In theory you could separate Antrim out, after all that was the reason Ulster was created in the first place. But Ulster is Ulster because it was deemed just about economically viable to be worth separating it out, that isn't going to be the case with Antrim.
Ulster wasn't seperated out, it was partitioned. Six of its nine counties were occupied.
If I'm hiring someone to - for example - be a Javascript developer, then their views on the moon landing, homeopathy, Brexit, gay marriage, and whether you should put milk in before or after the water with tea are entirely beside the point.
Now. If you choose to use my office as a propaganda zone to push your agenda, we're going to have a problem. But your views on things peripheral to your job - on which God (if any you believe in), on Tottenham Hotspur or anything else - should not affect whether you are hired or not. Whether you can do a good job is the only criteria that matters.
Here, not his views on climate change or gay marriage, I have a problem. Other than signing trade deals that were largely complete when he took over as Prime Minister of Australia, what evidence is there that he brings anythin to the table at all?
I made that point yesterday evening - along with the facts about the trade deals - and concerns about his publicly expressed views on downgrading labour and environmental standards, contrary to current British government policy.
The fact that he may also be a patronising condescending twit in relation to women puts him amongst the majority of men of his age in senior positions in public life. He probably fits in with very well with today’s Tory-UKIP government.
Abbott is clearly a pillock. He's also Australian. How could we be sure he was negotiating in our interests and not those of his native country? What if a trade deal with a third country harmed Australia's interests? Presumably he'd have to step back from any negotiation with Australia itself - how could he negotiate in our interests then? The whole thing smacks of the weird 1950s white commonwealth nostalgia that seems rampant among Brexiteers. Australia is not British, and Australians are not just Brits who've been living in the sunshine for a few years and are desperate to return to the mother country. This may shock some people on here, but some Australians don't even like us that much.
I would say New Zealand is closer to the UK in culture than Australia but after New Zealand and maybe Ireland Australia is closer to the UK culturally than any other nation on earth and of course we still share our Head of State
Who cares? I'm not talking about values, I'm talking about interests. Do you really think an ex Prime Minister of Australia could negotiate a trade deal for us that directly harmed vocal producer interests in Australia? If your answer is "yes" then I think you're being naive in the extreme.
HMG invests £522m in attempting to boost obesity and diabetes.
Getting people with newly diagnosed diabetes to follow Roy Taylor's Newcastle diet will save the NHS millions and millions over next decade.
It is a remarkable piece of work. There is much more to it than merely weight loss. A 50% remission rate at 1 year, off all medication even for established T2DM is quite something.
It's a good idea - the fact that we are still verifying identity with UTILITY BILLS is completely ridiculous, as though Thames Water had unique insight into who was who.
Whether the Government is so free of urgent business as to welcome a new controversy is another question.
I'm pro ID cards. I'll support that if it happens even under the charlatan Johnson.
ID cards, like lie detector tests, are illiberal, causes more problems, and are the tools of Satan.
Well I don't think so. Big practical benefits, philosophically sound, and imo the threat to liberty is largely illusory. People get overly precious and paranoid about it. Bet 100% of those nutty Trafalgar Square demonstrators are implacably opposed to ID cards.
Wait until your forget or lose your ID card out of the house.
You'll soon become an unperson.
Given the way the number of jumped arseholes work for the police, I fear your confidence is misplaced.
Hold on. Very many countries have official ID cards. Millions of people lose their ID card every year, and apply for a new one. Are you claiming that the UK would implement a new ID card system and have no method to replace lost cards?
You have an even lower level of confidence in British competence than I do.
You see this is where I lose many remainers. If fish are a mere bagatelle, an insignificant nothing, then why are the EU so incredibly adamant on keeping them?
Control is vital. It is everything. Even the news that Johnson only wants 50% is like a red rage to a bull to the average brexiteer. Just watch.
If I'm hiring someone to - for example - be a Javascript developer, then their views on the moon landing, homeopathy, Brexit, gay marriage, and whether you should put milk in before or after the water with tea are entirely beside the point.
Now. If you choose to use my office as a propaganda zone to push your agenda, we're going to have a problem. But your views on things peripheral to your job - on which God (if any you believe in), on Tottenham Hotspur or anything else - should not affect whether you are hired or not. Whether you can do a good job is the only criteria that matters.
Here, not his views on climate change or gay marriage, I have a problem. Other than signing trade deals that were largely complete when he took over as Prime Minister of Australia, what evidence is there that he brings anythin to the table at all?
I made that point yesterday evening - along with the facts about the trade deals - and concerns about his publicly expressed views on downgrading labour and environmental standards, contrary to current British government policy.
The fact that he may also be a patronising condescending twit in relation to women puts him amongst the majority of men of his age in senior positions in public life. He probably fits in with very well with today’s Tory-UKIP government.
Abbott is clearly a pillock. He's also Australian. How could we be sure he was negotiating in our interests and not those of his native country? What if a trade deal with a third country harmed Australia's interests? Presumably he'd have to step back from any negotiation with Australia itself - how could he negotiate in our interests then? The whole thing smacks of the weird 1950s white commonwealth nostalgia that seems rampant among Brexiteers. Australia is not British, and Australians are not just Brits who've been living in the sunshine for a few years and are desperate to return to the mother country. This may shock some people on here, but some Australians don't even like us that much.
I would say New Zealand is closer to the UK in culture than Australia but after New Zealand and maybe Ireland Australia is closer to the UK culturally than any other nation on earth and of course we still share our Head of State
Who cares? I'm not talking about values, I'm talking about interests. Do you really think an ex Prime Minister of Australia could negotiate a trade deal for us that directly harmed vocal producer interests in Australia? If your answer is "yes" then I think you're being naive in the extreme.
He will be negotiating with the USA, India, Saudi Arabia etc mainly and Australia is not going to agree a deal that harms its producer interests anyway
I have never respected the DUP and seeing Tweets like that just make me think even more than I will never shed a crocodile tear about Boris screwing over the DUP with the Brexit deal.
I hope the SNP get independence not out of any anger with Scotland or desire to see Scotland go, but simply because I think its in Scotland's best interests. If I was a Scot I would vote SNP/Yes despite being a right winger.
I hope that NI goes in part because I want rid of NI. I despise the IRA and loathe its sympathisers at the time, I would never have backed Irish unification pre-peace process but now? I want rid of its troubles, I want rid of its fanaticism and religion, the DUP and Sinn Fein and . . . let them be Ireland's problem, we've dealt with them long enough.
In the words of someone who probably shouldn't be brought up in discussions about Ireland: "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"
Well I am a Tory and remain a staunch Unionist.
Ripping the country in two with border posts and tariffs on exports to and from Scotland, inevitable after a No Deal Brexit or even a basic FTA with the EU would not do us any good, Scotland would effectively be an EU colony in the British Isles.
It would also be the end of the United Kingdom, we would become simply England and Wales overnight and as for Northern Ireland I would happily give away the Catholic and Sinn Fein, Remain voting counties on the Irish border like Fermanagh and Tyrone to the Republic of Ireland but in Protestant County Antrim every MP is DUP and every local authority voted Leave and it wants to remain with us.
England, Wales and Antrim would be fine with me, but the UK staying together best of all and that requires unity between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland
I'm not sure that Scotland and NI going would be the end of the United Kingdom is that great an argument to make to someone who has just said that Scotland and NI should go.
In the event NI goes so will Antrim just like how London left the EU.
It would not just be the end of the name of the country and the economic relationship remaining the same with free trade and no borders, there would be customs posts and tariffs between England and Scotland as a result of a hard Brexit and Scotland voting for independence and to return to the EU.
Antrim will not go, the dominant party in Antrim, the DUP, wants to stay part of the UK and not join the Republic of Ireland, the dominant party in London, Labour, does not want to rejoin the EU and leave the UK
It doesn't matter what the dominant party of Antrim wants. The dominant party of Merseyside wanted to stay in the EU. But Merseyside has left along with the rest of England.
If NI unifies that is it Antrim will have lost. That is democracy. It is also international law under the Good Friday Agreement.
In theory you could separate Antrim out, after all that was the reason Ulster was created in the first place. But Ulster is Ulster because it was deemed just about economically viable to be worth separating it out, that isn't going to be the case with Antrim.
Also most NI Protestants / Loyalists I know support Scotland far more than England. I suspect were Scotland to separate they would have little reason to remain part of the UK.
As I'm sure I've commented on before if Scotland went (and I expect it to) Ireland would reunite shortly afterwards as staying in what was left of the UK would make little sense except in subsidy terms.
HYUFD thinks that Antrim will be separated out. It won't.
The Good Friday Agreement is explicit on Irish unification if it is voted for. Separating out anything would violate the Good Friday Agreement and there isn't a snowballs chance in the Death Valley of it happening.
Oh I can assure you it will.
The Good Friday Agreement simply means the Catholic and Sinn Fein bits can rejoin the Republic and maybe even Down, every seat in Antrim however is DUP and the DUP opposed the Good Friday Agreement anyway and Antrim also voted Leave.
Antrim would overwhelmingly vote against reunification even if a border poll occurred and would stay united with England and Wales or even declare UDI rather than be forced into the Republic against its will (although alternatively we could ship the Orange Order and all the Protestants in Antrim back to Scotland and thus kill 2 birds with one stone)
You are insane.
Please cite a single thing from the Good Friday Agreement that says NI can be repartitioned. 🙄
DUP voters voted against the Good Friday Agreement and the DUP are the majority party in Antrim, if so they can say it applied only to Northern Ireland not the newly declared independent County of Antrim with Iain Paisley Jnr likely doing an Ian Smith in Rhodesia and declaring UDI if necessary
You are insane. 🙄
The UK wouldn't recognise the sovereignty of the independent County of Antrim. The UK which is bound by the Good Friday Agreement would recognise Irish unity as would the USA, the EU and the rest of the world.
It's a good idea - the fact that we are still verifying identity with UTILITY BILLS is completely ridiculous, as though Thames Water had unique insight into who was who.
Whether the Government is so free of urgent business as to welcome a new controversy is another question.
I'm pro ID cards. I'll support that if it happens even under the charlatan Johnson.
ID cards, like lie detector tests, are illiberal, causes more problems, and are the tools of Satan.
Well I don't think so. Big practical benefits, philosophically sound, and imo the threat to liberty is largely illusory. People get overly precious and paranoid about it. Bet 100% of those nutty Trafalgar Square demonstrators are implacably opposed to ID cards.
The problem isn't the cards themselves. The problem with the previous proposal was that it was to be used as part of a system to link all your personal information together and distribute it.
So, a bod at the council would be able to search on "kinabalu". As part of an investigation on you not putting your re-cycling in the right bins. And getting your financial and medical records in the results......
Does not worry me. Paranoia.
Fair enough. I am a semi-expert hacker as it happens, and I have just looked you up. I find that you have a criminal record, you invest heavily on porn sites in working hours, and you have four fatherless children by different women. Would you really want that kind of information about you to be freely available to all and sundry?
Two out of three is not bad!
Answer to question - no. I would not want all of my personal details to be freely available to all and sundry.
But for me the risks of that nature that would come with a well designed and properly controlled ID card are not high enough to lose sleep over.
I think on DARPA, Cummings is right. DARPA has been responsible for some of the most influential inventions of today. A UK version would be welcome (and what has happened with Graphene?)
No
Most of our current cool stuff came from Xerox, a private company.
Government record of picking winners is woeful
That was before. Now the government has hired a crack team of superforecasters, misfits and weirdos and can pick winners with ease as long as nobody is fired for being a racist. Please keep up.
SNP will win outright majority in Holyrood next year
Johnson will continue to flatly refuse a second referendum
SNP government will hold second referendum before end 2023 anyway
They will win the referendum. There may be Unionist boycott but they will be a minority anyway.
Major political stalemate.
