justice system. Its a disgrace, constantly fiddling with new crimes to make political points, trying to tip the playing field in favour of complainers because the rape conviction rate is deemed not high enough and letting psychopaths out of overcrowded prisons because some boxes have been ticked.
We have control of our University sector. We are now in serious danger of real damage to our leading 3 Universities because of a dishonest system which involved Scottish students getting fewer and fewer places whilst being subsidised by the English students paying 5x as much for the same course.
The sad truth is that the opposition both Tory and Labour are not really addressing these issues either. Instead we have election after election dominated by the sterile debate of independence and Scotland's urgent problems remain neglected or an after thought.
It is of course an irony that the cumulative damage done by this neglect pushes Scotland further and further from being a viable country.
How do you see that ever ending without independence?
It is part of the reason why I support Scottish independence. To excise that issue from your body politic and give Scottish politicians nowhere to hide.
Given Scotland will always by definition be a minority of the UK I don't see any other plausible way for that to end now its been stirred.
I fear we are going to have to go through another referendum with yet more damage to our tax base (so many companies went south in the period before and after 2014) and our economy. When Independence loses again we will hopefully have an administration and opposition that actually wants to pay attention to the knitting.
The once in a generation referendum resolved nothing ultimately. I suppose you have to be sanguine about a second referendum doing any better but I don't see an alternative.
It has been going on for generations and I hope indy 2 comes along and am confident nothing will change, other than when they lose they will pop up again in due time to fight the battle once more.
Until the Scots finally vote for parties that look to governing Scotland and not trumpet independence in every First Ministers word or deed it will be ever thus
The 2 handle on betfair has gone - out to 3 now - but this rumour is probably nonsense and I hope it is. I will feel cheated if Trump does not run and dodges his (now inevitable) humiliation at the polls. Bets will pay out - which is great - but Nov 3rd will lose its magic. I also think a resounding rejection by the voters of him and everything he stands for - which is nothing - is needed. He should leave as he came in.
You are far too emotionally involved.
Divorce it from your betting.
I do that better than most - but of course it is impossible to eliminate completely when you feel as strongly about something as I do about Trump. You couldn't either, don't kid yourself.
And (as explained before) my "bias" here runs opposite to how you're looking at it. I so hate the prospect of him winning that the innate pessimist in me searches furiously for ways it can happen. In betting terms I am thus a natural Trump backer.
Despite this, my reading and perception of the situation led me months ago to conclude he was toast for WH2020. I was saying that he would lose - and furthermore it would NOT be close - when he was the odds on fav.
My view is now becoming the consensus but I hope you followed my posts and advice and are also sitting pretty bettingwise.
But but but yesterday ydoethur was after telling us that the shift to Yes was mythical and all MoE stuff and that Britannia would rule over Caledonia for a thousand years. Or something like that.
Now they imagine Scottish Tories will vote Labour , barking
Even if there is a significant SCon to SLab swing, it is actually a far less efficient use of the Unionist vote in Scotland.
If you simply switch the SLab and SCon percentage vote from last year (18.6% and 25.1% respectively) then these two parties actually end up with two fewer MPs (2 SLab + 3 SCon = 5; compared with current 1SLab + 6 SCon = 7).
There is of course the question of what happens to the 9.5% the SLDs got last year. I haven’t a scoobie, but I’m open to suggestions.
Strongly Unionist voters would probably be well-advised sticking with the SCons, but I’m sure SLab will do their utmost to muddy the waters and lure a significant chunk to waste their votes on them instead.
That's simplistic Stuart. In the north east, the borders and rural areas it makes sense to vote Tory. In Glasgow, where there is a whole crop of low hanging fruit just out of SLAB's grasp it doesn't. Voting Labour was deeply problematic with Corbyn in charge and beyond most Tory's comfort zone. They may not have the same problem with Sir Kneel.
Of course the 3 way split of the Unionist vote helps the SNP enormously. Unionists need to think about the efficiency of their votes.
Surely it depends how important unionism is as an issue.
Some people might be willing to vote No in a referendum but not care that much elsewhere in which case the notion of Tory or Lab being interchangeable is silly.
Scottish politics is dominated by the Independence debate. Its extremely unhealthy, leads to the neglect of various priorities and is deeply frustrating but it is what it is.
It is the most important political event in Scotland David so hardly surprising. Neglect and obstruction by Westminster and removal of the few powers we had are our main problems. We will never prosper whilst our bullying large neighbour controls our money and our economy.
We have control of schools but have had the uncorrected disaster of Curriculum for Excellence resulting in our falling down the Pisa tables because the government is scared of taking on the EIS and making teachers accountable for their results.
We have control of our police and the total embarrassment of Police Scotland and a police force that seems ever more focused on politics rather than actual crime prevention.
We have control of our criminal justice system. Its a disgrace, constantly fiddling with new crimes to make political points, trying to tip the playing field in favour of complainers because the rape conviction rate is deemed not high enough and letting psychopaths out of overcrowded prisons because some boxes have been ticked.
We have control of our University sector. We are now in serious danger of real damage to our leading 3 Universities because of a dishonest system which involved Scottish students getting fewer and fewer places whilst being subsidised by the English students paying 5x as much for the same course.
The sad truth is that the opposition both Tory and Labour are not really addressing these issues either. Instead we have election after election dominated by the sterile debate of independence and Scotland's urgent problems remain neglected or an after thought.
It is of course an irony that the cumulative damage done by this neglect pushes Scotland further and further from being a viable country.
How do you see that ever ending without independence?
It is part of the reason why I support Scottish independence. To excise that issue from your body politic and give Scottish politicians nowhere to hide.
Given Scotland will always by definition be a minority of the UK I don't see any other plausible way for that to end now its been stirred.
I fear we are going to have to go through another referendum with yet more damage to our tax base (so many companies went south in the period before and after 2014) and our economy. When Independence loses again we will hopefully have an administration and opposition that actually wants to pay attention to the knitting.
The once in a generation referendum resolved nothing ultimately. I suppose you have to be sanguine about a second referendum doing any better but I don't see an alternative.
It has been going on for generations and I hope indy 2 comes along and am confident nothing will change, other than when they lose they will pop up again in due time to fight the battle once more.
Until the Scots finally vote for parties that look to governing Scotland and not trumpet independence in every First Ministers word or deed it will be ever thus
Or until they vote for independence.
They either need to vote for independence or for parties that aren't banging on about it.
