There's still a tone of inevitably on here that I don't quite recognise - many wishing for an amicable seperation (which I'd want too, but can't see happening)
14 odd polls have shown yes in the lead. Any ref campaign would likely see things shift around. And if - god forbid - it was 52% yes against 48% no, I'm not convinced that's particularly stable grounds for a united country (as we've seen here)
Oh well, better stick with the country imposing its instability on us after a 52-48 referendum result.
Quite - I don't disagree with this..
Just thinking more about the practical implications.
If Boris offered an independence referendum with this electorate:
Those eligible to vote in a Westminster general election in Scotland, ie no under 18s and no non-British, plus Scots living in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Would you accept ?
No.
1. Criterion of birth is Blood and Soil thinking. 2. It is unevenly applied - those incomers living in Scotland are allowed to vote. 3. No existing listing - there is no official Scots nationality ergo no objective documentary criterion ([edit] I do know about FRance and expat French, but when there is an elecvtion in France the French take their passports along).
Just so.
In the unlikely event of another EU ref being held in the next 4 years, hands up those who think it would be fine to radically change the form from the 2016 one?
The EU ref was held according to the normal franchise, so of course any change to it would be wrong. The only people who attempted such a thing (by proxy) were the Remainer MPs who wanted to let 16 and 17 year olds and EU citizens vote in GE2019.
Cameron's mistake was to let the SNP fix the franchise for the 2014 referendum, Johnson would be wise to not repeat the error.
16 & 17 year olds voting is the normal franchise for elections in Scotland (as it is now in Wales) and was a manifesto policy of the SNP in 2011.
I remember pre 2014 Unionists breathlessly reporting that school debate after school debate was ending in favour of the Union. I believe the phrase 'bad tactical error by Salmond letting the kids vote' may even have been used.
Permission for a legal referendum on secession has to be granted by the UK Parliament. It is a UK matter and the UK franchise should be used. I don't care which way the kids would vote, we don't let kids vote.
If Boris offered an independence referendum with this electorate:
Those eligible to vote in a Westminster general election in Scotland, ie no under 18s and no non-British, plus Scots living in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Would you accept ?
No.
1. Criterion of birth is Blood and Soil thinking. 2. It is unevenly applied - those incomers living in Scotland are allowed to vote. 3. No existing listing - there is no official Scots nationality ergo no objective documentary criterion ([edit] I do know about FRance and expat French, but when there is an elecvtion in France the French take their passports along).
Letting Scots living in the rest of the UK (and indeed world) is no different to allowing ex-pats to vote. It's understood that they may well return to the UK one day and still have a real stake in its future. The criteria would simply be British citizenship and having been born in Scotland and/or having lived there for some minimum period of time.
I think Nats are against this and in favour of letting children and non-Brits vote not because of any real principle, but because they want to fix the franchise in their favour.
Still impossible to implement without risk of mass fraud.
And if Mr Cameron was happy with the 2014 franchise, which was actually that for residents in Scotland and defined long before indyref 1, why change?
Is your objection to this that it would be hard to implement and risks fraud, or that it would make it harder for Yes to win?
It wouldn't be that hard to implement. There are Council Tax and electoral roll records, I assume, which would be used to determine eligibility to vote for Scots outside Scotland.
As I've said elsewhere, Cameron made an error, but that's no reason to make it again. He probably thought that No was such a shoo-in there was no point arguing about the franchise.
The birth criterion is the problem. CT and electoral records are no good outside Scotland, obvs. And it's not as if someon e living in Epping can take his birth cert to the voting booth cos there won't be one in Epping. No UK idewntity card. No specifically Scottish passport that can be used as a surrogate indicator as the French do.
Obviously there won't be a polling booth in Epping. These would be postal votes, like those ex-pats use. Eligibility would be decided well ahead of the election, not on the day.
You are just grasping for excuses to exclude those with a real stake in Scotland's future from voting and I think we know why.
On the contrary. You are trying to get perople who have abandoned the coutnry to be allowed a vote. I would think it more reasonable to allow English incomers to have the vote, which your principle absolutely forbids.
If Boris offered an independence referendum with this electorate:
Those eligible to vote in a Westminster general election in Scotland, ie no under 18s and no non-British, plus Scots living in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Would you accept ?
No.
1. Criterion of birth is Blood and Soil thinking. 2. It is unevenly applied - those incomers living in Scotland are allowed to vote. 3. No existing listing - there is no official Scots nationality ergo no objective documentary criterion ([edit] I do know about FRance and expat French, but when there is an elecvtion in France the French take their passports along).
Letting Scots living in the rest of the UK (and indeed world) is no different to allowing ex-pats to vote. It's understood that they may well return to the UK one day and still have a real stake in its future. The criteria would simply be British citizenship and having been born in Scotland and/or having lived there for some minimum period of time.
I think Nats are against this and in favour of letting children and non-Brits vote not because of any real principle, but because they want to fix the franchise in their favour.
Also - applying your blood criterion would mean excluding the English, Welsh and NI born such as Angus Robertson (!) from voting in the referendum. You can't use residence on one side and then blood on the other side of the border.
The "Civic Nationalism" claim would arguably be compromised if the vote were on that basis.
Clearly a protest at the removal of overseas aid....
Though last week's polls seemed to show a Lab -> Con shift. Could be that we were reminded of Corbyn's continued role in politics last week, and now he's vanished under the waves again.
What’s the point of the Lib Dems?
The point is they are not part of the totally corrupt so called big parties. Just wait till May we’ll be back. To be honest there is no point in labour at the moment or any other party apart from UKIP lite.
I think the LDs are trying to work that out.
"Lost in a wilderness of our own creation! I see no way out, especially with Labour presenting a much more sensible image. The big question is “What point is there in voting Lib Dem, indeed what point is there in having a Lib Dem party?”. Honest and realistic answers please, because after supporting the party since 1959 I have no idea."
If Boris offered an independence referendum with this electorate:
Those eligible to vote in a Westminster general election in Scotland, ie no under 18s and no non-British, plus Scots living in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Would you accept ?
No.