That is exactly what happened in Catalonia after the Nationalist Catalan government held an independence referendum in defiance of the Spanish government in Madrid and won it despite pro Spain voters boycotting, it changed nothing and the UK Supreme Court cannot overrule Westminster statute and Boris now has a Westminster majority
Trump is very upset about the French cemetery story
They issued a rebuttal email that claims the choppers couldn't fly, so there would be a motorcade instead, which Trump didn't take...
The thing is whether the truth is exactly as reported by Atlantic or not, it rings true. Trump tweeting furiously about it just makes sure everybody hears about it.
Generally, I think there seems to be a good propaganda case for making claims that have inaccuracies and exaggerations, trying to get the other side to make a big fuss about the innaccuracies thus drawing everyone's attention to the gist of the story.
I'm not saying the Atlantic story is inaccurate, though it is a bit hearsay-ish.
That was before. Now the government has hired a crack team of superforecasters, misfits and weirdos and can pick winners with ease as long as nobody is fired for being a racist. Please keep up.
I would, though, question his claim that sterlingisation is a “feasible” option, particularly with Scotland’s fiscal deficit heading north of 25% of GDP due to the pandemic.
Scotland persistently runs a deficit on the current account of its balance of payments of around 10% of GDP (£16bn). Currently this deficit is settled by the UK. With independence, Scotland would be responsible for financing its twin fiscal and current account deficits.....
The combination of no external adjustment mechanism and large-scale borrowing in a foreign currency, along with a unitary probability of devaluation, is simply a recipe for national bankruptcy.
Prof Ronald MacDonald Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow
Great letter by Ronnie. An independent Scotland would either choose, or be forced by markets to adopt, a separate currency sharply devalued wrt sterling. That should where discussions about the currency start. Let's hope we get to hear them before the gadarene rush to independence gathers momentum.
The yawning trade deficit that has arisen from the fall in the oil price together with declining production from the North Sea is something else the SNP should have been focusing on over the last 10 years instead of trying to win more votes with short term freebies. If they had focused on building a viable economy that paid its way in terms of the services it provides and generated enough goods and services to cover the cost of our consumption their case for independence would not be fraught with such difficulties.
I've said before that the Supreme Court ruling that IndyRef2 must go ahead is a real risk, and they have a taste for overruling Boris as well.
James Forsyth's suggestion on how to play this is very instructive. Essential reading.
I agree with most of that but I don't agree that an SNP majority next May is sufficient. If they combined with the other parties in favour of an early referendum (principally the Greens at the moment) get more than 50% of the vote then the case for a referendum becomes unarguable for the reasons Curtice sets out but if the majority of votes are for parties opposed to a second referendum that is a different matter, even if they have a minority of seats.
I don't agree. We have a seat based democracy.
Which is why we need to change the voting system, of course. Then that paticular argument would collapse.
Change the system away from Scotland's Proportional Representation and to a better system like First Past The Post?
Yeah sure if they want to do that I'd fully support it. Their choice.
eh?
PT: we have a seat based system CP: we should move away from that system PT: agree, move away from proportional representation,
Fish don't respect economic zones. If we double our catch of fish, someone else has to reduce theirs by a similar amount, or else fish stocks plummet. In whose waters they are caught makes little difference.
Trump is very upset about the French cemetery story
They issued a rebuttal email that claims the choppers couldn't fly, so there would be a motorcade instead, which Trump didn't take...
The thing is whether the truth is exactly as reported by Atlantic or not, it rings true. Trump tweeting furiously about it just makes sure everybody hears about it.
Generally, I think there seems to be a good propaganda case for making claims that have inaccuracies and exaggerations, trying to get the other side to make a big fuss about the innaccuracies thus drawing everyone's attention to the gist of the story.
I'm not saying the Atlantic story is inaccurate, though it is a bit hearsay-ish.
Fish don't respect economic zones. If we double our catch of fish, someone else has to reduce theirs by a similar amount, or else fish stocks plummet. In whose waters they are caught makes little difference.
And the issue is not catching them, it's selling them...
If I'm hiring someone to - for example - be a Javascript developer, then their views on the moon landing, homeopathy, Brexit, gay marriage, and whether you should put milk in before or after the water with tea are entirely beside the point.
Now. If you choose to use my office as a propaganda zone to push your agenda, we're going to have a problem. But your views on things peripheral to your job - on which God (if any you believe in), on Tottenham Hotspur or anything else - should not affect whether you are hired or not. Whether you can do a good job is the only criteria that matters.
Here, not his views on climate change or gay marriage, I have a problem. Other than signing trade deals that were largely complete when he took over as Prime Minister of Australia, what evidence is there that he brings anythin to the table at all?
I made that point yesterday evening - along with the facts about the trade deals - and concerns about his publicly expressed views on downgrading labour and environmental standards, contrary to current British government policy.
The fact that he may also be a patronising condescending twit in relation to women puts him amongst the majority of men of his age in senior positions in public life. He probably fits in with very well with today’s Tory-UKIP government.
Abbott is clearly a pillock. He's also Australian. How could we be sure he was negotiating in our interests and not those of his native country? What if a trade deal with a third country harmed Australia's interests? Presumably he'd have to step back from any negotiation with Australia itself - how could he negotiate in our interests then? The whole thing smacks of the weird 1950s white commonwealth nostalgia that seems rampant among Brexiteers. Australia is not British, and Australians are not just Brits who've been living in the sunshine for a few years and are desperate to return to the mother country. This may shock some people on here, but some Australians don't even like us that much.
I would say New Zealand is closer to the UK in culture than Australia but after New Zealand and maybe Ireland Australia is closer to the UK culturally than any other nation on earth and of course we still share our Head of State
Who cares? I'm not talking about values, I'm talking about interests. Do you really think an ex Prime Minister of Australia could negotiate a trade deal for us that directly harmed vocal producer interests in Australia? If your answer is "yes" then I think you're being naive in the extreme.
He will be negotiating with the USA, India, Saudi Arabia etc mainly and Australia is not going to agree a deal that harms its producer interests anyway
What if the US deal favours Californian wine or US sugar over Australian? Or the Indian deal favours Indians over Australians for work visas? Conflicts of interest are huge. And Abbott is not just dome rando Aussie technocrat who could stiff his countrymates and hope to get a free pass, he is a former PM whose actions will be watched closely and used for partisan advantage at home. His hiring is just another example of the naive stupidity that typifies everything to do with Brexit.
BREAKING: Berlusconi tests positive for the virus.
Old news. Today's development is that he has been taken into hospital.
I've never understood Tories' fascination with Gary Lineker's salary. The real crime in broadcasting is the "breaking news" ticker for anything that has happened within the last week or two. That's what the government needs to crack down on, and not by refusing to go on any news or current affairs programmes at all.
I have never respected the DUP and seeing Tweets like that just make me think even more than I will never shed a crocodile tear about Boris screwing over the DUP with the Brexit deal.
I hope the SNP get independence not out of any anger with Scotland or desire to see Scotland go, but simply because I think its in Scotland's best interests. If I was a Scot I would vote SNP/Yes despite being a right winger.
I hope that NI goes in part because I want rid of NI. I despise the IRA and loathe its sympathisers at the time, I would never have backed Irish unification pre-peace process but now? I want rid of its troubles, I want rid of its fanaticism and religion, the DUP and Sinn Fein and . . . let them be Ireland's problem, we've dealt with them long enough.
In the words of someone who probably shouldn't be brought up in discussions about Ireland: "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"
Well I am a Tory and remain a staunch Unionist.
Ripping the country in two with border posts and tariffs on exports to and from Scotland, inevitable after a No Deal Brexit or even a basic FTA with the EU would not do us any good, Scotland would effectively be an EU colony in the British Isles.
It would also be the end of the United Kingdom, we would become simply England and Wales overnight and as for Northern Ireland I would happily give away the Catholic and Sinn Fein, Remain voting counties on the Irish border like Fermanagh and Tyrone to the Republic of Ireland but in Protestant County Antrim every MP is DUP and every local authority voted Leave and it wants to remain with us.
England, Wales and Antrim would be fine with me, but the UK staying together best of all and that requires unity between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland
I'm not sure that Scotland and NI going would be the end of the United Kingdom is that great an argument to make to someone who has just said that Scotland and NI should go.
In the event NI goes so will Antrim just like how London left the EU.
It would not just be the end of the name of the country and the economic relationship remaining the same with free trade and no borders, there would be customs posts and tariffs between England and Scotland as a result of a hard Brexit and Scotland voting for independence and to return to the EU.
Antrim will not go, the dominant party in Antrim, the DUP, wants to stay part of the UK and not join the Republic of Ireland, the dominant party in London, Labour, does not want to rejoin the EU and leave the UK
It doesn't matter what the dominant party of Antrim wants. The dominant party of Merseyside wanted to stay in the EU. But Merseyside has left along with the rest of England.
If NI unifies that is it Antrim will have lost. That is democracy. It is also international law under the Good Friday Agreement.
In theory you could separate Antrim out, after all that was the reason Ulster was created in the first place. But Ulster is Ulster because it was deemed just about economically viable to be worth separating it out, that isn't going to be the case with Antrim.
Also most NI Protestants / Loyalists I know support Scotland far more than England. I suspect were Scotland to separate they would have little reason to remain part of the UK.
As I'm sure I've commented on before if Scotland went (and I expect it to) Ireland would reunite shortly afterwards as staying in what was left of the UK would make little sense except in subsidy terms.
HYUFD thinks that Antrim will be separated out. It won't.
The Good Friday Agreement is explicit on Irish unification if it is voted for. Separating out anything would violate the Good Friday Agreement and there isn't a snowballs chance in the Death Valley of it happening.
Oh I can assure you it will.
The Good Friday Agreement simply means the Catholic and Sinn Fein bits can rejoin the Republic and maybe even Down, every seat in Antrim however is DUP and the DUP opposed the Good Friday Agreement anyway and Antrim also voted Leave.
Antrim would overwhelmingly vote against reunification even if a border poll occurred and would stay united with England and Wales or even declare UDI rather than be forced into the Republic against its will (although alternatively we could ship the Orange Order and all the Protestants in Antrim back to Scotland and thus kill 2 birds with one stone)
You are insane.
Please cite a single thing from the Good Friday Agreement that says NI can be repartitioned. 🙄
DUP voters voted against the Good Friday Agreement and the DUP are the majority party in Antrim, if so they can say it applied only to Northern Ireland not the newly declared independent County of Antrim with Iain Paisley Jnr likely doing an Ian Smith in Rhodesia and declaring UDI if necessary
You are insane. 🙄
The UK wouldn't recognise the sovereignty of the independent County of Antrim. The UK which is bound by the Good Friday Agreement would recognise Irish unity as would the USA, the EU and the rest of the world.
So what, Rhodesia was not recognised internationally nor by the UK Wilson government but Smith remained its PM after UDI for 14 years and unlike Rhodesia, where the black majority opposed his white minority rule, the Protestant DUP majority of Antrim would be behind Paisley Jnr
You see this is where I lose many remainers. If fish are a mere bagatelle, an insignificant nothing, then why are the EU so incredibly adamant on keeping them?
Control is vital. It is everything. Even the news that Johnson only wants 50% is like a red rage to a bull to the average brexiteer. Just watch.
Fishing in UK waters is far more important to several EU countries than it is to the UK, both economically and more importantly politically, so it's not surprising that with their much stronger negotiating position they are standing their ground on this. In any case, since UK fisherman rely so hugely on being able to land and sell their seafood in the EU - and crucially with no delays because this is the ultimate short-shelf-life product - it really would be cutting off the fishing industry's nose to spite its face if we end up crashing out without a deal.
I've said before that the Supreme Court ruling that IndyRef2 must go ahead is a real risk, and they have a taste for overruling Boris as well.
James Forsyth's suggestion on how to play this is very instructive. Essential reading.
I agree with most of that but I don't agree that an SNP majority next May is sufficient. If they combined with the other parties in favour of an early referendum (principally the Greens at the moment) get more than 50% of the vote then the case for a referendum becomes unarguable for the reasons Curtice sets out but if the majority of votes are for parties opposed to a second referendum that is a different matter, even if they have a minority of seats.