The 2 handle on betfair has gone - out to 3 now - but this rumour is probably nonsense and I hope it is. I will feel cheated if Trump does not run and dodges his (now inevitable) humiliation at the polls. Bets will pay out - which is great - but Nov 3rd will lose its magic. I also think a resounding rejection by the voters of him and everything he stands for - which is nothing - is needed. He should leave as he came in.
But but but yesterday ydoethur was after telling us that the shift to Yes was mythical and all MoE stuff and that Britannia would rule over Caledonia for a thousand years. Or something like that.
Now they imagine Scottish Tories will vote Labour , barking
Even if there is a significant SCon to SLab swing, it is actually a far less efficient use of the Unionist vote in Scotland.
If you simply switch the SLab and SCon percentage vote from last year (18.6% and 25.1% respectively) then these two parties actually end up with two fewer MPs (2 SLab + 3 SCon = 5; compared with current 1SLab + 6 SCon = 7).
There is of course the question of what happens to the 9.5% the SLDs got last year. I haven’t a scoobie, but I’m open to suggestions.
Strongly Unionist voters would probably be well-advised sticking with the SCons, but I’m sure SLab will do their utmost to muddy the waters and lure a significant chunk to waste their votes on them instead.
That's simplistic Stuart. In the north east, the borders and rural areas it makes sense to vote Tory. In Glasgow, where there is a whole crop of low hanging fruit just out of SLAB's grasp it doesn't. Voting Labour was deeply problematic with Corbyn in charge and beyond most Tory's comfort zone. They may not have the same problem with Sir Kneel.
Of course the 3 way split of the Unionist vote helps the SNP enormously. Unionists need to think about the efficiency of their votes.
Surely it depends how important unionism is as an issue.
Some people might be willing to vote No in a referendum but not care that much elsewhere in which case the notion of Tory or Lab being interchangeable is silly.
Scottish politics is dominated by the Independence debate. Its extremely unhealthy, leads to the neglect of various priorities and is deeply frustrating but it is what it is.
It is the most important political event in Scotland David so hardly surprising. Neglect and obstruction by Westminster and removal of the few powers we had are our main problems. We will never prosper whilst our bullying large neighbour controls our money and our economy.
We have control of schools but have had the uncorrected disaster of Curriculum for Excellence resulting in our falling down the Pisa tables because the government is scared of taking on the EIS and making teachers accountable for their results.
We have control of our police and the total embarrassment of Police Scotland and a police force that seems ever more focused on politics rather than actual crime prevention.
We have control of our criminal justice system. Its a disgrace, constantly fiddling with new crimes to make political points, trying to tip the playing field in favour of complainers because the rape conviction rate is deemed not high enough and letting psychopaths out of overcrowded prisons because some boxes have been ticked.
We have control of our University sector. We are now in serious danger of real damage to our leading 3 Universities because of a dishonest system which involved Scottish students getting fewer and fewer places whilst being subsidised by the English students paying 5x as much for the same course.
The sad truth is that the opposition both Tory and Labour are not really addressing these issues either. Instead we have election after election dominated by the sterile debate of independence and Scotland's urgent problems remain neglected or an after thought.
It is of course an irony that the cumulative damage done by this neglect pushes Scotland further and further from being a viable country.
How do you see that ever ending without independence?
It is part of the reason why I support Scottish independence. To excise that issue from your body politic and give Scottish politicians nowhere to hide.
Given Scotland will always by definition be a minority of the UK I don't see any other plausible way for that to end now its been stirred.
I fear we are going to have to go through another referendum with yet more damage to our tax base (so many companies went south in the period before and after 2014) and our economy. When Independence loses again we will hopefully have an administration and opposition that actually wants to pay attention to the knitting.
The once in a generation referendum resolved nothing ultimately. I suppose you have to be sanguine about a second referendum doing any better but I don't see an alternative.
Regretfully your referendum didn't resolve anything because it gave the wrong answer.
The question of the UK's membership of the EU has been resolved. Its taking years to get through that to the other side, but the question has been answered. Your one hasn't.
If you consider yourself British, as it turned out a majority of Scots did, it gave the right answer but just as with Brexit those on the losing side won't accept the result because they know better.
Brexit is indicative of what is at stake here. Ultimately the budget of the EU was 1% of EU GDP. That is what we were arguing about, the petty cash. UK public spending is approximately 42% of the Scottish economy. We were in the EU for less than 50 years. We have been in a union with England for more than 300 years. Brexit, and all its aftermath, is going to seem like some minor disagreement in the pub compared with what Scottish independence would entail.
But but but yesterday ydoethur was after telling us that the shift to Yes was mythical and all MoE stuff and that Britannia would rule over Caledonia for a thousand years. Or something like that.
Now they imagine Scottish Tories will vote Labour , barking
Even if there is a significant SCon to SLab swing, it is actually a far less efficient use of the Unionist vote in Scotland.
If you simply switch the SLab and SCon percentage vote from last year (18.6% and 25.1% respectively) then these two parties actually end up with two fewer MPs (2 SLab + 3 SCon = 5; compared with current 1SLab + 6 SCon = 7).
There is of course the question of what happens to the 9.5% the SLDs got last year. I haven’t a scoobie, but I’m open to suggestions.
Strongly Unionist voters would probably be well-advised sticking with the SCons, but I’m sure SLab will do their utmost to muddy the waters and lure a significant chunk to waste their votes on them instead.
That's simplistic Stuart. In the north east, the borders and rural areas it makes sense to vote Tory. In Glasgow, where there is a whole crop of low hanging fruit just out of SLAB's grasp it doesn't. Voting Labour was deeply problematic with Corbyn in charge and beyond most Tory's comfort zone. They may not have the same problem with Sir Kneel.
Of course the 3 way split of the Unionist vote helps the SNP enormously. Unionists need to think about the efficiency of their votes.
Surely it depends how important unionism is as an issue.
Some people might be willing to vote No in a referendum but not care that much elsewhere in which case the notion of Tory or Lab being interchangeable is silly.
Scottish politics is dominated by the Independence debate. Its extremely unhealthy, leads to the neglect of various priorities and is deeply frustrating but it is what it is.
It is the most important political event in Scotland David so hardly surprising. Neglect and obstruction by Westminster and removal of the few powers we had are our main problems. We will never prosper whilst our bullying large neighbour controls our money and our economy.
We have control of schools but have had the uncorrected disaster of Curriculum for Excellence resulting in our falling down the Pisa tables because the government is scared of taking on the EIS and making teachers accountable for their results.
We have control of our police and the total embarrassment of Police Scotland and a police force that seems ever more focused on politics rather than actual crime prevention.