1. Criterion of birth is Blood and Soil thinking. 2. It is unevenly applied - those incomers living in Scotland are allowed to vote. 3. No existing listing - there is no official Scots nationality ergo no objective documentary criterion ([edit] I do know about FRance and expat French, but when there is an elecvtion in France the French take their passports along).
Just so.
In the unlikely event of another EU ref being held in the next 4 years, hands up those who think it would be fine to radically change the form from the 2016 one?
The EU ref was held according to the normal franchise, so of course any change to it would be wrong. The only people who attempted such a thing (by proxy) were the Remainer MPs who wanted to let 16 and 17 year olds and EU citizens vote in GE2019.
Cameron's mistake was to let the SNP fix the franchise for the 2014 referendum, Johnson would be wise to not repeat the error.
16 & 17 year olds voting is the normal franchise for elections in Scotland (as it is now in Wales) and was a manifesto policy of the SNP in 2011.
I remember pre 2014 Unionists breathlessly reporting that school debate after school debate was ending in favour of the Union. I believe the phrase 'bad tactical error by Salmond letting the kids vote' may even have been used.
Permission for a legal referendum on secession has to be granted by the UK Parliament. It is a UK matter and the UK franchise should be used. I don't care which way the kids would vote, we don't let kids vote.
I think it's easy to forget how different things look from Scotland. I was at school there for several years. All the national newspapers have Scottish editions, and are very different, all the TV channels are Scottish, and different, the premier football league is different, and even the Scottish pound feels different - although fully part of British Sterling. London felt a very very long way away. The whole national conversation can be different.
And that was in 1995. Before we get to how modern technology atomises us still further.
Also, a certain kind of upper middle-class English leader grates with many Scots, be that Thatcher, Cameron or, in particular, Boris. Scotland has its upper-classes too, but they are more rural, distant and quaint - England can give them a sense that a posh accent and posh education give you a right to rule. It's why they struggled with them but Brown and May didn't so much.
That said, there were and are similarities - our island culture, our weather, the BBC, the NHS, the armed forces, history, chippies, our shared pub culture, and even shared scepticism to the Euro. And most people have some relations or family on the other side of the border. The trick is to turn political nationalism into a strong and safe cultural one, with Scots feeling truly respected in the Union.
We need direct Scottish participation and representation in the UK Government with major cabinet portfolios, more shared experiences, and I'd be willing to explore policy solutions for this, world-class competence, and more communication of the benefits of the Union and how it listens to and works for Scotland - enhancing its strength and profile on the world stage.
Clearly a protest at the removal of overseas aid....
Though last week's polls seemed to show a Lab -> Con shift. Could be that we were reminded of Corbyn's continued role in politics last week, and now he's vanished under the waves again.
What’s the point of the Lib Dems?
The point is they are not part of the totally corrupt so called big parties. Just wait till May we’ll be back. To be honest there is no point in labour at the moment or any other party apart from UKIP lite.
I think the LDs are trying to work that out.
"Lost in a wilderness of our own creation! I see no way out, especially with Labour presenting a much more sensible image. The big question is “What point is there in voting Lib Dem, indeed what point is there in having a Lib Dem party?”. Honest and realistic answers please, because after supporting the party since 1959 I have no idea."
If the Liberal Democrats are to have a future, they need to start rebuilding at a local level. They need, above all, to build support where they have a chance of winning and accept they shouldn’t waste time pretending to be a national party. If they do that, opinion polls cease to be of real relevance to them.
The snag is that their most fruitful potential areas - slightly left-leaning suburbs who despise the Tories but are suspicious of Labour - are with rare exceptions not areas of traditional strength (Wales, the West Country and the Scottish Highlands have gone and are not returning) so the organisation just isn’t there to pull things round.
I would very much doubt it unless they had also repeated the allegations on her donations page.
I suspect however she is in big trouble if she's not able to argue the story was true. It's not like that weirdo from Bath where Dugdale's comments were ruled wrong, but a reasonable interpretation of the comments expressed as an honest opinion. This is criminality she was alleging.
She has thrown in the towel I believe, so that is all by the bye. And if she is liable for costs - you'd need a Court order, but in principle if you fund litigation you can be on the hook for costs. Compare the situation where A sues B but in practice A has been sorted out by his own insurers and it's really A's insurers suing B or B's insurers.. If A loses his insurers pay up.
I just can't see what other defence is open to her.
Edit - re funding, I don't think that counts for a defence, only for the plaintiff, although I could be wrong. It shouldn't do, but then law and sense have never been easy bedfellows.
Thanks.
Dunno, IANALBIUTB. Funding other people's litigation used to constitute the tort of maintenance and/or champerty, but like most of the law I remember that is now obsolete.
I think I'd be happy if Scotland decided to stay in the UK, but I'm not sure how we get there. Boris is historically unpopular in Scotland, Starmer doesn't seem to be particularly popular either and those are the two UK politicians that have any capacity to make a difference to Scotland currently or in the near future.
I think the In/Remain/No campaign would have to be based on the weight of history, what Scotland and England have achieved together throughout the partnership of 300 years and what can still be achieved together.
I think a commitment to move Faslane to Plymouth or Portsmouth would be useful as that is a very specific issue for a lot of people, removing that from the equation is, IMO, a simple way of winning a few people over.
Other than that I think spelling out "consequences" isn't going to work very well. I'd push hard on the currency issue but nothing else. I think talk of a "union dividend" is wasted unless the argument can be shifted successfully to what the SNP would cut from the day to day budget post independence, which I don't think is going to possible, the SNP are far too good at politics to let that happen.
Looking in from the outside I think there are too many things that need to go right for the union for an In/Remain/No vote. It's possible for a narrow victory but I'm not sure how likely it is. I think that's why basing the campaign on the weight of history makes the most sense, a sentimental approach of "don't make this decision based on today's politics, think of the last 300 years of success" can have a very positive polling booth effect for unionists.
I actually think that's what the remain side in the EU referendum didn't do enough of, though the achievements of the UK and EU together are much smaller than the rise of an Empire and changing the face of the planet.
While I am resident in England, so just a spectator in 2014, now I will be cheering on independence and Irish reunification.
Our countries have simply diverged too much for the Union to be viable, or to have a point.
It does make for grim hegemony of the Tories in England, at least for a generation, but you cannot stop an idea whose time had come.