I don't agree. We have a seat based democracy.
Which is why we need to change the voting system, of course. Then that paticular argument would collapse.
Change the system away from Scotland's Proportional Representation and to a better system like First Past The Post?
Yeah sure if they want to do that I'd fully support it. Their choice.
eh?
PT: we have a seat based system CP: we should move away from that system PT: agree, move away from proportional representation,
In a conversation about Scotland and it's next election ...
PT: we have a seat based system CP: change the voting system [Scotland's voting system is PR] PT: agreed.
What part of that is confusing? I'm guessing CP was talking about another voting system and not the Scottish Parliament one but that is what we were talking about.
I would, though, question his claim that sterlingisation is a “feasible” option, particularly with Scotland’s fiscal deficit heading north of 25% of GDP due to the pandemic.
Scotland persistently runs a deficit on the current account of its balance of payments of around 10% of GDP (£16bn). Currently this deficit is settled by the UK. With independence, Scotland would be responsible for financing its twin fiscal and current account deficits.....
The combination of no external adjustment mechanism and large-scale borrowing in a foreign currency, along with a unitary probability of devaluation, is simply a recipe for national bankruptcy.
Prof Ronald MacDonald Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow
Great letter by Ronnie. An independent Scotland would either choose, or be forced by markets to adopt, a separate currency sharply devalued wrt sterling. That should where discussions about the currency start. Let's hope we get to hear them before the gadarene rush to independence gathers momentum.
The yawning trade deficit that has arisen from the fall in the oil price together with declining production from the North Sea is something else the SNP should have been focusing on over the last 10 years instead of trying to win more votes with short term freebies. If they had focused on building a viable economy that paid its way in terms of the services it provides and generated enough goods and services to cover the cost of our consumption their case for independence would not be fraught with such difficulties.
But they didn't and it is.
Since when did facts from experts stop people voting for stupid things in referendums.
You see this is where I lose many remainers. If fish are a mere bagatelle, an insignificant nothing, then why are the EU so incredibly adamant on keeping them?
To trade it for a concession on something more important.
I would, though, question his claim that sterlingisation is a “feasible” option, particularly with Scotland’s fiscal deficit heading north of 25% of GDP due to the pandemic.
Scotland persistently runs a deficit on the current account of its balance of payments of around 10% of GDP (£16bn). Currently this deficit is settled by the UK. With independence, Scotland would be responsible for financing its twin fiscal and current account deficits.....
The combination of no external adjustment mechanism and large-scale borrowing in a foreign currency, along with a unitary probability of devaluation, is simply a recipe for national bankruptcy.
Prof Ronald MacDonald Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow
Great letter by Ronnie. An independent Scotland would either choose, or be forced by markets to adopt, a separate currency sharply devalued wrt sterling. That should where discussions about the currency start. Let's hope we get to hear them before the gadarene rush to independence gathers momentum.
The yawning trade deficit that has arisen from the fall in the oil price together with declining production from the North Sea is something else the SNP should have been focusing on over the last 10 years instead of trying to win more votes with short term freebies. If they had focused on building a viable economy that paid its way in terms of the services it provides and generated enough goods and services to cover the cost of our consumption their case for independence would not be fraught with such difficulties.
But they didn't and it is.
The counterpart to correcting the twin deficits is that the private sector in Scotland (i.e. mainly the personal sector) must switch to running a large surplus. That means a drastic rise in savings and a drastic fall in consumption.
Fish don't respect economic zones. If we double our catch of fish, someone else has to reduce theirs by a similar amount, or else fish stocks plummet. In whose waters they are caught makes little difference.
And the issue is not catching them, it's selling them...
It's a good idea - the fact that we are still verifying identity with UTILITY BILLS is completely ridiculous, as though Thames Water had unique insight into who was who.
Whether the Government is so free of urgent business as to welcome a new controversy is another question.
I'm pro ID cards. I'll support that if it happens even under the charlatan Johnson.
ID cards, like lie detector tests, are illiberal, causes more problems, and are the tools of Satan.
Well I don't think so. Big practical benefits, philosophically sound, and imo the threat to liberty is largely illusory. People get overly precious and paranoid about it. Bet 100% of those nutty Trafalgar Square demonstrators are implacably opposed to ID cards.
The problem isn't the cards themselves. The problem with the previous proposal was that it was to be used as part of a system to link all your personal information together and distribute it.
So, a bod at the council would be able to search on "kinabalu". As part of an investigation on you not putting your re-cycling in the right bins. And getting your financial and medical records in the results......
Had forgotten but yes I do now. But it's a digital world. We can't shy away from it. Better to embrace it and mitigate the risks rather than seek to eliminate the risks by opting out.
For example, the only way to guarantee your bank account won't be violated is to not have one. Or, less extreme example, CCTV. Lots of benign and important uses but the only way to guarantee it's not used for prying is to not have it.
Benefits vs Risks. For me, ID cards clear the bar pretty easily.
I have never respected the DUP and seeing Tweets like that just make me think even more than I will never shed a crocodile tear about Boris screwing over the DUP with the Brexit deal.
I hope the SNP get independence not out of any anger with Scotland or desire to see Scotland go, but simply because I think its in Scotland's best interests. If I was a Scot I would vote SNP/Yes despite being a right winger.
I hope that NI goes in part because I want rid of NI. I despise the IRA and loathe its sympathisers at the time, I would never have backed Irish unification pre-peace process but now? I want rid of its troubles, I want rid of its fanaticism and religion, the DUP and Sinn Fein and . . . let them be Ireland's problem, we've dealt with them long enough.
In the words of someone who probably shouldn't be brought up in discussions about Ireland: "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"
Well I am a Tory and remain a staunch Unionist.
Ripping the country in two with border posts and tariffs on exports to and from Scotland, inevitable after a No Deal Brexit or even a basic FTA with the EU would not do us any good, Scotland would effectively be an EU colony in the British Isles.
It would also be the end of the United Kingdom, we would become simply England and Wales overnight and as for Northern Ireland I would happily give away the Catholic and Sinn Fein, Remain voting counties on the Irish border like Fermanagh and Tyrone to the Republic of Ireland but in Protestant County Antrim every MP is DUP and every local authority voted Leave and it wants to remain with us.
England, Wales and Antrim would be fine with me, but the UK staying together best of all and that requires unity between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland
I'm not sure that Scotland and NI going would be the end of the United Kingdom is that great an argument to make to someone who has just said that Scotland and NI should go.
In the event NI goes so will Antrim just like how London left the EU.
It would not just be the end of the name of the country and the economic relationship remaining the same with free trade and no borders, there would be customs posts and tariffs between England and Scotland as a result of a hard Brexit and Scotland voting for independence and to return to the EU.
Antrim will not go, the dominant party in Antrim, the DUP, wants to stay part of the UK and not join the Republic of Ireland, the dominant party in London, Labour, does not want to rejoin the EU and leave the UK
It doesn't matter what the dominant party of Antrim wants. The dominant party of Merseyside wanted to stay in the EU. But Merseyside has left along with the rest of England.
If NI unifies that is it Antrim will have lost. That is democracy. It is also international law under the Good Friday Agreement.
In theory you could separate Antrim out, after all that was the reason Ulster was created in the first place. But Ulster is Ulster because it was deemed just about economically viable to be worth separating it out, that isn't going to be the case with Antrim.
Also most NI Protestants / Loyalists I know support Scotland far more than England. I suspect were Scotland to separate they would have little reason to remain part of the UK.
As I'm sure I've commented on before if Scotland went (and I expect it to) Ireland would reunite shortly afterwards as staying in what was left of the UK would make little sense except in subsidy terms.
HYUFD thinks that Antrim will be separated out. It won't.
The Good Friday Agreement is explicit on Irish unification if it is voted for. Separating out anything would violate the Good Friday Agreement and there isn't a snowballs chance in the Death Valley of it happening.
Oh I can assure you it will.
The Good Friday Agreement simply means the Catholic and Sinn Fein bits can rejoin the Republic and maybe even Down, every seat in Antrim however is DUP and the DUP opposed the Good Friday Agreement anyway and Antrim also voted Leave.
Antrim would overwhelmingly vote against reunification even if a border poll occurred and would stay united with England and Wales or even declare UDI rather than be forced into the Republic against its will (although alternatively we could ship the Orange Order and all the Protestants in Antrim back to Scotland and thus kill 2 birds with one stone)
You are insane.
Please cite a single thing from the Good Friday Agreement that says NI can be repartitioned. 🙄
DUP voters voted against the Good Friday Agreement and the DUP are the majority party in Antrim, if so they can say it applied only to Northern Ireland not the newly declared independent County of Antrim with Iain Paisley Jnr likely doing an Ian Smith in Rhodesia and declaring UDI if necessary
You are insane. 🙄
The UK wouldn't recognise the sovereignty of the independent County of Antrim. The UK which is bound by the Good Friday Agreement would recognise Irish unity as would the USA, the EU and the rest of the world.
So what, Rhodesia was not recognised internationally nor by the UK Wilson government but Smith remained its PM after UDI for 14 years and unlike Rhodesia, where the black majority opposed his white minority rule, the Protestant DUP majority of Antrim would be behind Paisley Jnr
In theory you could separate Antrim out, after all that was the reason Ulster was created in the first place. But Ulster is Ulster because it was deemed just about economically viable to be worth separating it out, that isn't going to be the case with Antrim.
Ulster wasn't seperated out, it was partitioned. Six of its nine counties were occupied.
I might have used the wrong word (in you eyes) but you've proved my point. Ulster was was only viable by retaining a critical mass of nine counties and the UK had to "occupy" six of those to make it viable.
Fish don't respect economic zones. If we double our catch of fish, someone else has to reduce theirs by a similar amount, or else fish stocks plummet. In whose waters they are caught makes little difference.
And the issue is not catching them, it's selling them...
Not an issue. You don't need a deal to export.
In the case of seafood, with a shelf life measured in hours, you jolly well do:
I have never respected the DUP and seeing Tweets like that just make me think even more than I will never shed a crocodile tear about Boris screwing over the DUP with the Brexit deal.
I hope the SNP get independence not out of any anger with Scotland or desire to see Scotland go, but simply because I think its in Scotland's best interests. If I was a Scot I would vote SNP/Yes despite being a right winger.
I hope that NI goes in part because I want rid of NI. I despise the IRA and loathe its sympathisers at the time, I would never have backed Irish unification pre-peace process but now? I want rid of its troubles, I want rid of its fanaticism and religion, the DUP and Sinn Fein and . . . let them be Ireland's problem, we've dealt with them long enough.
In the words of someone who probably shouldn't be brought up in discussions about Ireland: "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"
Well I am a Tory and remain a staunch Unionist.
Ripping the country in two with border posts and tariffs on exports to and from Scotland, inevitable after a No Deal Brexit or even a basic FTA with the EU would not do us any good, Scotland would effectively be an EU colony in the British Isles.
It would also be the end of the United Kingdom, we would become simply England and Wales overnight and as for Northern Ireland I would happily give away the Catholic and Sinn Fein, Remain voting counties on the Irish border like Fermanagh and Tyrone to the Republic of Ireland but in Protestant County Antrim every MP is DUP and every local authority voted Leave and it wants to remain with us.
England, Wales and Antrim would be fine with me, but the UK staying together best of all and that requires unity between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland
I'm not sure that Scotland and NI going would be the end of the United Kingdom is that great an argument to make to someone who has just said that Scotland and NI should go.
In the event NI goes so will Antrim just like how London left the EU.
It would not just be the end of the name of the country and the economic relationship remaining the same with free trade and no borders, there would be customs posts and tariffs between England and Scotland as a result of a hard Brexit and Scotland voting for independence and to return to the EU.
Antrim will not go, the dominant party in Antrim, the DUP, wants to stay part of the UK and not join the Republic of Ireland, the dominant party in London, Labour, does not want to rejoin the EU and leave the UK
It doesn't matter what the dominant party of Antrim wants. The dominant party of Merseyside wanted to stay in the EU. But Merseyside has left along with the rest of England.