We have control of our criminal justice system. Its a disgrace, constantly fiddling with new crimes to make political points, trying to tip the playing field in favour of complainers because the rape conviction rate is deemed not high enough and letting psychopaths out of overcrowded prisons because some boxes have been ticked.
We have control of our University sector. We are now in serious danger of real damage to our leading 3 Universities because of a dishonest system which involved Scottish students getting fewer and fewer places whilst being subsidised by the English students paying 5x as much for the same course.
The sad truth is that the opposition both Tory and Labour are not really addressing these issues either. Instead we have election after election dominated by the sterile debate of independence and Scotland's urgent problems remain neglected or an after thought.
It is of course an irony that the cumulative damage done by this neglect pushes Scotland further and further from being a viable country.
How do you see that ever ending without independence?
It is part of the reason why I support Scottish independence. To excise that issue from your body politic and give Scottish politicians nowhere to hide.
Given Scotland will always by definition be a minority of the UK I don't see any other plausible way for that to end now its been stirred.
I fear we are going to have to go through another referendum with yet more damage to our tax base (so many companies went south in the period before and after 2014) and our economy. When Independence loses again we will hopefully have an administration and opposition that actually wants to pay attention to the knitting.
The once in a generation referendum resolved nothing ultimately. I suppose you have to be sanguine about a second referendum doing any better but I don't see an alternative.
Regretfully your referendum didn't resolve anything because it gave the wrong answer.
The question of the UK's membership of the EU has been resolved. Its taking years to get through that to the other side, but the question has been answered. Your one hasn't.
If you consider yourself British, as it turned out a majority of Scots did, it gave the right answer but just as with Brexit those on the losing side won't accept the result because they know better.
Brexit is indicative of what is at stake here. Ultimately the budget of the EU was 1% of EU GDP. That is what we were arguing about, the petty cash. UK public spending is approximately 42% of the Scottish economy. We were in the EU for less than 50 years. We have been in a union with England for more than 300 years. Brexit, and all its aftermath, is going to seem like some minor disagreement in the pub compared with what Scottish independence would entail.
The Scots have given the wrong answer at least once.
Either they were wrong to vote No, or they were wrong to elect an SNP government.
They need to collectively either stop voting No, or stop voting SNP.
Nationalism is a poisonous disease that is based on prejudice and hatred, and it gradually infects the body politic of nations . The Scottish version is based on the poorly disguised hatred of English people, and the English version (Brexit) is based on the poorly disguised hatred of French and Germans.
This is undeniably true, and both sets of petty nationalists get really upset when anyone points this out.
Which is why Brexit is such a terrible idea.
I know, I know. But I've been pro-European getting together since I was about 18 and while I'm not averse to changing my mind I see no reason to do so on that topic.
The civil service reform is very the reason he was appointed, Johnson, Gove and Cummings have been planning this for years.
That's the problem. They have no plan.
They may have wanted to destroy the civil service for years, but there is no plan for what comes next.
Destroy the old and hope something emerges from the rubble.
They tried it at education.
Epic fuckup
The independent PISA rankings disagree with you. As do hundreds of thousands of parents and children that have benefited from free schools over the past decade - many of whom came from the lower socio-economic groups in inner city locations, and have gone on to graduate from top universities.
The time to make a real mark on Labour is when the EHRC investigation comes out. If RLB is anything to go by, Starmer is going to have a large cleanout.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
The Tories want a culture war. They need ongoing division in order to win. That's what Cummings is all about. However, Starmer will not give them one. The big question is whether he can bring the rest of the Labour party with him. My guess is that most Labour members and MPs will happily back him, but the ones who won't will make a lot of noise.
The civil service reform is very the reason he was appointed, Johnson, Gove and Cummings have been planning this for years.
That's the problem. They have no plan.
They may have wanted to destroy the civil service for years, but there is no plan for what comes next.
Destroy the old and hope something emerges from the rubble.
They tried it at education.
Epic fuckup
The independent PISA rankings disagree with you. As do hundreds of thousands of parents and children that have benefited from free schools over the past decade - many of whom came from the lower socio-economic groups in inner city locations, and have gone on to graduate from top universities.
Yes but we all know that only teachers and the teachers unions matter when it comes to schools, who cares about kids and their parents?!
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
But the left are wholly enthralled with the subject
A small minority of the left are obsessed with it. The majority - as you can see by Starmer's support base - are very much not.
I am not.
Reverse your statement and you are accurate
Provide evidence that the majority of the left are obsessed with it. You can't.
My evidence is Starmer winning a landslide in the Leadership Election and promising to take the party away from factionalism and culture wars.
Starmer literally got on his knees before the left-wing culture warriors and tweeted it out! Don't think he's going to be allowed to forget that in a hurry.
The time to make a real mark on Labour is when the EHRC investigation comes out. If RLB is anything to go by, Starmer is going to have a large cleanout.
land today apparently, published in a month. expect it to leak
But but but yesterday ydoethur was after telling us that the shift to Yes was mythical and all MoE stuff and that Britannia would rule over Caledonia for a thousand years. Or something like that.
Now they imagine Scottish Tories will vote Labour , barking
Even if there is a significant SCon to SLab swing, it is actually a far less efficient use of the Unionist vote in Scotland.
If you simply switch the SLab and SCon percentage vote from last year (18.6% and 25.1% respectively) then these two parties actually end up with two fewer MPs (2 SLab + 3 SCon = 5; compared with current 1SLab + 6 SCon = 7).
There is of course the question of what happens to the 9.5% the SLDs got last year. I haven’t a scoobie, but I’m open to suggestions.
Strongly Unionist voters would probably be well-advised sticking with the SCons, but I’m sure SLab will do their utmost to muddy the waters and lure a significant chunk to waste their votes on them instead.
That's simplistic Stuart. In the north east, the borders and rural areas it makes sense to vote Tory. In Glasgow, where there is a whole crop of low hanging fruit just out of SLAB's grasp it doesn't. Voting Labour was deeply problematic with Corbyn in charge and beyond most Tory's comfort zone. They may not have the same problem with Sir Kneel.
Of course the 3 way split of the Unionist vote helps the SNP enormously. Unionists need to think about the efficiency of their votes.
Surely it depends how important unionism is as an issue.
Some people might be willing to vote No in a referendum but not care that much elsewhere in which case the notion of Tory or Lab being interchangeable is silly.
Scottish politics is dominated by the Independence debate. Its extremely unhealthy, leads to the neglect of various priorities and is deeply frustrating but it is what it is.