Well you are a traitor to your sovereign country then!
A country is more than area of land ruled by an entity to which one owes unquestioning obedience. A country is a shared society. A country is cultural values. A country is something to which people willingly belong.
Should a country descend into tyranny, it becomes hateful. It distorts belonging into compulsion.
I want the Scots to stay with us. But out of choice, not compulsion. To force them to stay would be to make their fears of being treated as a conquered colony into truth and to force them into that would be abhorrent. If they freely choose to leave, then I would regret it, but wish them good luck.
Your apparent vision of what is and is not treason and what a country should and should not be is not one I recognise. I do not hate my country, but a country that forced itself on the Scottish people would be hateful.
I swore an oath 25 years ago to Queen and Country when I put on a uniform. Although I since retired, I do not regret that in the slightest. The oath I swore, though, was because I believed in that country - not because I happened to be living there and therefore must do it, but because I believed in what I saw that country believing in.
I utterly reject your charge of treason against people who would not stand for this country being tyrannical towards an entire subset of it - and before you call me a traitor, I will say on record that I was willing to put my life on the line for this country; some people I served with lost their lives doing so. I do not know if you ever have done so.
If Boris offered an independence referendum with this electorate:
Those eligible to vote in a Westminster general election in Scotland, ie no under 18s and no non-British, plus Scots living in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Would you accept ?
No.
1. Criterion of birth is Blood and Soil thinking. 2. It is unevenly applied - those incomers living in Scotland are allowed to vote. 3. No existing listing - there is no official Scots nationality ergo no objective documentary criterion ([edit] I do know about FRance and expat French, but when there is an elecvtion in France the French take their passports along).
Letting Scots living in the rest of the UK (and indeed world) is no different to allowing ex-pats to vote. It's understood that they may well return to the UK one day and still have a real stake in its future. The criteria would simply be British citizenship and having been born in Scotland and/or having lived there for some minimum period of time.
I think Nats are against this and in favour of letting children and non-Brits vote not because of any real principle, but because they want to fix the franchise in their favour.
Still impossible to implement without risk of mass fraud.
And if Mr Cameron was happy with the 2014 franchise, which was actually that for residents in Scotland and defined long before indyref 1, why change?
Is your objection to this that it would be hard to implement and risks fraud, or that it would make it harder for Yes to win?
It wouldn't be that hard to implement. There are Council Tax and electoral roll records, I assume, which would be used to determine eligibility to vote for Scots outside Scotland.
As I've said elsewhere, Cameron made an error, but that's no reason to make it again. He probably thought that No was such a shoo-in there was no point arguing about the franchise.
The birth criterion is the problem. CT and electoral records are no good outside Scotland, obvs. And it's not as if someon e living in Epping can take his birth cert to the voting booth cos there won't be one in Epping. No UK idewntity card. No specifically Scottish passport that can be used as a surrogate indicator as the French do.
Obviously there won't be a polling booth in Epping. These would be postal votes, like those ex-pats use. Eligibility would be decided well ahead of the election, not on the day.
You are just grasping for excuses to exclude those with a real stake in Scotland's future from voting and I think we know why.
On the contrary. You are trying to get perople who have abandoned the coutnry to be allowed a vote. I would think it more reasonable to allow English incomers to have the vote, which your principle absolutely forbids.
Working abroad or elsewhere in the UK is not abandoning the country. What you propose denies the vote to someone born in Scotland who lived and worked there for 50 years, then took a job in London the year before the referendum. Meanwhile an English person temporarily in Scotland for work does get to vote.
Thanks for very interesting Header. My view is that Sindy is now inevitable. I'm a little bit sad about this - I have a chunk of family up there - but I cannot see any stable destination for the England/Scotland relationship other than that of an amicable separation. So on the grounds of "if it is to be done it is best it be done quickly" - Shakey nailing things there even though he died before the Union about to break was even formed - I would like to see a referendum in this parliament and a clear Yes result. Usual caveat of I don't have a vote and it's a matter for Scots, but I think this is the optimal outcome.
For one awful moment I thought that you were revealing Shaking Stevens had kicked the bucket. Phew!
I wouldn't break something as grave as that in such a flippant manner. Moved to check up on him though, and yes, all is well. 72. Still touring.
If Boris offered an independence referendum with this electorate:
Those eligible to vote in a Westminster general election in Scotland, ie no under 18s and no non-British, plus Scots living in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Would you accept ?
No.
1. Criterion of birth is Blood and Soil thinking. 2. It is unevenly applied - those incomers living in Scotland are allowed to vote. 3. No existing listing - there is no official Scots nationality ergo no objective documentary criterion ([edit] I do know about FRance and expat French, but when there is an elecvtion in France the French take their passports along).
Letting Scots living in the rest of the UK (and indeed world) is no different to allowing ex-pats to vote. It's understood that they may well return to the UK one day and still have a real stake in its future. The criteria would simply be British citizenship and having been born in Scotland and/or having lived there for some minimum period of time.
I think Nats are against this and in favour of letting children and non-Brits vote not because of any real principle, but because they want to fix the franchise in their favour.
Still impossible to implement without risk of mass fraud.
And if Mr Cameron was happy with the 2014 franchise, which was actually that for residents in Scotland and defined long before indyref 1, why change?
Is your objection to this that it would be hard to implement and risks fraud, or that it would make it harder for Yes to win?
It wouldn't be that hard to implement. There are Council Tax and electoral roll records, I assume, which would be used to determine eligibility to vote for Scots outside Scotland.
As I've said elsewhere, Cameron made an error, but that's no reason to make it again. He probably thought that No was such a shoo-in there was no point arguing about the franchise.
The birth criterion is the problem. CT and electoral records are no good outside Scotland, obvs. And it's not as if someon e living in Epping can take his birth cert to the voting booth cos there won't be one in Epping. No UK idewntity card. No specifically Scottish passport that can be used as a surrogate indicator as the French do.
Obviously there won't be a polling booth in Epping. These would be postal votes, like those ex-pats use. Eligibility would be decided well ahead of the election, not on the day.
You are just grasping for excuses to exclude those with a real stake in Scotland's future from voting and I think we know why.