If NI unifies that is it Antrim will have lost. That is democracy. It is also international law under the Good Friday Agreement.
In theory you could separate Antrim out, after all that was the reason Ulster was created in the first place. But Ulster is Ulster because it was deemed just about economically viable to be worth separating it out, that isn't going to be the case with Antrim.
Also most NI Protestants / Loyalists I know support Scotland far more than England. I suspect were Scotland to separate they would have little reason to remain part of the UK.
As I'm sure I've commented on before if Scotland went (and I expect it to) Ireland would reunite shortly afterwards as staying in what was left of the UK would make little sense except in subsidy terms.
Northern Ireland is not Ulster - three counties in the province of Ulster are in the Republic (Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan).
In theory you could repeat partition, but last time this followed a threatened mutiny within the British Army. The conditions for it to happen again do not look likely to exist.
Mrs May claimed there was no magic money tree. It would appear she was wrong.
Debt is rising but we can't raise taxes In the light of Coronavirus government spending is likely to rise, not fall. Trading our way out seems unlikely as the economy is shrinking so our existing tax take will fall, and it seems inflating our way out of debt is not acceptable either.
It is a long time since economics A level, so I have forgotten how else we pay for current and future borrowing?
Cut current (rather than structural) spending to reduce current borrowing, and cut taxes to stimulate future growth.
How do we achieve point 1 when the unemployment bill for one is likely to go through the roof. Point 2, we might be waiting a long, long time for growth stimulation to work.
You accept that there will be a spending deficit during the recession, that’s why you go into a recession with a spending surplus.
You take the opportunity to streamline government departments and take a careful look at all current spending, seeking to eliminate that which is frivolous or no longer required.
Structural spending should be kept up, governments should have lists of projects to go ahead such as roadworks and HS2, alongside plans to move more of government out of central London.
Attention should then shift to the recovery, where a combination of tax cuts and regulatory reform (planning laws!) incentivises private investment in the economy and job creation as the recession fades.
The time for tax rises is when the recovery has completed, and government focus shifts from achieving economic growth to achieving tax revenue, but even then tax rises need to be well researched to avoid Laffer Curve effects.
Then the cycle repeats itself, according to JM Keynes.
In theory you could separate Antrim out, after all that was the reason Ulster was created in the first place. But Ulster is Ulster because it was deemed just about economically viable to be worth separating it out, that isn't going to be the case with Antrim.
Ulster wasn't seperated out, it was partitioned. Six of its nine counties were occupied.
I might have used the wrong word (in you eyes) but you've proved my point. Ulster was was only viable by retaining a critical mass of nine counties and the UK had to "occupy" six of those to make it viable.
Nine counties we’re retained, only six were. Northern Ireland doesn’t include all of Ulster.
You see this is where I lose many remainers. If fish are a mere bagatelle, an insignificant nothing, then why are the EU so incredibly adamant on keeping them?
Control is vital. It is everything. Even the news that Johnson only wants 50% is like a red rage to a bull to the average brexiteer. Just watch.
Fishing in UK waters is far more important to several EU countries than it is to the UK, both economically and more importantly politically, so it's not surprising that with their much stronger negotiating position they are standing their ground on this. In any case, since UK fisherman rely so hugely on being able to land and sell their seafood in the EU, and crucially with no delays because this is the ultimate short-shelf-life product - it really would be cutting off the fishing industry's nose to spite its face if we end up crashing out without a deal.
That maybe so, but I am afraid it does not butter any parsnips with brexit voters.
We may decide to give foreign fleets some quotas to keep their communities going, we may not.
That decision will be made by the UK electorate and will be dependent on what the EU offers in return. That's the mindset.
You see this is where I lose many remainers. If fish are a mere bagatelle, an insignificant nothing, then why are the EU so incredibly adamant on keeping them?
Control is vital. It is everything. Even the news that Johnson only wants 50% is like a red rage to a bull to the average brexiteer. Just watch.
Fishing in UK waters is far more important to several EU countries than it is to the UK, both economically and more importantly politically, so it's not surprising that with their much stronger negotiating position they are standing their ground on this. In any case, since UK fisherman rely so hugely on being able to land and sell their seafood in the EU, and crucially with no delays because this is the ultimate short-shelf-life product - it really would be cutting off the fishing industry's nose to spite its face if we end up crashing out without a deal.
That maybe so, but I am afraid it does not butter any parsnips with brexit voters.
We may decide to give foreign fleets some quotas to keep their communities going, we may not.
That decision will be made by the UK electorate and will be dependent on what the EU offers in return. That's the mindset. This is our property, our birthright, our inheritance.
HMG invests £522m in attempting to boost obesity and diabetes.
Getting people with newly diagnosed diabetes to follow Roy Taylor's Newcastle diet will save the NHS millions and millions over next decade.
It is a remarkable piece of work. There is much more to it than merely weight loss. A 50% remission rate at 1 year, off all medication even for established T2DM is quite something.
I was wondering this yesterday when it was being debated on the radio. There surely has to be a lot more to putting diabetes 2 into remission than simple weight loss. I mean, I accept that would help but it cannot be enough on its own. What else are they doing?
Trump is very upset about the French cemetery story
They issued a rebuttal email that claims the choppers couldn't fly, so there would be a motorcade instead, which Trump didn't take...
The thing is whether the truth is exactly as reported by Atlantic or not, it rings true. Trump tweeting furiously about it just makes sure everybody hears about it.
Generally, I think there seems to be a good propaganda case for making claims that have inaccuracies and exaggerations, trying to get the other side to make a big fuss about the innaccuracies thus drawing everyone's attention to the gist of the story.
I'm not saying the Atlantic story is inaccurate, though it is a bit hearsay-ish.
The thing people don't realise about Social media is that by complaining about (a part of) a tweet there are also sharing the original tweet with people who follow them.
Commenting on a tweet or facebook story is often the wrong approach - it would be far better to completely ignore it.
Especially as there seems to be less of a shared "objective" reality than there used to be.
Fish don't respect economic zones. If we double our catch of fish, someone else has to reduce theirs by a similar amount, or else fish stocks plummet. In whose waters they are caught makes little difference.
And the issue is not catching them, it's selling them...
Not an issue. You don't need a deal to export.
In the case of seafood, with a shelf life measured in hours, you jolly well do:
That maybe so, but I am afraid it does not butter any parsnips with brexit voters.
We may decide to give foreign fleets some quotas to keep their communities going, we may not.
That decision will be made by the UK electorate and will be dependent on what the EU offers in return. That's the mindset.
Oh, I agree entirely, Brexit voters are still living in la-la land and think that decisions made by the UK have no adverse consequences for the UK. That is exactly why we are heading for a rude reckoning, and you can be 100% sure that those voters won't blame themselves for it, even though they should.
I was wondering this yesterday when it was being debated on the radio. There surely has to be a lot more to putting diabetes 2 into remission than simple weight loss. I mean, I accept that would help but it cannot be enough on its own. What else are they doing?
I have never respected the DUP and seeing Tweets like that just make me think even more than I will never shed a crocodile tear about Boris screwing over the DUP with the Brexit deal.
I hope the SNP get independence not out of any anger with Scotland or desire to see Scotland go, but simply because I think its in Scotland's best interests. If I was a Scot I would vote SNP/Yes despite being a right winger.
I hope that NI goes in part because I want rid of NI. I despise the IRA and loathe its sympathisers at the time, I would never have backed Irish unification pre-peace process but now? I want rid of its troubles, I want rid of its fanaticism and religion, the DUP and Sinn Fein and . . . let them be Ireland's problem, we've dealt with them long enough.
In the words of someone who probably shouldn't be brought up in discussions about Ireland: "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"
Well I am a Tory and remain a staunch Unionist.
Ripping the country in two with border posts and tariffs on exports to and from Scotland, inevitable after a No Deal Brexit or even a basic FTA with the EU would not do us any good, Scotland would effectively be an EU colony in the British Isles.
It would also be the end of the United Kingdom, we would become simply England and Wales overnight and as for Northern Ireland I would happily give away the Catholic and Sinn Fein, Remain voting counties on the Irish border like Fermanagh and Tyrone to the Republic of Ireland but in Protestant County Antrim every MP is DUP and every local authority voted Leave and it wants to remain with us.
England, Wales and Antrim would be fine with me, but the UK staying together best of all and that requires unity between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland
I'm not sure that Scotland and NI going would be the end of the United Kingdom is that great an argument to make to someone who has just said that Scotland and NI should go.
In the event NI goes so will Antrim just like how London left the EU.
It would not just be the end of the name of the country and the economic relationship remaining the same with free trade and no borders, there would be customs posts and tariffs between England and Scotland as a result of a hard Brexit and Scotland voting for independence and to return to the EU.
Antrim will not go, the dominant party in Antrim, the DUP, wants to stay part of the UK and not join the Republic of Ireland, the dominant party in London, Labour, does not want to rejoin the EU and leave the UK
It doesn't matter what the dominant party of Antrim wants. The dominant party of Merseyside wanted to stay in the EU. But Merseyside has left along with the rest of England.
If NI unifies that is it Antrim will have lost. That is democracy. It is also international law under the Good Friday Agreement.
In theory you could separate Antrim out, after all that was the reason Ulster was created in the first place. But Ulster is Ulster because it was deemed just about economically viable to be worth separating it out, that isn't going to be the case with Antrim.
Also most NI Protestants / Loyalists I know support Scotland far more than England. I suspect were Scotland to separate they would have little reason to remain part of the UK.
As I'm sure I've commented on before if Scotland went (and I expect it to) Ireland would reunite shortly afterwards as staying in what was left of the UK would make little sense except in subsidy terms.
Northern Ireland is not Ulster - three counties in the province of Ulster are in the Republic (Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan).
In theory you could repeat partition, but last time this followed a threatened mutiny within the British Army. The conditions for it to happen again do not look likely to exist.
Potential civil war from Antrim if forced into the Republic against its will and a possible revival of loyalist paramilitaries, it would declare UDI instead
I think on DARPA, Cummings is right. DARPA has been responsible for some of the most influential inventions of today. A UK version would be welcome (and what has happened with Graphene?)
I could be persuaded, but I'm not convinced that the EU would block this kind of R&D funding. Really? And don't other countries drive a country mile through State Aid rules all the time?
Maybe those who are more expert can enlighten us?
Yes, that makes the EU’s demands even more of a problem. They will do everything to hold, us to their state aid provisions, at the same time as letting EU countries ignore the same rules without ounishment.
Not sure how much play this has had on here, but there's a real possibility that the bifurcation between Republicans voting in person and Democrats voting by mail could create an apparent Trump landslide on election night itself:
That lead would inevitably dwindle as postal votes were counted over the subsequent days, but not before Trump had claimed victory and persuaded tens of millions of heavily-armed voters that they had been robbed by fraud...
Fish don't respect economic zones. If we double our catch of fish, someone else has to reduce theirs by a similar amount, or else fish stocks plummet. In whose waters they are caught makes little difference.
And the issue is not catching them, it's selling them...
Not an issue. You don't need a deal to export.
In the case of seafood, with a shelf life measured in hours, you jolly well do:
I have never respected the DUP and seeing Tweets like that just make me think even more than I will never shed a crocodile tear about Boris screwing over the DUP with the Brexit deal.
I hope the SNP get independence not out of any anger with Scotland or desire to see Scotland go, but simply because I think its in Scotland's best interests. If I was a Scot I would vote SNP/Yes despite being a right winger.
I hope that NI goes in part because I want rid of NI. I despise the IRA and loathe its sympathisers at the time, I would never have backed Irish unification pre-peace process but now? I want rid of its troubles, I want rid of its fanaticism and religion, the DUP and Sinn Fein and . . . let them be Ireland's problem, we've dealt with them long enough.
In the words of someone who probably shouldn't be brought up in discussions about Ireland: "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"
Well I am a Tory and remain a staunch Unionist.