It is the most important political event in Scotland David so hardly surprising. Neglect and obstruction by Westminster and removal of the few powers we had are our main problems. We will never prosper whilst our bullying large neighbour controls our money and our economy.
We have control of schools but have had the uncorrected disaster of Curriculum for Excellence resulting in our falling down the Pisa tables because the government is scared of taking on the EIS and making teachers accountable for their results.
We have control of our police and the total embarrassment of Police Scotland and a police force that seems ever more focused on politics rather than actual crime prevention.
We have control of our criminal justice system. Its a disgrace, constantly fiddling with new crimes to make political points, trying to tip the playing field in favour of complainers because the rape conviction rate is deemed not high enough and letting psychopaths out of overcrowded prisons because some boxes have been ticked.
We have control of our University sector. We are now in serious danger of real damage to our leading 3 Universities because of a dishonest system which involved Scottish students getting fewer and fewer places whilst being subsidised by the English students paying 5x as much for the same course.
The sad truth is that the opposition both Tory and Labour are not really addressing these issues either. Instead we have election after election dominated by the sterile debate of independence and Scotland's urgent problems remain neglected or an after thought.
It is of course an irony that the cumulative damage done by this neglect pushes Scotland further and further from being a viable country.
How do you see that ever ending without independence?
It is part of the reason why I support Scottish independence. To excise that issue from your body politic and give Scottish politicians nowhere to hide.
Given Scotland will always by definition be a minority of the UK I don't see any other plausible way for that to end now its been stirred.
I fear we are going to have to go through another referendum with yet more damage to our tax base (so many companies went south in the period before and after 2014) and our economy. When Independence loses again we will hopefully have an administration and opposition that actually wants to pay attention to the knitting.
The once in a generation referendum resolved nothing ultimately. I suppose you have to be sanguine about a second referendum doing any better but I don't see an alternative.
Regretfully your referendum didn't resolve anything because it gave the wrong answer.
The question of the UK's membership of the EU has been resolved. Its taking years to get through that to the other side, but the question has been answered. Your one hasn't.
If you consider yourself British, as it turned out a majority of Scots did, it gave the right answer but just as with Brexit those on the losing side won't accept the result because they know better.
Brexit is indicative of what is at stake here. Ultimately the budget of the EU was 1% of EU GDP. That is what we were arguing about, the petty cash. UK public spending is approximately 42% of the Scottish economy. We were in the EU for less than 50 years. We have been in a union with England for more than 300 years. Brexit, and all its aftermath, is going to seem like some minor disagreement in the pub compared with what Scottish independence would entail.
The Scots have given the wrong answer at least once.
Either they were wrong to vote No, or they were wrong to elect an SNP government.
They need to collectively either stop voting No, or stop voting SNP.
You maybe do not understand that the SNP attract many who support the union but like their policies ex independence. Indeed I would have voted SNP when I lived in Scotland but at the time labour was the only party on the left
However, voting for independence would have been a very resolute no for me and many current SNP voters
The civil service reform is very the reason he was appointed, Johnson, Gove and Cummings have been planning this for years.
That's the problem. They have no plan.
They may have wanted to destroy the civil service for years, but there is no plan for what comes next.
Destroy the old and hope something emerges from the rubble.
They tried it at education.
Epic fuckup
The independent PISA rankings disagree with you. As do hundreds of thousands of parents and children that have benefited from free schools over the past decade - many of whom came from the lower socio-economic groups in inner city locations, and have gone on to graduate from top universities.
The PISA rankings show not much change in the UK, but declines elsewhere, so the UK has moved up in the rankings (although there may be some small gains in Maths). They also find that British schoolchildren are among the unhappiest on the planet.
The time to make a real mark on Labour is when the EHRC investigation comes out. If RLB is anything to go by, Starmer is going to have a large cleanout.
And that is where the problem arises.
It is easy to sack a cabinet minister but retain the whip
If as expected the ECHR report is scathing and names individual mps Starmer will have no choice but to expel them from the labour party, possibly including some of the better known backbenchers
If that really does arise it will very definitely be his 'Kinnock' moment which I remember so vividly
Agreed; we didn’t have debt-deflation, because the BoE is not insane & nor was the government. But the realignment of the economy that we saw was around low-productivity service jobs, many of which are only viable thanks to government subsidies in the form of in-work benefits. We could have done so much better.
The government could have invested in training & infrastructure projects, but deliberately chose not to do so at a time when borrowing costs were the lowest they had been in a century. Pension funds everywhere were falling over themselves to lend money to the government at almost any rates offered. Honestly, I still don’t really understand why the government didn’t take the hint, but there it is.
The government couldn't afford it. We needed to get the deficit under control after years of "investment" from Brown.
The deficit was going to balloon anyway & the markets didn’t care, as demonstrated by the long term bond rates. So the short term expenditure is irrelevant: what matters is that people believe in the future of your economy.
Ergo, Osborne was right to hold his ground on day-to-day government expenditure, but we would have been in a far better position if he’d spent on infrastructure + training to match.
The UK unemployment rate from 2009-2013 was 8%, double that before the crisis. That’s millions of people on the dole who could have been doing useful work, or been in training for something worthwhile. Since then the unemployment rate has dropped back to 4-5%, but that’s been driven mostly by women going out to work in low wage service industry jobs. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Osborne’s economic policy, is it?
The civil service reform is very the reason he was appointed, Johnson, Gove and Cummings have been planning this for years.
That's the problem. They have no plan.
They may have wanted to destroy the civil service for years, but there is no plan for what comes next.
Destroy the old and hope something emerges from the rubble.
They tried it at education.
Epic fuckup
The independent PISA rankings disagree with you. As do hundreds of thousands of parents and children that have benefited from free schools over the past decade - many of whom came from the lower socio-economic groups in inner city locations, and have gone on to graduate from top universities.
Yes but we all know that only teachers and the teachers unions matter when it comes to schools, who cares about kids and their parents?!
"Schoolchildren in Britain are more likely to be miserable and less likely to think that their lives have meaning compared with children in other countries, according to an influential OECD survey that shows a slight improvement in the UK’s international education performance."
The reason is this - because of the common software/hardware and shared software updates, every time any nation in the program gets a new weapon or piece of equipment cleared to work on the F35B, the UK gets the update automatically. No need for a nice little contract to update things. But it gets worse...
The UK are forking some of the F-35 software before Block 4 to get UK specific weapons (MDBA Spear and Meteor) integration. It's one of the reasons the program budget has over run 15% from 2017 to 2020. Only a billion and half. Chuck it on the tab.