On the contrary. You are trying to get perople who have abandoned the coutnry to be allowed a vote. I would think it more reasonable to allow English incomers to have the vote, which your principle absolutely forbids.
Working abroad or elsewhere in the UK is not abandoning the country. What you propose denies the vote to someone born in Scotland who lived and worked there for 50 years, then took a job in London the year before the referendum. Meanwhile an English person temporarily in Scotland for work does get to vote.
Rough justice, I know. I have been in that potential position myself as an exile (didn't get to vote in 1978). But there is no[edit] other option unless one wants to go all blood and soil.
Edit: and, thinking of family and friends, one can't legitimately privilege Scots in EWNI over those in, say, Ireland or Estonia or NZ or Trinidad or Brazil. Which makes the proposal even more difficult to implement.
Thanks for very interesting Header. My view is that Sindy is now inevitable. I'm a little bit sad about this - I have a chunk of family up there - but I cannot see any stable destination for the England/Scotland relationship other than that of an amicable separation. So on the grounds of "if it is to be done it is best it be done quickly" - Shakey nailing things there even though he died before the Union about to break was even formed - I would like to see a referendum in this parliament and a clear Yes result. Usual caveat of I don't have a vote and it's a matter for Scots, but I think this is the optimal outcome.
For one awful moment I thought that you were revealing Shaking Stevens had kicked the bucket. Phew!
I wouldn't break something as grave as that in such a flippant manner. Moved to check up on him though, and yes, all is well. 72. Still touring.
Not sure if this is O/t, since it concerns the consequences of splitting away from a larger standard setting body but this has just come to our community from Essex Trading Standards,
'Trading Standards has seen an increase in new food businesses importing food from outside the EU. We would encourage anyone who is considering this to contact us for advice to ensure the food products being imported are safe and legally labelled. If you are importing from outside the EU then you should be aware that food legislation can be significantly different to the UK rules. You will be responsible for the safety of the food and ensuring it complies with all relevant UK/EU legislation including labelling and claims requirements. Food labelling legislation requires specific information to be declared including the name and address of the responsible business in the EU. "
That of course is for the moment but the second two sentences of the Notice could, of course, be significant from Jan 1st onwards, when the standards will be ours and ours alone.
5% each for Greens, LD and BXP is not something that I would expect in a real GE.
I wonder what will happen when we are no longer in BINO?
The government will either do significantly better (if it goes well) or significantly worse (if it doesn't). My hunch is that "meh" is a net negative for the government, but I could be wrong.
And since we don't know what will happen next, all we can do is pontificate. And bet, if the fancy takes us.
Not sure if this is O/t, since it concerns the consequences of splitting away from a larger standard setting body but this has just come to our community from Essex Trading Standards,
'Trading Standards has seen an increase in new food businesses importing food from outside the EU. We would encourage anyone who is considering this to contact us for advice to ensure the food products being imported are safe and legally labelled. If you are importing from outside the EU then you should be aware that food legislation can be significantly different to the UK rules. You will be responsible for the safety of the food and ensuring it complies with all relevant UK/EU legislation including labelling and claims requirements. Food labelling legislation requires specific information to be declared including the name and address of the responsible business in the EU. "
That of course is for the moment but the second two sentences of the Notice could, of course, be significant from Jan 1st onwards, when the standards will be ours and ours alone.
Honestly, how bad is that notice?
A supposedly educated person who doesn't know the correct form is 'different from' should be forced to eat pineapple pizza for the rest of their lives.
Thanks for very interesting Header. My view is that Sindy is now inevitable. I'm a little bit sad about this - I have a chunk of family up there - but I cannot see any stable destination for the England/Scotland relationship other than that of an amicable separation. So on the grounds of "if it is to be done it is best it be done quickly" - Shakey nailing things there even though he died before the Union about to break was even formed - I would like to see a referendum in this parliament and a clear Yes result. Usual caveat of I don't have a vote and it's a matter for Scots, but I think this is the optimal outcome.
For one awful moment I thought that you were revealing Shaking Stevens had kicked the bucket. Phew!
I wouldn't break something as grave as that in such a flippant manner. Moved to check up on him though, and yes, all is well. 72. Still touring.
Brexit could easily kill the Union. Scotland goes and joins the EU. NI goes soon after with Irish unification. England/Wales holds out a little while against the tide then rejoins SM after abject economic performance. Life will then resume as before except no UK and no £. Thank you Brexiteers.
While I am resident in England, so just a spectator in 2014, now I will be cheering on independence and Irish reunification.
Our countries have simply diverged too much for the Union to be viable, or to have a point.
It does make for grim hegemony of the Tories in England, at least for a generation, but you cannot stop an idea whose time had come.
Well you are a traitor to your sovereign country then!
That's the spirit Hyufd. Call people who disagree with you traitors. That will really bring them round.
I am irresistibly reminded of General Melchett's finest line: 'If all else fails, a pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.'
I won't ever bring him round, he is a left liberal, diehard Remainer wet lettuce who hates his own country, so I do not care
Sometime HYUFD, I am ashamed that you live in Essex; I can assure colleagues here that not everyone in Essex has the same views. Although I must confess that too many have.
I am ashamed he espouses such abhorrent views and as a conservative in a position in the party
Not sure if this is O/t, since it concerns the consequences of splitting away from a larger standard setting body but this has just come to our community from Essex Trading Standards,
'Trading Standards has seen an increase in new food businesses importing food from outside the EU. We would encourage anyone who is considering this to contact us for advice to ensure the food products being imported are safe and legally labelled. If you are importing from outside the EU then you should be aware that food legislation can be significantly different to the UK rules. You will be responsible for the safety of the food and ensuring it complies with all relevant UK/EU legislation including labelling and claims requirements. Food labelling legislation requires specific information to be declared including the name and address of the responsible business in the EU. "
That of course is for the moment but the second two sentences of the Notice could, of course, be significant from Jan 1st onwards, when the standards will be ours and ours alone.
Honestly, how bad is that notice?
A supposedly educated person who doesn't know the correct form is 'different from' should be forced to eat pineapple pizza for the rest of their lives.
If we replace our relationship with Europe with closer transatlantic ties, we may look forward to experiencing ‘different than’.