Ripping the country in two with border posts and tariffs on exports to and from Scotland, inevitable after a No Deal Brexit or even a basic FTA with the EU would not do us any good, Scotland would effectively be an EU colony in the British Isles.
It would also be the end of the United Kingdom, we would become simply England and Wales overnight and as for Northern Ireland I would happily give away the Catholic and Sinn Fein, Remain voting counties on the Irish border like Fermanagh and Tyrone to the Republic of Ireland but in Protestant County Antrim every MP is DUP and every local authority voted Leave and it wants to remain with us.
England, Wales and Antrim would be fine with me, but the UK staying together best of all and that requires unity between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland
I'm not sure that Scotland and NI going would be the end of the United Kingdom is that great an argument to make to someone who has just said that Scotland and NI should go.
In the event NI goes so will Antrim just like how London left the EU.
It would not just be the end of the name of the country and the economic relationship remaining the same with free trade and no borders, there would be customs posts and tariffs between England and Scotland as a result of a hard Brexit and Scotland voting for independence and to return to the EU.
Antrim will not go, the dominant party in Antrim, the DUP, wants to stay part of the UK and not join the Republic of Ireland, the dominant party in London, Labour, does not want to rejoin the EU and leave the UK
It doesn't matter what the dominant party of Antrim wants. The dominant party of Merseyside wanted to stay in the EU. But Merseyside has left along with the rest of England.
If NI unifies that is it Antrim will have lost. That is democracy. It is also international law under the Good Friday Agreement.
In theory you could separate Antrim out, after all that was the reason Ulster was created in the first place. But Ulster is Ulster because it was deemed just about economically viable to be worth separating it out, that isn't going to be the case with Antrim.
Also most NI Protestants / Loyalists I know support Scotland far more than England. I suspect were Scotland to separate they would have little reason to remain part of the UK.
As I'm sure I've commented on before if Scotland went (and I expect it to) Ireland would reunite shortly afterwards as staying in what was left of the UK would make little sense except in subsidy terms.
HYUFD thinks that Antrim will be separated out. It won't.
The Good Friday Agreement is explicit on Irish unification if it is voted for. Separating out anything would violate the Good Friday Agreement and there isn't a snowballs chance in the Death Valley of it happening.
Oh I can assure you it will.
The Good Friday Agreement simply means the Catholic and Sinn Fein bits can rejoin the Republic and maybe even Down, every seat in Antrim however is DUP and the DUP opposed the Good Friday Agreement anyway and Antrim also voted Leave.
Antrim would overwhelmingly vote against reunification even if a border poll occurred and would stay united with England and Wales or even declare UDI rather than be forced into the Republic against its will (although alternatively we could ship the Orange Order and all the Protestants in Antrim back to Scotland and thus kill 2 birds with one stone)
You are insane.
Please cite a single thing from the Good Friday Agreement that says NI can be repartitioned. 🙄
DUP voters voted against the Good Friday Agreement and the DUP are the majority party in Antrim, if so they can say it applied only to Northern Ireland not the newly declared independent County of Antrim with Iain Paisley Jnr likely doing an Ian Smith in Rhodesia and declaring UDI if necessary
You are insane. 🙄
The UK wouldn't recognise the sovereignty of the independent County of Antrim. The UK which is bound by the Good Friday Agreement would recognise Irish unity as would the USA, the EU and the rest of the world.
So what, Rhodesia was not recognised internationally nor by the UK Wilson government but Smith remained its PM after UDI for 14 years and unlike Rhodesia, where the black majority opposed his white minority rule, the Protestant DUP majority of Antrim would be behind Paisley Jnr
Rhodesia was a viable country.
County Antrim is not.
You are insane.
Antrim has a bigger population than many small countries
Fish don't respect economic zones. If we double our catch of fish, someone else has to reduce theirs by a similar amount, or else fish stocks plummet. In whose waters they are caught makes little difference.
And the issue is not catching them, it's selling them...
Not an issue. You don't need a deal to export.
In the case of seafood, with a shelf life measured in hours, you jolly well do:
Frozen seafood doesn't have a shelf life of hours.
True. Nor is it worth as much, nor are there markets immediately available for it, nor are there the facilities to freeze it. But yes, over a decade or so it might be possible to switch over to a different business model, if only the fleets weren't going to go bust in the meantime.
It's a good idea - the fact that we are still verifying identity with UTILITY BILLS is completely ridiculous, as though Thames Water had unique insight into who was who.
Whether the Government is so free of urgent business as to welcome a new controversy is another question.
I'm pro ID cards. I'll support that if it happens even under the charlatan Johnson.
ID cards, like lie detector tests, are illiberal, causes more problems, and are the tools of Satan.
Well I don't think so. Big practical benefits, philosophically sound, and imo the threat to liberty is largely illusory. People get overly precious and paranoid about it. Bet 100% of those nutty Trafalgar Square demonstrators are implacably opposed to ID cards.
Wait until your forget or lose your ID card out of the house.
You'll soon become an unperson.
Given the way the number of jumped arseholes work for the police, I fear your confidence is misplaced.
But I do not support the right of the police to stop people indiscriminately and demand to see their ID - be it card, passport, driving licence or gas bill. No way.
The problem with that argument is that the timescale for delivery of HS2 is such that we don't really have any idea what our economy and travel needs will look like. Whilst I think we can be confident that Covid will be a distant memory it is possible that the restructuring of work will have persisted but it will be equally possible that it has not and the capacity will be urgently required.
I think Heathrow expansion is a more marginal case in that the decline in air travel is much sharper (as may be any bounce back of course) and the timescale for delivery shorter. I think this is ultimately a commercial decision for the owners of Heathrow and it is their money that should be at risk, not the tax payers.
I have never respected the DUP and seeing Tweets like that just make me think even more than I will never shed a crocodile tear about Boris screwing over the DUP with the Brexit deal.
I hope the SNP get independence not out of any anger with Scotland or desire to see Scotland go, but simply because I think its in Scotland's best interests. If I was a Scot I would vote SNP/Yes despite being a right winger.
I hope that NI goes in part because I want rid of NI. I despise the IRA and loathe its sympathisers at the time, I would never have backed Irish unification pre-peace process but now? I want rid of its troubles, I want rid of its fanaticism and religion, the DUP and Sinn Fein and . . . let them be Ireland's problem, we've dealt with them long enough.
In the words of someone who probably shouldn't be brought up in discussions about Ireland: "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"
Well I am a Tory and remain a staunch Unionist.
Ripping the country in two with border posts and tariffs on exports to and from Scotland, inevitable after a No Deal Brexit or even a basic FTA with the EU would not do us any good, Scotland would effectively be an EU colony in the British Isles.
It would also be the end of the United Kingdom, we would become simply England and Wales overnight and as for Northern Ireland I would happily give away the Catholic and Sinn Fein, Remain voting counties on the Irish border like Fermanagh and Tyrone to the Republic of Ireland but in Protestant County Antrim every MP is DUP and every local authority voted Leave and it wants to remain with us.
England, Wales and Antrim would be fine with me, but the UK staying together best of all and that requires unity between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland
I'm not sure that Scotland and NI going would be the end of the United Kingdom is that great an argument to make to someone who has just said that Scotland and NI should go.
In the event NI goes so will Antrim just like how London left the EU.
It would not just be the end of the name of the country and the economic relationship remaining the same with free trade and no borders, there would be customs posts and tariffs between England and Scotland as a result of a hard Brexit and Scotland voting for independence and to return to the EU.
Antrim will not go, the dominant party in Antrim, the DUP, wants to stay part of the UK and not join the Republic of Ireland, the dominant party in London, Labour, does not want to rejoin the EU and leave the UK
It doesn't matter what the dominant party of Antrim wants. The dominant party of Merseyside wanted to stay in the EU. But Merseyside has left along with the rest of England.
If NI unifies that is it Antrim will have lost. That is democracy. It is also international law under the Good Friday Agreement.
In theory you could separate Antrim out, after all that was the reason Ulster was created in the first place. But Ulster is Ulster because it was deemed just about economically viable to be worth separating it out, that isn't going to be the case with Antrim.
Also most NI Protestants / Loyalists I know support Scotland far more than England. I suspect were Scotland to separate they would have little reason to remain part of the UK.
As I'm sure I've commented on before if Scotland went (and I expect it to) Ireland would reunite shortly afterwards as staying in what was left of the UK would make little sense except in subsidy terms.
HYUFD thinks that Antrim will be separated out. It won't.
The Good Friday Agreement is explicit on Irish unification if it is voted for. Separating out anything would violate the Good Friday Agreement and there isn't a snowballs chance in the Death Valley of it happening.
Oh I can assure you it will.
The Good Friday Agreement simply means the Catholic and Sinn Fein bits can rejoin the Republic and maybe even Down, every seat in Antrim however is DUP and the DUP opposed the Good Friday Agreement anyway and Antrim also voted Leave.
Antrim would overwhelmingly vote against reunification even if a border poll occurred and would stay united with England and Wales or even declare UDI rather than be forced into the Republic against its will (although alternatively we could ship the Orange Order and all the Protestants in Antrim back to Scotland and thus kill 2 birds with one stone)
You are insane.
Please cite a single thing from the Good Friday Agreement that says NI can be repartitioned. 🙄
DUP voters voted against the Good Friday Agreement and the DUP are the majority party in Antrim, if so they can say it applied only to Northern Ireland not the newly declared independent County of Antrim with Iain Paisley Jnr likely doing an Ian Smith in Rhodesia and declaring UDI if necessary
You are insane. 🙄
The UK wouldn't recognise the sovereignty of the independent County of Antrim. The UK which is bound by the Good Friday Agreement would recognise Irish unity as would the USA, the EU and the rest of the world.
So what, Rhodesia was not recognised internationally nor by the UK Wilson government but Smith remained its PM after UDI for 14 years and unlike Rhodesia, where the black majority opposed his white minority rule, the Protestant DUP majority of Antrim would be behind Paisley Jnr
Rhodesia was a viable country.
County Antrim is not.
You are insane.
Antrim has a bigger population than many small countries
What do you think the chances are of support for this becoming Conservative policy?
It's a good idea - the fact that we are still verifying identity with UTILITY BILLS is completely ridiculous, as though Thames Water had unique insight into who was who.
Whether the Government is so free of urgent business as to welcome a new controversy is another question.
I'm pro ID cards. I'll support that if it happens even under the charlatan Johnson.
ID cards, like lie detector tests, are illiberal, causes more problems, and are the tools of Satan.
Well I don't think so. Big practical benefits, philosophically sound, and imo the threat to liberty is largely illusory. People get overly precious and paranoid about it. Bet 100% of those nutty Trafalgar Square demonstrators are implacably opposed to ID cards.
The problem isn't the cards themselves. The problem with the previous proposal was that it was to be used as part of a system to link all your personal information together and distribute it.
So, a bod at the council would be able to search on "kinabalu". As part of an investigation on you not putting your re-cycling in the right bins. And getting your financial and medical records in the results......
Does not worry me. Paranoia.
Fair enough. I am a semi-expert hacker as it happens, and I have just looked you up. I find that you have a criminal record, you invest heavily on porn sites in working hours, and you have four fatherless children by different women. Would you really want that kind of information about you to be freely available to all and sundry?
Two out of three is not bad!
Answer to question - no. I would not want all of my personal details to be freely available to all and sundry.
But for me the risks of that nature that would come with a well designed and properly controlled ID card are not high enough to lose sleep over.
Err, the risks very much are worth losing sleep over.
Unless you like the idea that you can become an un-person overnight, have your bank accounts closed and unable to use public services such as health and welfare.
SNP will win outright majority in Holyrood next year
Johnson will continue to flatly refuse a second referendum
SNP government will hold second referendum before end 2023 anyway
They will win the referendum. There may be Unionist boycott but they will be a minority anyway.
Major political stalemate.