It has an eerie echo of the infamous Change Proposal 193 on Block 5 Typhoon to get austere A2G capability ahead of the other Eurofighter partners - who didn't care about that capability at the time. There was no feasible or cost effective upgrade path from the RAF Block 5 back into the main software development effort which is at Block 8 so 53 Typhoons are at developmental dead end. 16 have already been scrapped. Only 300m quid each. Fuck it.
Punch Line: The Typhoon deployment to Afghanistan never happened anyway.
The reason we are paying to integrate Meteor and Spear is that we are first.
The upside is that because of the common software, others can now buy the weapons and use them easily. Meteor has quite a lot of UK made stuff in it....
Meteor is serious requirement vs the latest Russian missiles. US stuffed up their long range replacement for AMRAAM too many times....
The time to make a real mark on Labour is when the EHRC investigation comes out. If RLB is anything to go by, Starmer is going to have a large cleanout.
And that is where the problem arises.
It is easy to sack a cabinet minister but retain the whip
If as expected the ECHR report is scathing and names individual mps Starmer will have no choice but to expel them from the labour party, possibly including some of the better known backbenchers
If that really does arise it will very definitely be his 'Kinnock' moment which I remember so vividly
You're showing your one-sidedness again and it's getting boring. Why does Johnson not get the same treatment from you?
The 2 handle on betfair has gone - out to 3 now - but this rumour is probably nonsense and I hope it is. I will feel cheated if Trump does not run and dodges his (now inevitable) humiliation at the polls. Bets will pay out - which is great - but Nov 3rd will lose its magic. I also think a resounding rejection by the voters of him and everything he stands for - which is nothing - is needed. He should leave as he came in.
You are far too emotionally involved.
Divorce it from your betting.
You couldn't either, don't kid yourself.
Yes, I could.
I have, and I do.
lol - ok mister machine.
Hope you did follow me on Trump anyway. And the GE for that matter. And on no Ref2. And never a No Deal Brexit. And ...
The time to make a real mark on Labour is when the EHRC investigation comes out. If RLB is anything to go by, Starmer is going to have a large cleanout.
And that is where the problem arises.
It is easy to sack a cabinet minister but retain the whip
If as expected the ECHR report is scathing and names individual mps Starmer will have no choice but to expel them from the labour party, possibly including some of the better known backbenchers
If that really does arise it will very definitely be his 'Kinnock' moment which I remember so vividly
The Tories allow a bloke who has called Africans picanninies with water melon smiles to retain the whip - even when he has also claimed they woud be better off ruled by Europeans. Every party has its racists, but at least Starmer seems intent on taking on the ones Labour is home to.
The time to make a real mark on Labour is when the EHRC investigation comes out. If RLB is anything to go by, Starmer is going to have a large cleanout.
And that is where the problem arises.
It is easy to sack a cabinet minister but retain the whip
If as expected the ECHR report is scathing and names individual mps Starmer will have no choice but to expel them from the labour party, possibly including some of the better known backbenchers
If that really does arise it will very definitely be his 'Kinnock' moment which I remember so vividly
You're showing your one-sidedness again and it's getting boring. Why does Johnson not get the same treatment from you?
Anyone care to guess ...? ...CanSino declined to disclose whether the innoculation of the vaccine candidate is mandatory or optional, citing commercial secrets...
The civil service reform is very the reason he was appointed, Johnson, Gove and Cummings have been planning this for years.
That's the problem. They have no plan.
They may have wanted to destroy the civil service for years, but there is no plan for what comes next.
Destroy the old and hope something emerges from the rubble.
They tried it at education.
Epic fuckup
The independent PISA rankings disagree with you. As do hundreds of thousands of parents and children that have benefited from free schools over the past decade - many of whom came from the lower socio-economic groups in inner city locations, and have gone on to graduate from top universities.
The PISA rankings show not much change in the UK, but declines elsewhere, so the UK has moved up in the rankings (although there may be some small gains in Maths). They also find that British schoolchildren are among the unhappiest on the planet.
Boris has not compared himself with Roosevelt. Gove made a speech in which he stated that we could learn things from the steps Roosevelt took in 1932, principally the willingness to innovate and experiment, to try different solutions and to try something else if the first idea didn't work. It's a interesting choice of a role model for a Tory government but it fits both the urgency of the situation post Covid and the radicalism of the leadership.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
The Tories want a culture war. They need ongoing division in order to win. That's what Cummings is all about. However, Starmer will not give them one. The big question is whether he can bring the rest of the Labour party with him. My guess is that most Labour members and MPs will happily back him, but the ones who won't will make a lot of noise.
If the Tories wanted a culture war, why is the *response* to the various culture issues of the day - trans, BLM etc so moderate, and polite?
But but but yesterday ydoethur was after telling us that the shift to Yes was mythical and all MoE stuff and that Britannia would rule over Caledonia for a thousand years. Or something like that.
Now they imagine Scottish Tories will vote Labour , barking
Even if there is a significant SCon to SLab swing, it is actually a far less efficient use of the Unionist vote in Scotland.
If you simply switch the SLab and SCon percentage vote from last year (18.6% and 25.1% respectively) then these two parties actually end up with two fewer MPs (2 SLab + 3 SCon = 5; compared with current 1SLab + 6 SCon = 7).
There is of course the question of what happens to the 9.5% the SLDs got last year. I haven’t a scoobie, but I’m open to suggestions.
Strongly Unionist voters would probably be well-advised sticking with the SCons, but I’m sure SLab will do their utmost to muddy the waters and lure a significant chunk to waste their votes on them instead.
That's simplistic Stuart. In the north east, the borders and rural areas it makes sense to vote Tory. In Glasgow, where there is a whole crop of low hanging fruit just out of SLAB's grasp it doesn't. Voting Labour was deeply problematic with Corbyn in charge and beyond most Tory's comfort zone. They may not have the same problem with Sir Kneel.
Of course the 3 way split of the Unionist vote helps the SNP enormously. Unionists need to think about the efficiency of their votes.
Surely it depends how important unionism is as an issue.
Some people might be willing to vote No in a referendum but not care that much elsewhere in which case the notion of Tory or Lab being interchangeable is silly.
Scottish politics is dominated by the Independence debate. Its extremely unhealthy, leads to the neglect of various priorities and is deeply frustrating but it is what it is.