Thanks for very interesting Header. My view is that Sindy is now inevitable. I'm a little bit sad about this - I have a chunk of family up there - but I cannot see any stable destination for the England/Scotland relationship other than that of an amicable separation. So on the grounds of "if it is to be done it is best it be done quickly" - Shakey nailing things there even though he died before the Union about to break was even formed - I would like to see a referendum in this parliament and a clear Yes result. Usual caveat of I don't have a vote and it's a matter for Scots, but I think this is the optimal outcome.
For one awful moment I thought that you were revealing Shaking Stevens had kicked the bucket. Phew!
I wouldn't break something as grave as that in such a flippant manner. Moved to check up on him though, and yes, all is well. 72. Still touring.
Did you catch this revelation? What a power couple that would have been!
Not sure if this is O/t, since it concerns the consequences of splitting away from a larger standard setting body but this has just come to our community from Essex Trading Standards,
'Trading Standards has seen an increase in new food businesses importing food from outside the EU. We would encourage anyone who is considering this to contact us for advice to ensure the food products being imported are safe and legally labelled. If you are importing from outside the EU then you should be aware that food legislation can be significantly different to the UK rules. You will be responsible for the safety of the food and ensuring it complies with all relevant UK/EU legislation including labelling and claims requirements. Food labelling legislation requires specific information to be declared including the name and address of the responsible business in the EU. "
That of course is for the moment but the second two sentences of the Notice could, of course, be significant from Jan 1st onwards, when the standards will be ours and ours alone.
Honestly, how bad is that notice?
A supposedly educated person who doesn't know the correct form is 'different from' should be forced to eat pineapple pizza for the rest of their lives.
If we replace our relationship with Europe with closer transatlantic ties, we may look forward to experiencing ‘different than’.
I see the Guardian are making a big deal out of Rishi not declaring that his father in law is a billionaire. Apparently it's a huge secret that they (actually the private eye) have exposed. Honestly, these smears are becoming extremely tiresome.
It's this kind of reporting that makes the Guardian an unserious newspaper.
Brexit could easily kill the Union. Scotland goes and joins the EU. NI goes soon after with Irish unification. England/Wales holds out a little while against the tide then rejoins SM after abject economic performance. Life will then resume as before except no UK and no £. Thank you Brexiteers.
I hope I live to see it. Rejoining, that is.
Unlike one or two here I am proud of my country as an EU member state and know that it has made, and will in the future make, an important contribution to European peace and harmony.
I see the Guardian are making a big deal out of Rishi not declaring that his father in law is a billionaire. Apparently it's a huge secret that they (actually the private eye) have exposed. Honestly, these smears are becoming extremely tiresome.
It's this kind of reporting that makes the Guardian an unserious newspaper.
In what way was it a secret? We all knew it, didn't we?
Just as we all know Johnson's a serial liar and adulterer, Macdonnell was privately educated and Emily Thornberry's a snob?
I see how waters can be patriotic but the fish aren’t. They are only in the waters because of the current agreement. If there is something fishy in the state of Denmark, it’s because that is where they spawn.
Fish don’t recognise national borders. greement prevents younger fish being harvested in one territorial water until they are bigger fish swum into another’s territorial water?
Coordinated action helped to prevent over fishing and improve fish stocks?
One example. Big percentage of Cod consumed in UK comes from EU and Brexit doesn’t change that, because although cod can swim out of EU waters and live okay in ours, they don’t tend to?
Even if Federal EU never existed, even if we are out, we have no choice but to be in a fish agreement?
The idea that fish that swim into our waters is our own patriotic resource is just potty. You have to subtract agreements with others to prevent over fishing, subtract respect for fish life cycle of spawn one place big in another. We are currently have a deal with EU that stops by law others fishing the fish swimming towards us, without that logically we will have less fish swimming towards our nets.
Explain where I am wrong, because I think this is brexiteers being at their most straw for brains.
For a start 100% of your examples is wrong.
Our imported cod does not come mainly from the EU. "The UK consumes about 115,000 tonnes of cod each year. Only 15,000 tonnes comes from the North Sea, with the rest imported mainly from the fertile grounds in the Barents Sea and around Norway and Iceland."
Norway and Iceland are not in the EU. Norway certainly has a decent fish deal with the EU. I can see no reason why we cannot do so, other than mini-me-Napoleon's stiff neck.
I think a commitment to move Faslane to Plymouth or Portsmouth would be useful as that is a very specific issue for a lot of people, removing that from the equation is, IMO, a simple way of winning a few people over.
Where is the new equivalent of RNAD Coulport going to be? You'd have to demolish half of Pompey or Guzz.
I would very much doubt it unless they had also repeated the allegations on her donations page.
I suspect however she is in big trouble if she's not able to argue the story was true. It's not like that weirdo from Bath where Dugdale's comments were ruled wrong, but a reasonable interpretation of the comments expressed as an honest opinion. This is criminality she was alleging.
She has thrown in the towel I believe, so that is all by the bye. And if she is liable for costs - you'd need a Court order, but in principle if you fund litigation you can be on the hook for costs. Compare the situation where A sues B but in practice A has been sorted out by his own insurers and it's really A's insurers suing B or B's insurers.. If A loses his insurers pay up.
I just can't see what other defence is open to her.
Edit - re funding, I don't think that counts for a defence, only for the plaintiff, although I could be wrong. It shouldn't do, but then law and sense have never been easy bedfellows.
She is continuing with a public interest defence I believe.
I would very much doubt it unless they had also repeated the allegations on her donations page.
I suspect however she is in big trouble if she's not able to argue the story was true. It's not like that weirdo from Bath where Dugdale's comments were ruled wrong, but a reasonable interpretation of the comments expressed as an honest opinion. This is criminality she was alleging.
She has thrown in the towel I believe, so that is all by the bye. And if she is liable for costs - you'd need a Court order, but in principle if you fund litigation you can be on the hook for costs. Compare the situation where A sues B but in practice A has been sorted out by his own insurers and it's really A's insurers suing B or B's insurers.. If A loses his insurers pay up.
I just can't see what other defence is open to her.
Edit - re funding, I don't think that counts for a defence, only for the plaintiff, although I could be wrong. It shouldn't do, but then law and sense have never been easy bedfellows.