That is exactly what happened in Catalonia after the Nationalist Catalan government held an independence referendum in defiance of the Spanish government in Madrid and won it despite pro Spain voters boycotting, it changed nothing and the UK Supreme Court cannot overrule Westminster statute and Boris now has a Westminster majority
Maintaining the independence stalemate is Johnson's plan, I think. It could work for a while but Scotland isn't Catalonia. Almost every Scot is a nationalist. We all* rally to the Saltire in the end. The argument is about what the national interest is, not what nation we belong to.
* About 80%. 20% are in the British-not-Scottish camp. This camp is the SCons' redoubt.
The problem with that argument is that the timescale for delivery of HS2 is such that we don't really have any idea what our economy and travel needs will look like. Whilst I think we can be confident that Covid will be a distant memory it is possible that the restructuring of work will have persisted but it will be equally possible that it has not and the capacity will be urgently required.
I think Heathrow expansion is a more marginal case in that the decline in air travel is much sharper (as may be any bounce back of course) and the timescale for delivery shorter. I think this is ultimately a commercial decision for the owners of Heathrow and it is their money that should be at risk, not the tax payers.
Sack her.
Cabinet responsibility.
HS2 is the settled policy of the government she serves in.
The problem with that argument is that the timescale for delivery of HS2 is such that we don't really have any idea what our economy and travel needs will look like. Whilst I think we can be confident that Covid will be a distant memory it is possible that the restructuring of work will have persisted but it will be equally possible that it has not and the capacity will be urgently required.
I think Heathrow expansion is a more marginal case in that the decline in air travel is much sharper (as may be any bounce back of course) and the timescale for delivery shorter. I think this is ultimately a commercial decision for the owners of Heathrow and it is their money that should be at risk, not the tax payers.
Sack her.
Cabinet responsibility.
HS2 is the settled policy of the government she serves in.
Not sure how much play this has had on here, but there's a real possibility that the bifurcation between Republicans voting in person and Democrats voting by mail could create an apparent Trump landslide on election night itself:
That lead would inevitably dwindle as postal votes were counted over the subsequent days, but not before Trump had claimed victory and persuaded tens of millions of heavily-armed voters that they had been robbed by fraud...
Massive in play betting opportunities. I have been banging on about this for a while.
And what would the builders who are scheduled to work on HS2 do for the next 2 years as project planning for a different project starts?
HS2 may not be the most appropriate project at this moment but it's too late to cancel it given that it's a project with momentum...
Even COVID-19 in the grand scheme of things shouldn't matter when considering the railways. You don't build a railway for what you need in the next 5 years, but what you need in 20, 30, 50 or more years time. Done well HS2 will still be in use when we have all kicked the bucket.
The UK population will likely pass 70 million by the end of this decade, and will be heading towards 75-80 million by 2050. So we are going to need more transport infrastucture.
If I'm hiring someone to - for example - be a Javascript developer, then their views on the moon landing, homeopathy, Brexit, gay marriage, and whether you should put milk in before or after the water with tea are entirely beside the point.
Now. If you choose to use my office as a propaganda zone to push your agenda, we're going to have a problem. But your views on things peripheral to your job - on which God (if any you believe in), on Tottenham Hotspur or anything else - should not affect whether you are hired or not. Whether you can do a good job is the only criteria that matters.
Here, not his views on climate change or gay marriage, I have a problem. Other than signing trade deals that were largely complete when he took over as Prime Minister of Australia, what evidence is there that he brings anythin to the table at all?
I made that point yesterday evening - along with the facts about the trade deals - and concerns about his publicly expressed views on downgrading labour and environmental standards, contrary to current British government policy.
The fact that he may also be a patronising condescending twit in relation to women puts him amongst the majority of men of his age in senior positions in public life. He probably fits in with very well with today’s Tory-UKIP government.
Abbott is clearly a pillock. He's also Australian. How could we be sure he was negotiating in our interests and not those of his native country? What if a trade deal with a third country harmed Australia's interests? Presumably he'd have to step back from any negotiation with Australia itself - how could he negotiate in our interests then? The whole thing smacks of the weird 1950s white commonwealth nostalgia that seems rampant among Brexiteers. Australia is not British, and Australians are not just Brits who've been living in the sunshine for a few years and are desperate to return to the mother country. This may shock some people on here, but some Australians don't even like us that much.
There's a powerful strand of Bothamism in the intellectual foundation upon which this government constructs its policies. People think he was elevated to the Lords for his charity work and yes he was, but it was just as much for his thinking around Brexit and trade policy. He went on record earlier this year with the view that we ought to be aligning our commercial and political interests with "old friends", by which he meant countries we regularly play test cricket against. Not Pakistan, obviously, but the others. The Abbott appointment makes much sense when considered in this context.
Fish don't respect economic zones. If we double our catch of fish, someone else has to reduce theirs by a similar amount, or else fish stocks plummet. In whose waters they are caught makes little difference.
And the issue is not catching them, it's selling them...
Not an issue. You don't need a deal to export.
In the case of seafood, with a shelf life measured in hours, you jolly well do:
Frozen seafood doesn't have a shelf life of hours.
True. Nor is it worth as much, nor are there markets immediately available for it, nor are there the facilities to freeze it. But yes, over a decade or so it might be possible to switch over to a different business model, if only the fleets weren't going to go bust in the meantime.
I fail to see why they would go bust.
According to that article currently UK fishermen are only entitled to catch 9% of the cod in UK waters in the Channel. If that goes up to 100% (No Deal) scenario then are you really suggesting that would harm UK fishermen? That being able to catch 10x as many cod as before would be devastating to them?
Last I checked plenty of people in the UK eat cod.
It's a good idea - the fact that we are still verifying identity with UTILITY BILLS is completely ridiculous, as though Thames Water had unique insight into who was who.
Whether the Government is so free of urgent business as to welcome a new controversy is another question.
I'm pro ID cards. I'll support that if it happens even under the charlatan Johnson.
ID cards, like lie detector tests, are illiberal, causes more problems, and are the tools of Satan.
Well I don't think so. Big practical benefits, philosophically sound, and imo the threat to liberty is largely illusory. People get overly precious and paranoid about it. Bet 100% of those nutty Trafalgar Square demonstrators are implacably opposed to ID cards.
The problem isn't the cards themselves. The problem with the previous proposal was that it was to be used as part of a system to link all your personal information together and distribute it.
So, a bod at the council would be able to search on "kinabalu". As part of an investigation on you not putting your re-cycling in the right bins. And getting your financial and medical records in the results......
Does not worry me. Paranoia.
Fair enough. I am a semi-expert hacker as it happens, and I have just looked you up. I find that you have a criminal record, you invest heavily on porn sites in working hours, and you have four fatherless children by different women. Would you really want that kind of information about you to be freely available to all and sundry?
Two out of three is not bad!
Answer to question - no. I would not want all of my personal details to be freely available to all and sundry.
But for me the risks of that nature that would come with a well designed and properly controlled ID card are not high enough to lose sleep over.
Err, the risks very much are worth losing sleep over.
Unless you like the idea that you can become an un-person overnight, have your bank accounts closed and unable to use public services such as health and welfare.
Problem with this announcement is that it certainly won't happen. If there is a deal, this doubling of UK fish catches is the UK opening gambit that will be whittled down by the EU to a much smaller increase.
Or there won't be a deal with the consequences of UK fisherman being locked out of the market that represents 70% of their catch. As the Covid catastrophe for fishermen has shown, this market isn't easily replaceable.
And what would the builders who are scheduled to work on HS2 do for the next 2 years as project planning for a different project starts?
HS2 may not be the most appropriate project at this moment but it's too late to cancel it given that it's a project with momentum...
Even COVID-19 in the grand scheme of things shouldn't matter when considering the railways. You don't build a railway for what you need in the next 5 years, but what you need in 20, 30, 50 or more years time. Done well HS2 will still be in use when we have all kicked the bucket.
The UK population will likely pass 70 million by the end of this decade, and will be heading towards 75-80 million by 2050. So we are going to need more transport infrastucture.
Yes, the infrastructure stuff is exactly what we should be doing in a recession with interest rates at zero. That includes all of rail, road, aviation and broadband infrastructure.
The difference between attitudes to ID cards in Germany and the UK is interesting. While they are extremely controversial in the UK, their use in Germany is accepted pretty much without question as part of the machinery of government. On the other hand, Germans tend to be much more cautious than us when it comes to allowing private companies access to data considered personal. For example, Google Streetview wasn't available for a long time in Germany (I don't know if it is now) since it was considered to be an unacceptable intrusion into people's personal lives.
The issue of ID cards in the UK seems to accentuate a fundamental dichotomy on the right between those who would prefer to limit the powers of the state and those who are more believers in strong law and order (and the means to efficiently enforce it).
I have never respected the DUP and seeing Tweets like that just make me think even more than I will never shed a crocodile tear about Boris screwing over the DUP with the Brexit deal.
I hope the SNP get independence not out of any anger with Scotland or desire to see Scotland go, but simply because I think its in Scotland's best interests. If I was a Scot I would vote SNP/Yes despite being a right winger.
I hope that NI goes in part because I want rid of NI. I despise the IRA and loathe its sympathisers at the time, I would never have backed Irish unification pre-peace process but now? I want rid of its troubles, I want rid of its fanaticism and religion, the DUP and Sinn Fein and . . . let them be Ireland's problem, we've dealt with them long enough.
In the words of someone who probably shouldn't be brought up in discussions about Ireland: "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"
Well I am a Tory and remain a staunch Unionist.
Ripping the country in two with border posts and tariffs on exports to and from Scotland, inevitable after a No Deal Brexit or even a basic FTA with the EU would not do us any good, Scotland would effectively be an EU colony in the British Isles.
It would also be the end of the United Kingdom, we would become simply England and Wales overnight and as for Northern Ireland I would happily give away the Catholic and Sinn Fein, Remain voting counties on the Irish border like Fermanagh and Tyrone to the Republic of Ireland but in Protestant County Antrim every MP is DUP and every local authority voted Leave and it wants to remain with us.
England, Wales and Antrim would be fine with me, but the UK staying together best of all and that requires unity between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland
I'm not sure that Scotland and NI going would be the end of the United Kingdom is that great an argument to make to someone who has just said that Scotland and NI should go.
In the event NI goes so will Antrim just like how London left the EU.
It would not just be the end of the name of the country and the economic relationship remaining the same with free trade and no borders, there would be customs posts and tariffs between England and Scotland as a result of a hard Brexit and Scotland voting for independence and to return to the EU.
Antrim will not go, the dominant party in Antrim, the DUP, wants to stay part of the UK and not join the Republic of Ireland, the dominant party in London, Labour, does not want to rejoin the EU and leave the UK
It doesn't matter what the dominant party of Antrim wants. The dominant party of Merseyside wanted to stay in the EU. But Merseyside has left along with the rest of England.
If NI unifies that is it Antrim will have lost. That is democracy. It is also international law under the Good Friday Agreement.
In theory you could separate Antrim out, after all that was the reason Ulster was created in the first place. But Ulster is Ulster because it was deemed just about economically viable to be worth separating it out, that isn't going to be the case with Antrim.
Also most NI Protestants / Loyalists I know support Scotland far more than England. I suspect were Scotland to separate they would have little reason to remain part of the UK.
As I'm sure I've commented on before if Scotland went (and I expect it to) Ireland would reunite shortly afterwards as staying in what was left of the UK would make little sense except in subsidy terms.
HYUFD thinks that Antrim will be separated out. It won't.
The Good Friday Agreement is explicit on Irish unification if it is voted for. Separating out anything would violate the Good Friday Agreement and there isn't a snowballs chance in the Death Valley of it happening.
Oh I can assure you it will.
The Good Friday Agreement simply means the Catholic and Sinn Fein bits can rejoin the Republic and maybe even Down, every seat in Antrim however is DUP and the DUP opposed the Good Friday Agreement anyway and Antrim also voted Leave.
Antrim would overwhelmingly vote against reunification even if a border poll occurred and would stay united with England and Wales or even declare UDI rather than be forced into the Republic against its will (although alternatively we could ship the Orange Order and all the Protestants in Antrim back to Scotland and thus kill 2 birds with one stone)
You are insane.