It is the most important political event in Scotland David so hardly surprising. Neglect and obstruction by Westminster and removal of the few powers we had are our main problems. We will never prosper whilst our bullying large neighbour controls our money and our economy.
We have control of schools but have had the uncorrected disaster of Curriculum for Excellence resulting in our falling down the Pisa tables because the government is scared of taking on the EIS and making teachers accountable for their results.
We have control of our police and the total embarrassment of Police Scotland and a police force that seems ever more focused on politics rather than actual crime prevention.
We have control of our criminal justice system. Its a disgrace, constantly fiddling with new crimes to make political points, trying to tip the playing field in favour of complainers because the rape conviction rate is deemed not high enough and letting psychopaths out of overcrowded prisons because some boxes have been ticked.
We have control of our University sector. We are now in serious danger of real damage to our leading 3 Universities because of a dishonest system which involved Scottish students getting fewer and fewer places whilst being subsidised by the English students paying 5x as much for the same course.
The sad truth is that the opposition both Tory and Labour are not really addressing these issues either. Instead we have election after election dominated by the sterile debate of independence and Scotland's urgent problems remain neglected or an after thought.
It is of course an irony that the cumulative damage done by this neglect pushes Scotland further and further from being a viable country.
How do you see that ever ending without independence?
It is part of the reason why I support Scottish independence. To excise that issue from your body politic and give Scottish politicians nowhere to hide.
Given Scotland will always by definition be a minority of the UK I don't see any other plausible way for that to end now its been stirred.
I fear we are going to have to go through another referendum with yet more damage to our tax base (so many companies went south in the period before and after 2014) and our economy. When Independence loses again we will hopefully have an administration and opposition that actually wants to pay attention to the knitting.
The once in a generation referendum resolved nothing ultimately. I suppose you have to be sanguine about a second referendum doing any better but I don't see an alternative.
Regretfully your referendum didn't resolve anything because it gave the wrong answer.
The question of the UK's membership of the EU has been resolved. Its taking years to get through that to the other side, but the question has been answered. Your one hasn't.
If you consider yourself British, as it turned out a majority of Scots did, it gave the right answer but just as with Brexit those on the losing side won't accept the result because they know better.
Brexit is indicative of what is at stake here. Ultimately the budget of the EU was 1% of EU GDP. That is what we were arguing about, the petty cash. UK public spending is approximately 42% of the Scottish economy. We were in the EU for less than 50 years. We have been in a union with England for more than 300 years. Brexit, and all its aftermath, is going to seem like some minor disagreement in the pub compared with what Scottish independence would entail.
The Scots have given the wrong answer at least once.
Either they were wrong to vote No, or they were wrong to elect an SNP government.
They need to collectively either stop voting No, or stop voting SNP.
You maybe do not understand that the SNP attract many who support the union but like their policies ex independence. Indeed I would have voted SNP when I lived in Scotland but at the time labour was the only party on the left
However, voting for independence would have been a very resolute no for me and many current SNP voters
I understand that but it is what keeps this issue alive.
In a representative democracy it is not sufficient to simply win a referendum and that is it. It is necessary to both win a referendum and elect a government and a Parliament that respects the referendum.
Scotland post-2014 and the UK from 2017 failed in this respect. In Scotland the referendum result, Holyrood and the government do not align. They do not respect each others results.
In the UK from 2017 to 2019 we had the same problem. The House of Commons did not reflect the referendum result and MPs like Grieve went out of their way to try and reverse it. It is only by changing the composition of the Commons in December 2019 that now the Commons reflects the will of the voter in the referendum and we can start to move on.
Scotland needs to decide what it wants. To use a vulgar expression it needs to "crap or get off the pot". Then it needs its government, referendum result and Holyrood to be aligned on respecting the result.
The time to make a real mark on Labour is when the EHRC investigation comes out. If RLB is anything to go by, Starmer is going to have a large cleanout.
And that is where the problem arises.
It is easy to sack a cabinet minister but retain the whip
If as expected the ECHR report is scathing and names individual mps Starmer will have no choice but to expel them from the labour party, possibly including some of the better known backbenchers
If that really does arise it will very definitely be his 'Kinnock' moment which I remember so vividly
The Tories allow a bloke who has called Africans picanninies with water melon smiles to retain the whip - even when he has also claimed they woud be better off ruled by Europeans. Every party has its racists, but at least Starmer seems intent on taking on the ones Labour is home to.
There must be a lot of doubters in both parties about the candidates chosen, as with 2016 it’s likely to be a winning move to go with someone who doesn’t appear to be losing their marbles on television. The question is, can they engineer it before the conventions, before the election or before the inauguration?
Biden’s 1.04 to be nominated, and Trump is as long as 1.12 to be nominated. I think I should be laying both, for small stakes. If a week is a long time in politics, the next four months are going to be very long indeed. The campaigns are going to be very personal and very negative.
The conventions are in August; there are just seven weeks until the DNC and eight to the RNC. With all these markets, it is important to check what you are actually betting on (or against). For instance, is the next president the one who wins in November, or the one inaugurated in January, or even, given today's header, Mike Pence if Trump does resign in the next few weeks? Nor should it be assumed that different bookmakers will pay out on the same criterion. I'd have thought 1.12 against Trump in eight weeks' time is not bad value.
Yes, there’s some careful reading of market rules and payout dates required for the US markets. Betfair’s nomination market pays out at the conventions for example, and the confusingly named Next President market pays out on Inauguration Day 2021, even if the incumbent is re-elected - in contrast with their Next UK PM market, which runs through elections and might be open for a decade or more. The election result isn’t finally confirmed until the electoral college meets, which is several weeks after the election itself, some states (waves at California) take weeks to finalise the result, even if they vote overwhelmingly one way. We could end up in court of course, as last happened in 2000, delaying the result still further. It’s a minefield, especially when one considers the context of two old and possibly sick men running. The person nominated may not be the person on the ballot papers, the person elected might not be inaugurated etc.
You have misread Betfair's rules for their "Next President" market. If one candidate wins a majority of "projected" Electoral College votes, they will pay out on that candidate. Unless litigation of a "hanging chads" or other type makes it unclear who is "projected" to make it to 270, that means they will pay out on 4 November.
All they do is look at every state and assign all of the EC votes in that state to the winner in that state, except in Maine and Nebraska where it's not "winner takes all". How the members of the electoral college actually vote (seven were "faithless" in 2016) is irrelevant; so is who gets inaugurated. (This isn't to say they have got all bases covered - for example, I am not sure what they will do if a candidate dies before their name can be removed from the ballot papers and then proceeds to win.)