She is continuing with a public interest defence I believe.
Public interest to tell a bunch of lies about someone and wrongly impugn their character. I can see how that might appeal to some of the 13% I guess.
While I am resident in England, so just a spectator in 2014, now I will be cheering on independence and Irish reunification.
Our countries have simply diverged too much for the Union to be viable, or to have a point.
It does make for grim hegemony of the Tories in England, at least for a generation, but you cannot stop an idea whose time had come.
Well you are a traitor to your sovereign country then!
Are Republicans also traitors in your mad mad Tory world you lunatic?
In theory, there's a reasonable case to be made for republicanism and its advocates aren't necessarily traitors. In practice, most republicans are people who just don't like Britain.
Bollox.
I love the UK but I also think our head of state shouldn't be limited to a certain family.
If you love democracy then you want a head of state to be democratically elected, I believe take back control from our unelected rulers is something beloved by so many Brits.
I mean if the Royals were really popular they'd easily every regular election for head of state right?
I mean if we don't allow hereditary Prime Ministers then we shouldn't allow hereditary head of states.
No, because it is not - and for good reason - democracy all the way down. When it is, you end up with disasters like Brexit. You don't think it is democracy all the way down because you never, ever write headers saying that that we should have a plebiscite on lockdown, or the budget, or each and every item in the Queen's speech, or bloody anything, because you know it would be a bloody stupid idea. There is no reason why we shouldn't vote region by region on which tier we would like to be in, so why not?
tl;dr Donald Trump is an elected head of state. tl;dr 2 imagine Brexit was a person, and ran for head of state with Dominic Cummings as its campaign manager.
But with a general election we cede our power for five years to a government on things like the budget, lockdown, and general governance.
We've never done that for the Monarchy.
Remember the monarch has an awful lot of power, I worry about the day when we have an absolute idiot (or worse) as monarch.
Lest we forget but for his libido we would have had a Nazi sympathiser as monarch in the run up and during WWII.
I mean could you imagine Edward VIII appointing Churchill as PM in May 1940, he would have picked the appeaser Lord Halifax.
Rolling the hereditary dice is *on average* less likely to yield a complete and utter shit than democracy is; your point fails because Halifax would have been going up against (or not) the democratically elected Hitler. The available systems all suck, and it's best to stick with what we have for fear of unintended consequences.
Has Morris Dancer been giving you history lessons?
I mean saying the 1933 German election was free and fair and anything approaching democracy is so laughable that I've damaged a rib laughing.
I see the Guardian are making a big deal out of Rishi not declaring that his father in law is a billionaire. Apparently it's a huge secret that they (actually the private eye) have exposed. Honestly, these smears are becoming extremely tiresome.
It's this kind of reporting that makes the Guardian an unserious newspaper.
In what way was it a secret? We all knew it, didn't we?
Just as we all know Johnson's a serial liar and adulterer, Macdonnell was privately educated and Emily Thornberry's a snob?
I didn't know Macdonnell was privately educated. Nor do I care much. He's obviously benefited from it, as opposed to being corrupted.
I think a commitment to move Faslane to Plymouth or Portsmouth would be useful as that is a very specific issue for a lot of people, removing that from the equation is, IMO, a simple way of winning a few people over.
Where is the new equivalent of RNAD Coulport going to be? You'd have to demolish half of Pompey or Guzz.
Truthfully, the obvious place to put a new Faslane wouldn't be Plymouth, but Anglesey. Take over the old Anglesey Aluminium site and add a bit of security, and have night life somewhere near Bangor.
And because the local economy since that site closed is in a more desperate condition than the liver of somebody who agreed to drink one sip of wine every time Trump lies on Twitter, there probably wouldn't be much protest.
While I am resident in England, so just a spectator in 2014, now I will be cheering on independence and Irish reunification.
Our countries have simply diverged too much for the Union to be viable, or to have a point.
It does make for grim hegemony of the Tories in England, at least for a generation, but you cannot stop an idea whose time had come.
Well you are a traitor to your sovereign country then!
Are Republicans also traitors in your mad mad Tory world you lunatic?
In theory, there's a reasonable case to be made for republicanism and its advocates aren't necessarily traitors. In practice, most republicans are people who just don't like Britain.
Bollox.
I love the UK but I also think our head of state shouldn't be limited to a certain family.
If you love democracy then you want a head of state to be democratically elected, I believe take back control from our unelected rulers is something beloved by so many Brits.
I mean if the Royals were really popular they'd easily every regular election for head of state right?
I mean if we don't allow hereditary Prime Ministers then we shouldn't allow hereditary head of states.
No, because it is not - and for good reason - democracy all the way down. When it is, you end up with disasters like Brexit. You don't think it is democracy all the way down because you never, ever write headers saying that that we should have a plebiscite on lockdown, or the budget, or each and every item in the Queen's speech, or bloody anything, because you know it would be a bloody stupid idea. There is no reason why we shouldn't vote region by region on which tier we would like to be in, so why not?
tl;dr Donald Trump is an elected head of state. tl;dr 2 imagine Brexit was a person, and ran for head of state with Dominic Cummings as its campaign manager.
But with a general election we cede our power for five years to a government on things like the budget, lockdown, and general governance.
We've never done that for the Monarchy.
Remember the monarch has an awful lot of power, I worry about the day when we have an absolute idiot (or worse) as monarch.
Lest we forget but for his libido we would have had a Nazi sympathiser as monarch in the run up and during WWII.
I mean could you imagine Edward VIII appointing Churchill as PM in May 1940, he would have picked the appeaser Lord Halifax.
Rolling the hereditary dice is *on average* less likely to yield a complete and utter shit than democracy is; your point fails because Halifax would have been going up against (or not) the democratically elected Hitler. The available systems all suck, and it's best to stick with what we have for fear of unintended consequences.
Has Morris Dancer been giving you history lessons?
I mean saying the 1933 German election was free and fair and anything approaching democracy is so laughable that I've damaged a rib laughing.
IIRC the 1932 one was better, but there were plenty of thugs about. Although the Nazi's lost votes and seats, IIRC.
I think a commitment to move Faslane to Plymouth or Portsmouth would be useful as that is a very specific issue for a lot of people, removing that from the equation is, IMO, a simple way of winning a few people over.