Please cite a single thing from the Good Friday Agreement that says NI can be repartitioned. 🙄
DUP voters voted against the Good Friday Agreement and the DUP are the majority party in Antrim, if so they can say it applied only to Northern Ireland not the newly declared independent County of Antrim with Iain Paisley Jnr likely doing an Ian Smith in Rhodesia and declaring UDI if necessary
You are insane. 🙄
The UK wouldn't recognise the sovereignty of the independent County of Antrim. The UK which is bound by the Good Friday Agreement would recognise Irish unity as would the USA, the EU and the rest of the world.
So what, Rhodesia was not recognised internationally nor by the UK Wilson government but Smith remained its PM after UDI for 14 years and unlike Rhodesia, where the black majority opposed his white minority rule, the Protestant DUP majority of Antrim would be behind Paisley Jnr
Rhodesia was a viable country.
County Antrim is not.
You are insane.
Antrim has a bigger population than many small countries
What do you think the chances are of support for this becoming Conservative policy?
Amongst the Rees Mogg, Francois, Cash right of the party, high
The problem with that argument is that the timescale for delivery of HS2 is such that we don't really have any idea what our economy and travel needs will look like. Whilst I think we can be confident that Covid will be a distant memory it is possible that the restructuring of work will have persisted but it will be equally possible that it has not and the capacity will be urgently required.
I think Heathrow expansion is a more marginal case in that the decline in air travel is much sharper (as may be any bounce back of course) and the timescale for delivery shorter. I think this is ultimately a commercial decision for the owners of Heathrow and it is their money that should be at risk, not the tax payers.
Sack her.
Cabinet responsibility.
HS2 is the settled policy of the government she serves in.
She should be gone by end of play today.
She hasn’t been in the cabinet for months.
Not to mention that new, universal broadband infrastructure is also government policy.
That maybe so, but I am afraid it does not butter any parsnips with brexit voters.
We may decide to give foreign fleets some quotas to keep their communities going, we may not.
That decision will be made by the UK electorate and will be dependent on what the EU offers in return. That's the mindset.
Oh, I agree entirely, Brexit voters are still living in la-la land and think that decisions made by the UK have no adverse consequences for the UK. That is exactly why we are heading for a rude reckoning, and you can be 100% sure that those voters won't blame themselves for it, even though they should.
This goes back to the Johnson's triumph, which had the disaster baked into it from the beginning.
Most politicians acknowledge that decisions have upsides and downsides, winners and losers. If you want to spend more, you have to make a gesture towards saying where the money is going to come from. It may not be complete, honest or totally convincing (take Ballsonomics for example), but the tradeoffs were acknowledged.
Johnsonism and Brexitism have, at their heart, the denial of this. Have Cake And Eat It. No Downsides, Only Considerable Upsides. We can decide what arrangements we want with Europe and they can't say no. We can spend more on X, Y and Z but not raise taxes.
It's an attractive proposition to win votes, especially if covered in lashings of chutzpah. It works right up to the moment that you have to break some of your impossible, irresponsible promises. Then your supporters are likely to get angry, because you told them that their voting for something guaranteed it would happen. And the world doesn't always work like that.
Most people work that out in advance, of course, which is why they don't make promises they can't safely keep.
Problem with this announcement is that it certainly won't happen. If there is a deal, this doubling of UK fish catches is the UK opening gambit that will be whittled down by the EU to a much smaller increase.
Or there won't be a deal with the consequences of UK fisherman being locked out of the market that represents 70% of their catch. As the Covid catastrophe for fishermen has shown, this market isn't easily replaceable.
In any negotiation you start high with what you likely will not get, then if the other side accept a smaller rise you still get an increase in the end
Fish don't respect economic zones. If we double our catch of fish, someone else has to reduce theirs by a similar amount, or else fish stocks plummet. In whose waters they are caught makes little difference.
And the issue is not catching them, it's selling them...
Not an issue. You don't need a deal to export.
In the case of seafood, with a shelf life measured in hours, you jolly well do:
Frozen seafood doesn't have a shelf life of hours.
True. Nor is it worth as much, nor are there markets immediately available for it, nor are there the facilities to freeze it. But yes, over a decade or so it might be possible to switch over to a different business model, if only the fleets weren't going to go bust in the meantime.
I fail to see why they would go bust.
According to that article currently UK fishermen are only entitled to catch 9% of the cod in UK waters in the Channel. If that goes up to 100% (No Deal) scenario then are you really suggesting that would harm UK fishermen? That being able to catch 10x as many cod as before would be devastating to them?
Last I checked plenty of people in the UK eat cod.
It depends on which fishermen. Some would benefit from No Deal; more wouldn't. Starting with processed fish, which employs more people than caught fish. They have no catch to protect so there is no upside there; only downside to not being able to sell into their main market. Next shellfish. This is a more valuable product than deep sea fish and mostly caught by UK fishermen in local waters. They couldn't boost their catch enough to compensate for the loss of their main market. Sea fish - overall they might benefit from No Deal but it depends on the species of fish
And what would the builders who are scheduled to work on HS2 do for the next 2 years as project planning for a different project starts?
HS2 may not be the most appropriate project at this moment but it's too late to cancel it given that it's a project with momentum...
Even COVID-19 in the grand scheme of things shouldn't matter when considering the railways. You don't build a railway for what you need in the next 5 years, but what you need in 20, 30, 50 or more years time. Done well HS2 will still be in use when we have all kicked the bucket.
The UK population will likely pass 70 million by the end of this decade, and will be heading towards 75-80 million by 2050. So we are going to need more transport infrastucture.
Exactly. Almost all of our current rail infrastructure is over 150 years old.
I have never respected the DUP and seeing Tweets like that just make me think even more than I will never shed a crocodile tear about Boris screwing over the DUP with the Brexit deal.
I hope the SNP get independence not out of any anger with Scotland or desire to see Scotland go, but simply because I think its in Scotland's best interests. If I was a Scot I would vote SNP/Yes despite being a right winger.
I hope that NI goes in part because I want rid of NI. I despise the IRA and loathe its sympathisers at the time, I would never have backed Irish unification pre-peace process but now? I want rid of its troubles, I want rid of its fanaticism and religion, the DUP and Sinn Fein and . . . let them be Ireland's problem, we've dealt with them long enough.
In the words of someone who probably shouldn't be brought up in discussions about Ireland: "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"
Well I am a Tory and remain a staunch Unionist.
Ripping the country in two with border posts and tariffs on exports to and from Scotland, inevitable after a No Deal Brexit or even a basic FTA with the EU would not do us any good, Scotland would effectively be an EU colony in the British Isles.
It would also be the end of the United Kingdom, we would become simply England and Wales overnight and as for Northern Ireland I would happily give away the Catholic and Sinn Fein, Remain voting counties on the Irish border like Fermanagh and Tyrone to the Republic of Ireland but in Protestant County Antrim every MP is DUP and every local authority voted Leave and it wants to remain with us.
England, Wales and Antrim would be fine with me, but the UK staying together best of all and that requires unity between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland
I'm not sure that Scotland and NI going would be the end of the United Kingdom is that great an argument to make to someone who has just said that Scotland and NI should go.
In the event NI goes so will Antrim just like how London left the EU.
It would not just be the end of the name of the country and the economic relationship remaining the same with free trade and no borders, there would be customs posts and tariffs between England and Scotland as a result of a hard Brexit and Scotland voting for independence and to return to the EU.
Antrim will not go, the dominant party in Antrim, the DUP, wants to stay part of the UK and not join the Republic of Ireland, the dominant party in London, Labour, does not want to rejoin the EU and leave the UK
It doesn't matter what the dominant party of Antrim wants. The dominant party of Merseyside wanted to stay in the EU. But Merseyside has left along with the rest of England.
If NI unifies that is it Antrim will have lost. That is democracy. It is also international law under the Good Friday Agreement.
In theory you could separate Antrim out, after all that was the reason Ulster was created in the first place. But Ulster is Ulster because it was deemed just about economically viable to be worth separating it out, that isn't going to be the case with Antrim.
Also most NI Protestants / Loyalists I know support Scotland far more than England. I suspect were Scotland to separate they would have little reason to remain part of the UK.
As I'm sure I've commented on before if Scotland went (and I expect it to) Ireland would reunite shortly afterwards as staying in what was left of the UK would make little sense except in subsidy terms.
HYUFD thinks that Antrim will be separated out. It won't.
The Good Friday Agreement is explicit on Irish unification if it is voted for. Separating out anything would violate the Good Friday Agreement and there isn't a snowballs chance in the Death Valley of it happening.
Oh I can assure you it will.
The Good Friday Agreement simply means the Catholic and Sinn Fein bits can rejoin the Republic and maybe even Down, every seat in Antrim however is DUP and the DUP opposed the Good Friday Agreement anyway and Antrim also voted Leave.
Antrim would overwhelmingly vote against reunification even if a border poll occurred and would stay united with England and Wales or even declare UDI rather than be forced into the Republic against its will (although alternatively we could ship the Orange Order and all the Protestants in Antrim back to Scotland and thus kill 2 birds with one stone)
You are insane.
Please cite a single thing from the Good Friday Agreement that says NI can be repartitioned. 🙄
DUP voters voted against the Good Friday Agreement and the DUP are the majority party in Antrim, if so they can say it applied only to Northern Ireland not the newly declared independent County of Antrim with Iain Paisley Jnr likely doing an Ian Smith in Rhodesia and declaring UDI if necessary
You are insane. 🙄
The UK wouldn't recognise the sovereignty of the independent County of Antrim. The UK which is bound by the Good Friday Agreement would recognise Irish unity as would the USA, the EU and the rest of the world.
So what, Rhodesia was not recognised internationally nor by the UK Wilson government but Smith remained its PM after UDI for 14 years and unlike Rhodesia, where the black majority opposed his white minority rule, the Protestant DUP majority of Antrim would be behind Paisley Jnr
Rhodesia was a viable country.
County Antrim is not.
You are insane.
Antrim has a bigger population than many small countries
What do you think the chances are of support for this becoming Conservative policy?
Amongst the Rees Mogg, Francois, Cash right of the party, high
Problem with this announcement is that it certainly won't happen. If there is a deal, this doubling of UK fish catches is the UK opening gambit that will be whittled down by the EU to a much smaller increase.
Or there won't be a deal with the consequences of UK fisherman being locked out of the market that represents 70% of their catch. As the Covid catastrophe for fishermen has shown, this market isn't easily replaceable.
In any negotiation you start high with what you likely will not get, then if the other side accept a smaller rise you still get an increase in the end
Indeed. The landing zone, to mix a metaphor, is a UK catch that is noticeably bigger than before, but which leaves EU boats with most of what they had before.
I am challenging UK government comms setting expectations that their opening gambit in a negotiation will be what actually happens.
if she wanted a referendum she'd have to agree to negotiate the terms of how it would work upfront first, or not get one.
Nope
She would dismiss it as Project Fear, and none of the Brexiteers could deny her
How could she do that if she was required to agree the terms of a divorce deal before being given a vote?
This tactic is an attempt to split the SNP into those who accept the deal and those who call it a sell out. The Conservatives have failed to notice that it's possible to survive such a split with those who call the deal a sell out on top.
Trump is very upset about the French cemetery story
They issued a rebuttal email that claims the choppers couldn't fly, so there would be a motorcade instead, which Trump didn't take...
The thing is whether the truth is exactly as reported by Atlantic or not, it rings true. Trump tweeting furiously about it just makes sure everybody hears about it.
Generally, I think there seems to be a good propaganda case for making claims that have inaccuracies and exaggerations, trying to get the other side to make a big fuss about the innaccuracies thus drawing everyone's attention to the gist of the story.
I'm not saying the Atlantic story is inaccurate, though it is a bit hearsay-ish.
HMG invests £522m in attempting to boost obesity and diabetes.
Getting people with newly diagnosed diabetes to follow Roy Taylor's Newcastle diet will save the NHS millions and millions over next decade.