A pile on on le God. They're saying his family enjoyed the Nazi occupation in Guernsey because he felt uncomfortable being forced to parade in the badge of the extreme left
The time to make a real mark on Labour is when the EHRC investigation comes out. If RLB is anything to go by, Starmer is going to have a large cleanout.
And that is where the problem arises.
It is easy to sack a cabinet minister but retain the whip
If as expected the ECHR report is scathing and names individual mps Starmer will have no choice but to expel them from the labour party, possibly including some of the better known backbenchers
If that really does arise it will very definitely be his 'Kinnock' moment which I remember so vividly
You're showing your one-sidedness again and it's getting boring. Why does Johnson not get the same treatment from you?
Come on do you expect any of the blue team to be even handed? I’m sure if the red team were in the ascendancy they would show the same arrogance. The desire to conserve their own specific circumstances over rides everything else regardless of which side you are on.
The time to make a real mark on Labour is when the EHRC investigation comes out. If RLB is anything to go by, Starmer is going to have a large cleanout.
And that is where the problem arises.
It is easy to sack a cabinet minister but retain the whip
If as expected the ECHR report is scathing and names individual mps Starmer will have no choice but to expel them from the labour party, possibly including some of the better known backbenchers
If that really does arise it will very definitely be his 'Kinnock' moment which I remember so vividly
You're showing your one-sidedness again and it's getting boring. Why does Johnson not get the same treatment from you?
Boris is not facing the ECHR report
No but he should be facing a report into Islamophobia, whatever happened to that?
The time to make a real mark on Labour is when the EHRC investigation comes out. If RLB is anything to go by, Starmer is going to have a large cleanout.
And that is where the problem arises.
It is easy to sack a cabinet minister but retain the whip
If as expected the ECHR report is scathing and names individual mps Starmer will have no choice but to expel them from the labour party, possibly including some of the better known backbenchers
If that really does arise it will very definitely be his 'Kinnock' moment which I remember so vividly
The Tories allow a bloke who has called Africans picanninies with water melon smiles to retain the whip - even when he has also claimed they woud be better off ruled by Europeans. Every party has its racists, but at least Starmer seems intent on taking on the ones Labour is home to.
Comments
Or perhaps you would have preferred a repeat of the 1930s?
“I don’t buy into this whole systemic racism thing at all,” he later said.
“I’m not saying there’s not hurdles to overcome. We all have hurdles to overcome. You know, as a quote-unquote rich, white, Christian male, people look at me a certain way. And it’s not always good. So, everybody has obstacles to overcome,”
In real terms there was a correction to wages but that had to happen because of the mess made of the finances by the prior disastrous government spending out of control during the growth period. Keynes famously observed that wages were "sticky downwards" and by having a few years where wages were frozen or growing slower than inflation the economy was able to be restored without a greater catastrophe.
http://www.msnbc.com/kasie-dc/watch/as-trump-campaign-takes-stock-of-disastrous-june-is-the-president-s-heart-in-re-election-86300741869
Divorce it from your betting.
If you mean in terms of achieving a goal, well that's much harder to do. I think Afghanistan in particular was a waste of time and lives, but it was certainly possible "to do something".
Or alternative "things change so fast nowadays that people saying "it can't be done" are constantly interrupted by those doing it".
However we do now have considerable evidence suggesting that both surgical and cloth masks, if well fitted, provide some barrier to both respiratory droplets and aerosol.
The biggest recent study I'm aware of showing clear and direct empirical evidence of the benefit of mask wearing is this one.
Universal Masking is an Effective Strategy to Flatten the SARS-CoV-2 Healthcare Worker Epidemiologic Curve
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/9301E77612122039190A29CB7223F9C4/S0899823X2000313Xa.pdf/universal_masking_is_an_effective_strategy_to_flatten_the_sarscov2_healthcare_worker_epidemiologic_curve.pdf
...Of the healthcare-associated cases, 70% were related to unmasked exposure to another HCW for more than 10 minutes less than 6 feet apart and 30% were thought to be secondary to direct care of SARS- CoV-2 positive patients
One week following the implementation of universal masking on March 31, 2020, we observed a significant decrease in the cumulative incidence rate of healthcare-acquired SARS-CoV-2 infections among HCWs (Figure) (LRT 4.38, p-value 0.03). The cumulative incidence rates in community-acquired cases and cases with no clear source of acquisition did not significantly change, however, and continued to mirror the cumulative incidence rates of SARS-CoV-2 in the communities surrounding Duke Health....
Johnson's repeated and consistent electoral success is built on the fact that he tells the English a story about themselves that they very much like. He tells them they are special and can do things that other countries cannot. Furthermore they can do these things better when unencumbered by relations with other countries (apart from America), the woke box tickers of the civil service or an insufficiently compliant lamestream media. That story will still be appealing in 2024.
We have control of our police and the total embarrassment of Police Scotland and a police force that seems ever more focused on politics rather than actual crime prevention.
We have control of our criminal justice system. Its a disgrace, constantly fiddling with new crimes to make political points, trying to tip the playing field in favour of complainers because the rape conviction rate is deemed not high enough and letting psychopaths out of overcrowded prisons because some boxes have been ticked.
We have control of our University sector. We are now in serious danger of real damage to our leading 3 Universities because of a dishonest system which involved Scottish students getting fewer and fewer places whilst being subsidised by the English students paying 5x as much for the same course.
The sad truth is that the opposition both Tory and Labour are not really addressing these issues either. Instead we have election after election dominated by the sterile debate of independence and Scotland's urgent problems remain neglected or an after thought.
It is of course an irony that the cumulative damage done by this neglect pushes Scotland further and further from being a viable country.
I had a chap I know who works for BAe rants about how, since the F35 aircraft are completely compatible with other nations, he will loose stuff to sell.
The reason is this - because of the common software/hardware and shared software updates, every time any nation in the program gets a new weapon or piece of equipment cleared to work on the F35B, the UK gets the update automatically. No need for a nice little contract to update things. But it gets worse...
The US Marine Corps is planning on flying a lot from UK carriers. This means that their weapons will be brought on board.
Some of which are of interest to the UK, to buy.
So the weapons will be on board, and the Marine Corps trained instructors on those weapons will be on hand.
And they will work on the UK aircraft.
So, if the UK decides to buy one of them, no big integration contract, no big training contract....
A nightmare for defence contractors.....
The government could have invested in training & infrastructure projects, but deliberately chose not to do so at a time when borrowing costs were the lowest they had been in a century. Pension funds everywhere were falling over themselves to lend money to the government at almost any rates offered. Honestly, I still don’t really understand why the government didn’t take the hint, but there it is.