Where is the new equivalent of RNAD Coulport going to be? You'd have to demolish half of Pompey or Guzz.
Truthfully, the obvious place to put a new Faslane wouldn't be Plymouth, but Anglesey. Take over the old Anglesey Aluminium site and add a bit of security, and have night life somewhere near Bangor.
And because the local economy since that site closed is in a more desperate condition than the liver of somebody who agreed to drink one sip of wine every time Trump lies on Twitter, there probably wouldn't be much protest.
That's fine, my point was to remove it from Scotland which has long been a point of contention.
While I am resident in England, so just a spectator in 2014, now I will be cheering on independence and Irish reunification.
Our countries have simply diverged too much for the Union to be viable, or to have a point.
It does make for grim hegemony of the Tories in England, at least for a generation, but you cannot stop an idea whose time had come.
Well you are a traitor to your sovereign country then!
Are Republicans also traitors in your mad mad Tory world you lunatic?
In theory, there's a reasonable case to be made for republicanism and its advocates aren't necessarily traitors. In practice, most republicans are people who just don't like Britain.
Bollox.
I love the UK but I also think our head of state shouldn't be limited to a certain family.
If you love democracy then you want a head of state to be democratically elected, I believe take back control from our unelected rulers is something beloved by so many Brits.
I mean if the Royals were really popular they'd easily every regular election for head of state right?
I mean if we don't allow hereditary Prime Ministers then we shouldn't allow hereditary head of states.
No, because it is not - and for good reason - democracy all the way down. When it is, you end up with disasters like Brexit. You don't think it is democracy all the way down because you never, ever write headers saying that that we should have a plebiscite on lockdown, or the budget, or each and every item in the Queen's speech, or bloody anything, because you know it would be a bloody stupid idea. There is no reason why we shouldn't vote region by region on which tier we would like to be in, so why not?
tl;dr Donald Trump is an elected head of state. tl;dr 2 imagine Brexit was a person, and ran for head of state with Dominic Cummings as its campaign manager.
But with a general election we cede our power for five years to a government on things like the budget, lockdown, and general governance.
We've never done that for the Monarchy.
Remember the monarch has an awful lot of power, I worry about the day when we have an absolute idiot (or worse) as monarch.
Lest we forget but for his libido we would have had a Nazi sympathiser as monarch in the run up and during WWII.
I mean could you imagine Edward VIII appointing Churchill as PM in May 1940, he would have picked the appeaser Lord Halifax.
Rolling the hereditary dice is *on average* less likely to yield a complete and utter shit than democracy is; your point fails because Halifax would have been going up against (or not) the democratically elected Hitler. The available systems all suck, and it's best to stick with what we have for fear of unintended consequences.
Has Morris Dancer been giving you history lessons?
I mean saying the 1933 German election was free and fair and anything approaching democracy is so laughable that I've damaged a rib laughing.
Hitler lost the only remotely democratic election he ever contested, and the result wasn't close despite his main rival being 84 and increasingly gaga:
The plebiscites held in a number of areas after the FWW did use both residency and birth place as criterion for voting.
E.g., the Nobel Prize Winner Max Born (who was later Professor in Edinburgh) was able to vote in the plebiscite that partitioned Upper Silesia between Germany & Poland, because he was in born in Breslau (now Wroclaw), even though he then lived in Gottingen.
While I am resident in England, so just a spectator in 2014, now I will be cheering on independence and Irish reunification.
Our countries have simply diverged too much for the Union to be viable, or to have a point.
It does make for grim hegemony of the Tories in England, at least for a generation, but you cannot stop an idea whose time had come.
Well you are a traitor to your sovereign country then!
Are Republicans also traitors in your mad mad Tory world you lunatic?
In theory, there's a reasonable case to be made for republicanism and its advocates aren't necessarily traitors. In practice, most republicans are people who just don't like Britain.
Bollox.
I love the UK but I also think our head of state shouldn't be limited to a certain family.
If you love democracy then you want a head of state to be democratically elected, I believe take back control from our unelected rulers is something beloved by so many Brits.
I mean if the Royals were really popular they'd easily every regular election for head of state right?
I mean if we don't allow hereditary Prime Ministers then we shouldn't allow hereditary head of states.
No, because it is not - and for good reason - democracy all the way down. When it is, you end up with disasters like Brexit. You don't think it is democracy all the way down because you never, ever write headers saying that that we should have a plebiscite on lockdown, or the budget, or each and every item in the Queen's speech, or bloody anything, because you know it would be a bloody stupid idea. There is no reason why we shouldn't vote region by region on which tier we would like to be in, so why not?
tl;dr Donald Trump is an elected head of state. tl;dr 2 imagine Brexit was a person, and ran for head of state with Dominic Cummings as its campaign manager.
But with a general election we cede our power for five years to a government on things like the budget, lockdown, and general governance.
We've never done that for the Monarchy.
Remember the monarch has an awful lot of power, I worry about the day when we have an absolute idiot (or worse) as monarch.
Lest we forget but for his libido we would have had a Nazi sympathiser as monarch in the run up and during WWII.
I mean could you imagine Edward VIII appointing Churchill as PM in May 1940, he would have picked the appeaser Lord Halifax.
Rolling the hereditary dice is *on average* less likely to yield a complete and utter shit than democracy is; your point fails because Halifax would have been going up against (or not) the democratically elected Hitler. The available systems all suck, and it's best to stick with what we have for fear of unintended consequences.
Has Morris Dancer been giving you history lessons?
I mean saying the 1933 German election was free and fair and anything approaching democracy is so laughable that I've damaged a rib laughing.
Hitler lost the only remotely democratic election he ever contested, and the result wasn't close despite his main rival being 84 and increasingly gaga:
If the Liberal Democrats are to have a future, they need to start rebuilding at a local level. They need, above all, to build support where they have a chance of winning and accept they shouldn’t waste time pretending to be a national party. If they do that, opinion polls cease to be of real relevance to them.
The snag is that their most fruitful potential areas - slightly left-leaning suburbs who despise the Tories but are suspicious of Labour - are with rare exceptions not areas of traditional strength (Wales, the West Country and the Scottish Highlands have gone and are not returning) so the organisation just isn’t there to pull things round.