It is a remarkable piece of work. There is much more to it than merely weight loss. A 50% remission rate at 1 year, off all medication even for established T2DM is quite something.
I was wondering this yesterday when it was being debated on the radio. There surely has to be a lot more to putting diabetes 2 into remission than simple weight loss. I mean, I accept that would help but it cannot be enough on its own. What else are they doing?
There are lots of hormones involved in regulating human bodies and, I expect there's a complicated bit of hysteresis involved which is in some way reset by the extremely low calorie diet.
Left-wingers have been writing letters like that about conservative appointments for over 30 years.
Do you genuinely feel threatened by LGBT+ people like Tony Abbott does?
Not in the slightest.
Well, I have some issues with how transgender people are conducting the terms of the debate at present - with some unpleasant evidence toward bullying of females with concerns - and it’d be far better if everyone was more accepting and understanding that the issue is complex.
I have never respected the DUP and seeing Tweets like that just make me think even more than I will never shed a crocodile tear about Boris screwing over the DUP with the Brexit deal.
I hope the SNP get independence not out of any anger with Scotland or desire to see Scotland go, but simply because I think its in Scotland's best interests. If I was a Scot I would vote SNP/Yes despite being a right winger.
I hope that NI goes in part because I want rid of NI. I despise the IRA and loathe its sympathisers at the time, I would never have backed Irish unification pre-peace process but now? I want rid of its troubles, I want rid of its fanaticism and religion, the DUP and Sinn Fein and . . . let them be Ireland's problem, we've dealt with them long enough.
In the words of someone who probably shouldn't be brought up in discussions about Ireland: "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"
Well I am a Tory and remain a staunch Unionist.
Ripping the country in two with border posts and tariffs on exports to and from Scotland, inevitable after a No Deal Brexit or even a basic FTA with the EU would not do us any good, Scotland would effectively be an EU colony in the British Isles.
It would also be the end of the United Kingdom, we would become simply England and Wales overnight and as for Northern Ireland I would happily give away the Catholic and Sinn Fein, Remain voting counties on the Irish border like Fermanagh and Tyrone to the Republic of Ireland but in Protestant County Antrim every MP is DUP and every local authority voted Leave and it wants to remain with us.
England, Wales and Antrim would be fine with me, but the UK staying together best of all and that requires unity between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland
I'm not sure that Scotland and NI going would be the end of the United Kingdom is that great an argument to make to someone who has just said that Scotland and NI should go.
In the event NI goes so will Antrim just like how London left the EU.
It would not just be the end of the name of the country and the economic relationship remaining the same with free trade and no borders, there would be customs posts and tariffs between England and Scotland as a result of a hard Brexit and Scotland voting for independence and to return to the EU.
Antrim will not go, the dominant party in Antrim, the DUP, wants to stay part of the UK and not join the Republic of Ireland, the dominant party in London, Labour, does not want to rejoin the EU and leave the UK
It doesn't matter what the dominant party of Antrim wants. The dominant party of Merseyside wanted to stay in the EU. But Merseyside has left along with the rest of England.
If NI unifies that is it Antrim will have lost. That is democracy. It is also international law under the Good Friday Agreement.
In theory you could separate Antrim out, after all that was the reason Ulster was created in the first place. But Ulster is Ulster because it was deemed just about economically viable to be worth separating it out, that isn't going to be the case with Antrim.
Also most NI Protestants / Loyalists I know support Scotland far more than England. I suspect were Scotland to separate they would have little reason to remain part of the UK.
As I'm sure I've commented on before if Scotland went (and I expect it to) Ireland would reunite shortly afterwards as staying in what was left of the UK would make little sense except in subsidy terms.
HYUFD thinks that Antrim will be separated out. It won't.
The Good Friday Agreement is explicit on Irish unification if it is voted for. Separating out anything would violate the Good Friday Agreement and there isn't a snowballs chance in the Death Valley of it happening.
Oh I can assure you it will.
The Good Friday Agreement simply means the Catholic and Sinn Fein bits can rejoin the Republic and maybe even Down, every seat in Antrim however is DUP and the DUP opposed the Good Friday Agreement anyway and Antrim also voted Leave.
Antrim would overwhelmingly vote against reunification even if a border poll occurred and would stay united with England and Wales or even declare UDI rather than be forced into the Republic against its will (although alternatively we could ship the Orange Order and all the Protestants in Antrim back to Scotland and thus kill 2 birds with one stone)
You are insane.
Please cite a single thing from the Good Friday Agreement that says NI can be repartitioned. 🙄
DUP voters voted against the Good Friday Agreement and the DUP are the majority party in Antrim, if so they can say it applied only to Northern Ireland not the newly declared independent County of Antrim with Iain Paisley Jnr likely doing an Ian Smith in Rhodesia and declaring UDI if necessary
You are insane. 🙄
The UK wouldn't recognise the sovereignty of the independent County of Antrim. The UK which is bound by the Good Friday Agreement would recognise Irish unity as would the USA, the EU and the rest of the world.
So what, Rhodesia was not recognised internationally nor by the UK Wilson government but Smith remained its PM after UDI for 14 years and unlike Rhodesia, where the black majority opposed his white minority rule, the Protestant DUP majority of Antrim would be behind Paisley Jnr
Rhodesia wouldn't have lasted 10 minutes with support from white supremacist South Africa.
I think it just shows how unwilling wealthy educated white Americans were to be drafted into an unpopular war, leaving the fighting to rednecks and inner city ghetto kids. 11% of America were Black in the late Sixties, but a third of combat troops, with much of the remainder poor whites. Together they made up "MacNamara's Morons", and who were used as frontline cannon fodder:
Comments
His book is on Amazon for a quid this month.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Without-Diabetes-definitive-understanding-ebook/dp/B082XLN9S9
Then it becomes all about economics.
You have an even lower level of confidence in British competence than I do.
Control is vital. It is everything. Even the news that Johnson only wants 50% is like a red rage to a bull to the average brexiteer. Just watch.
The UK wouldn't recognise the sovereignty of the independent County of Antrim. The UK which is bound by the Good Friday Agreement would recognise Irish unity as would the USA, the EU and the rest of the world.
Answer to question - no. I would not want all of my personal details to be freely available to all and sundry.
But for me the risks of that nature that would come with a well designed and properly controlled ID card are not high enough to lose sleep over.
The public have seen how their own government has done a far better job of wrecking the economy in transition that outside forces ever could.
Winners indeed!!
But they didn't and it is.
PT: we have a seat based system
CP: we should move away from that system
PT: agree, move away from proportional representation,
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1301710818267074560?s=20
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1301710819349204992?s=20
PT: we have a seat based system
CP: change the voting system [Scotland's voting system is PR]
PT: agreed.
What part of that is confusing? I'm guessing CP was talking about another voting system and not the Scottish Parliament one but that is what we were talking about.
For example, the only way to guarantee your bank account won't be violated is to not have one. Or, less extreme example, CCTV. Lots of benign and important uses but the only way to guarantee it's not used for prying is to not have it.
Benefits vs Risks. For me, ID cards clear the bar pretty easily.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/restaurant-cctv-catches-man-sprinkling-18872844
County Antrim is not.
You are insane.
https://ec.europa.eu/food/sites/food/files/safety/docs/ia_trade_import-cond-fish_en.pdf
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1301687221515440128?s=20
In theory you could repeat partition, but last time this followed a threatened mutiny within the British Army. The conditions for it to happen again do not look likely to exist.
You take the opportunity to streamline government departments and take a careful look at all current spending, seeking to eliminate that which is frivolous or no longer required.
Structural spending should be kept up, governments should have lists of projects to go ahead such as roadworks and HS2, alongside plans to move more of government out of central London.
Attention should then shift to the recovery, where a combination of tax cuts and regulatory reform (planning laws!) incentivises private investment in the economy and job creation as the recession fades.
The time for tax rises is when the recovery has completed, and government focus shifts from achieving economic growth to achieving tax revenue, but even then tax rises need to be well researched to avoid Laffer Curve effects.
Then the cycle repeats itself, according to JM Keynes.
We may decide to give foreign fleets some quotas to keep their communities going, we may not.
That decision will be made by the UK electorate and will be dependent on what the EU offers in return. That's the mindset.
Rotting in a lorry park in Kent is of no use.
Look at Tom Watson.
Literally half the man he used to be
HS2 may not be the most appropriate project at this moment but it's too late to cancel it given that it's a project with momentum...
According to remainers, fish are inconsequential. Nobody cares. Its a red herring. ha ha ha.
https://www.axios.com/bloomberg-group-trump-election-night-scenarios-a554e8f5-9702-437e-ae75-d2be478d42bb.html
That lead would inevitably dwindle as postal votes were counted over the subsequent days, but not before Trump had claimed victory and persuaded tens of millions of heavily-armed voters that they had been robbed by fraud...
I think Heathrow expansion is a more marginal case in that the decline in air travel is much sharper (as may be any bounce back of course) and the timescale for delivery shorter. I think this is ultimately a commercial decision for the owners of Heathrow and it is their money that should be at risk, not the tax payers.
Unless you like the idea that you can become an un-person overnight, have your bank accounts closed and unable to use public services such as health and welfare.
* About 80%. 20% are in the British-not-Scottish camp. This camp is the SCons' redoubt.
Cabinet responsibility.
HS2 is the settled policy of the government she serves in.
She should be gone by end of play today.
NEW THREAD
The UK population will likely pass 70 million by the end of this decade, and will be heading towards 75-80 million by 2050. So we are going to need more transport infrastucture.
According to that article currently UK fishermen are only entitled to catch 9% of the cod in UK waters in the Channel. If that goes up to 100% (No Deal) scenario then are you really suggesting that would harm UK fishermen? That being able to catch 10x as many cod as before would be devastating to them?
Last I checked plenty of people in the UK eat cod.
Or there won't be a deal with the consequences of UK fisherman being locked out of the market that represents 70% of their catch. As the Covid catastrophe for fishermen has shown, this market isn't easily replaceable.
The issue of ID cards in the UK seems to accentuate a fundamental dichotomy on the right between those who would prefer to limit the powers of the state and those who are more believers in strong law and order (and the means to efficiently enforce it).
Most politicians acknowledge that decisions have upsides and downsides, winners and losers. If you want to spend more, you have to make a gesture towards saying where the money is going to come from. It may not be complete, honest or totally convincing (take Ballsonomics for example), but the tradeoffs were acknowledged.
Johnsonism and Brexitism have, at their heart, the denial of this. Have Cake And Eat It. No Downsides, Only Considerable Upsides. We can decide what arrangements we want with Europe and they can't say no. We can spend more on X, Y and Z but not raise taxes.
It's an attractive proposition to win votes, especially if covered in lashings of chutzpah. It works right up to the moment that you have to break some of your impossible, irresponsible promises. Then your supporters are likely to get angry, because you told them that their voting for something guaranteed it would happen. And the world doesn't always work like that.
Most people work that out in advance, of course, which is why they don't make promises they can't safely keep.
I am challenging UK government comms setting expectations that their opening gambit in a negotiation will be what actually happens.
Your opinion of Trump's honesty is clearly a little higher than mine.
Well, I have some issues with how transgender people are conducting the terms of the debate at present - with some unpleasant evidence toward bullying of females with concerns - and it’d be far better if everyone was more accepting and understanding that the issue is complex.
Think America and Britain have blood on their hands and are systemically racist?
Just wait until you see the new Chinese world order: you’re going to love it.
Absolutely love it.
https://www.insidesources.com/joe-bidens-draft-record-looks-a-lot-like-donald-trumps-do-democrats-care/
I think it just shows how unwilling wealthy educated white Americans were to be drafted into an unpopular war, leaving the fighting to rednecks and inner city ghetto kids. 11% of America were Black in the late Sixties, but a third of combat troops, with much of the remainder poor whites. Together they made up "MacNamara's Morons", and who were used as frontline cannon fodder:
https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/story-behind-mcnamaras-morons