It is part of the reason why I support Scottish independence. To excise that issue from your body politic and give Scottish politicians nowhere to hide.
Given Scotland will always by definition be a minority of the UK I don't see any other plausible way for that to end now its been stirred.
We know.
It's nothing to crow about...
Look at Greece etc to see what real austerity is, where spending went down.
The civil service reform is very the reason he was appointed, Johnson, Gove and Cummings have been planning this for years.
Basically, the left needs to stop talking about culture issues. And shock horror, that is what Starmer is doing
The once in a generation referendum resolved nothing ultimately. I suppose you have to be sanguine about a second referendum doing any better but I don't see an alternative.
The question of the UK's membership of the EU has been resolved. Its taking years to get through that to the other side, but the question has been answered. Your one hasn't.
I am not.
Trump is 89% to win the nomination
Trump is 33.5% to win the Presidency
GOP is 35.5% to win the Presidency
My brain is short circuiting to work out what Trump not getting the Nom would mean for the GOP winning party price?
Every time some lefty is on the TV screaming about trans rights or aslylum seekers, or how all white people are racist, another handful of votes move to the blue column.
It has an eerie echo of the infamous Change Proposal 193 on Block 5 Typhoon to get austere A2G capability ahead of the other Eurofighter partners - who didn't care about that capability at the time. There was no feasible or cost effective upgrade path from the RAF Block 5 back into the main software development effort which is at Block 8 so 53 Typhoons are at developmental dead end. 16 have already been scrapped. Only 300m quid each. Fuck it.
Punch Line: The Typhoon deployment to Afghanistan never happened anyway.
He obviously can't control the nutters at Novara or whatever else (and I think in time as they start attacking him more than divide will become clear) but he can control his own MPs, particularly backbenchers.
This is what Blair said in his lecture a few months ago, you can't win a culture war, don't even bother having the arguments.
Until the Scots finally vote for parties that look to governing Scotland and not trumpet independence in every First Ministers word or deed it will be ever thus
They may have wanted to destroy the civil service for years, but there is no plan for what comes next.
Destroy the old and hope something emerges from the rubble.
They tried it at education.
Epic fuckup
And (as explained before) my "bias" here runs opposite to how you're looking at it. I so hate the prospect of him winning that the innate pessimist in me searches furiously for ways it can happen. In betting terms I am thus a natural Trump backer.
Despite this, my reading and perception of the situation led me months ago to conclude he was toast for WH2020. I was saying that he would lose - and furthermore it would NOT be close - when he was the odds on fav.
My view is now becoming the consensus but I hope you followed my posts and advice and are also sitting pretty bettingwise.
They either need to vote for independence or for parties that aren't banging on about it.
I have, and I do.
Brexit is indicative of what is at stake here. Ultimately the budget of the EU was 1% of EU GDP. That is what we were arguing about, the petty cash. UK public spending is approximately 42% of the Scottish economy. We were in the EU for less than 50 years. We have been in a union with England for more than 300 years. Brexit, and all its aftermath, is going to seem like some minor disagreement in the pub compared with what Scottish independence would entail.
My evidence is Starmer winning a landslide in the Leadership Election and promising to take the party away from factionalism and culture wars.
That is some conversion in only 6 months
Either they were wrong to vote No, or they were wrong to elect an SNP government.
They need to collectively either stop voting No, or stop voting SNP.
I know, I know. But I've been pro-European getting together since I was about 18 and while I'm not averse to changing my mind I see no reason to do so on that topic.
Let's wise up and win some elections.
However, voting for independence would have been a very resolute no for me and many current SNP voters
https://twitter.com/rufusjones1/status/1277551947025920001
And here you are doing it to someone else.
And not quite remembering it all but did you ever vote for Blair?
It is easy to sack a cabinet minister but retain the whip
If as expected the ECHR report is scathing and names individual mps Starmer will have no choice but to expel them from the labour party, possibly including some of the better known backbenchers
If that really does arise it will very definitely be his 'Kinnock' moment which I remember so vividly
Ergo, Osborne was right to hold his ground on day-to-day government expenditure, but we would have been in a far better position if he’d spent on infrastructure + training to match.
The UK unemployment rate from 2009-2013 was 8%, double that before the crisis. That’s millions of people on the dole who could have been doing useful work, or been in training for something worthwhile. Since then the unemployment rate has dropped back to 4-5%, but that’s been driven mostly by women going out to work in low wage service industry jobs. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Osborne’s economic policy, is it?
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/dec/03/british-schoolchildren-among-least-satisfied-with-their-lives-says-oecd-report
The upside is that because of the common software, others can now buy the weapons and use them easily. Meteor has quite a lot of UK made stuff in it....
Meteor is serious requirement vs the latest Russian missiles. US stuffed up their long range replacement for AMRAAM too many times....
Hope you did follow me on Trump anyway. And the GE for that matter. And on no Ref2. And never a No Deal Brexit. And ...
I am quite spooky (!) sometimes.
...CanSino declined to disclose whether the innoculation of the vaccine candidate is mandatory or optional, citing commercial secrets...
https://twitter.com/florian_krammer/status/1277537334632878080
https://inews.co.uk/news/education/pisa-test-results-2019-rankings-england-education-england-scores-maths-370158
This tweet is childish nonsense.
In a representative democracy it is not sufficient to simply win a referendum and that is it. It is necessary to both win a referendum and elect a government and a Parliament that respects the referendum.
Scotland post-2014 and the UK from 2017 failed in this respect. In Scotland the referendum result, Holyrood and the government do not align. They do not respect each others results.
In the UK from 2017 to 2019 we had the same problem. The House of Commons did not reflect the referendum result and MPs like Grieve went out of their way to try and reverse it. It is only by changing the composition of the Commons in December 2019 that now the Commons reflects the will of the voter in the referendum and we can start to move on.
Scotland needs to decide what it wants. To use a vulgar expression it needs to "crap or get off the pot". Then it needs its government, referendum result and Holyrood to be aligned on respecting the result.
All they do is look at every state and assign all of the EC votes in that state to the winner in that state, except in Maine and Nebraska where it's not "winner takes all". How the members of the electoral college actually vote (seven were "faithless" in 2016) is irrelevant; so is who gets inaugurated. (This isn't to say they have got all bases covered - for example, I am not sure what they will do if a candidate dies before their name can be removed from the ballot papers and then proceeds to win.)