The notion the LDs were ever a "national" party was a chimera (to be fair, neither the Conservatives nor Labour are either). Small islands of strength were surrounded by oceans of inactivity or extreme weakness.
In London, for example, you have Sutton, Richmond and Kingston. Of the 152 LD Councillors in London, 111 are in those three Boroughs. Beyond that, there are 11 in Southwark and 15 in Haringey so that just leaves 15 Councillors across the remaining 27 Boroughs, 22 of which have no LD representation whatsoever.
The Conservatives are represented on 27 Boroughs and Labour on 30.
Go back to 2006 and the LDs had 318 London Councillors. Again, just the three Boroughs with a majority - the same three as now but far more Councils with LD representation.
I think a commitment to move Faslane to Plymouth or Portsmouth would be useful as that is a very specific issue for a lot of people, removing that from the equation is, IMO, a simple way of winning a few people over.
Where is the new equivalent of RNAD Coulport going to be? You'd have to demolish half of Pompey or Guzz.
Truthfully, the obvious place to put a new Faslane wouldn't be Plymouth, but Anglesey. Take over the old Anglesey Aluminium site and add a bit of security, and have night life somewhere near Bangor.
And because the local economy since that site closed is in a more desperate condition than the liver of somebody who agreed to drink one sip of wine every time Trump lies on Twitter, there probably wouldn't be much protest.
That's fine, my point was to remove it from Scotland which has long been a point of contention.
Not particularly disagreeing with you, but there's a certain strand of Unionist opinion that actually sees Faslane/Coulport as a symbol of the Union, and that removing it would be damaging. I'm pretty sure that BJ, Gove etc are part of that strand.
If the Liberal Democrats are to have a future, they need to start rebuilding at a local level. They need, above all, to build support where they have a chance of winning and accept they shouldn’t waste time pretending to be a national party. If they do that, opinion polls cease to be of real relevance to them.
The snag is that their most fruitful potential areas - slightly left-leaning suburbs who despise the Tories but are suspicious of Labour - are with rare exceptions not areas of traditional strength (Wales, the West Country and the Scottish Highlands have gone and are not returning) so the organisation just isn’t there to pull things round.
The notion the LDs were ever a "national" party was a chimera (to be fair, neither the Conservatives nor Labour are either). Small islands of strength were surrounded by oceans of inactivity or extreme weakness.
In London, for example, you have Sutton, Richmond and Kingston. Of the 152 LD Councillors in London, 111 are in those three Boroughs. Beyond that, there are 11 in Southwark and 15 in Haringey so that just leaves 15 Councillors across the remaining 27 Boroughs, 22 of which have no LD representation whatsoever.
The Conservatives are represented on 27 Boroughs and Labour on 30.
Go back to 2006 and the LDs had 318 London Councillors. Again, just the three Boroughs with a majority - the same three as now but far more Councils with LD representation.
The point is it's a chimera the Tories and Labour can afford to indulge. The Yellows can't any longer.
I think a commitment to move Faslane to Plymouth or Portsmouth would be useful as that is a very specific issue for a lot of people, removing that from the equation is, IMO, a simple way of winning a few people over.
Where is the new equivalent of RNAD Coulport going to be? You'd have to demolish half of Pompey or Guzz.
Truthfully, the obvious place to put a new Faslane wouldn't be Plymouth, but Anglesey. Take over the old Anglesey Aluminium site and add a bit of security, and have night life somewhere near Bangor.
And because the local economy since that site closed is in a more desperate condition than the liver of somebody who agreed to drink one sip of wine every time Trump lies on Twitter, there probably wouldn't be much protest.
That's fine, my point was to remove it from Scotland which has long been a point of contention.
Not particularly disagreeing with you, but there's a certain strand of Unionist opinion that actually sees Faslane/Coulport as a symbol of the Union, and that removing it would be damaging. I'm pretty sure that BJ, Gove etc are part of that strand.
I was truthfully thinking more of what to do with it if Scotland goes independent, because that's when it becomes obvious it can't stay. Faslane isn't Sevastapol.
And I can't see relocating the main base to Plymouth causing anything but chaos.
Thanks for very interesting Header. My view is that Sindy is now inevitable. I'm a little bit sad about this - I have a chunk of family up there - but I cannot see any stable destination for the England/Scotland relationship other than that of an amicable separation. So on the grounds of "if it is to be done it is best it be done quickly" - Shakey nailing things there even though he died before the Union about to break was even formed - I would like to see a referendum in this parliament and a clear Yes result. Usual caveat of I don't have a vote and it's a matter for Scots, but I think this is the optimal outcome.
For one awful moment I thought that you were revealing Shaking Stevens had kicked the bucket. Phew!
I wouldn't break something as grave as that in such a flippant manner. Moved to check up on him though, and yes, all is well. 72. Still touring.
Did you catch this revelation? What a power couple that would have been!
There's still a tone of inevitably on here that I don't quite recognise - many wishing for an amicable seperation (which I'd want too, but can't see happening)
14 odd polls have shown yes in the lead. Any ref campaign would likely see things shift around. And if - god forbid - it was 52% yes against 48% no, I'm not convinced that's particularly stable grounds for a united country (as we've seen here)
Oh well, better stick with the country imposing its instability on us after a 52-48 referendum result.
The really crazy thing is that the Scots voted to stay in the EU by a much bigger margin than to stay in the UK, and by a much bigger margin than the English voted to leave the EU, but the Scots' desire to stay in the EU is the one decision that's not been honoured.
While I am resident in England, so just a spectator in 2014, now I will be cheering on independence and Irish reunification.
Our countries have simply diverged too much for the Union to be viable, or to have a point.
It does make for grim hegemony of the Tories in England, at least for a generation, but you cannot stop an idea whose time had come.
Well you are a traitor to your sovereign country then!
Are Republicans also traitors in your mad mad Tory world you lunatic?
In theory, there's a reasonable case to be made for republicanism and its advocates aren't necessarily traitors. In practice, most republicans are people who just don't like Britain.
Bollox.
I love the UK but I also think our head of state shouldn't be limited to a certain family.
If you love democracy then you want a head of state to be democratically elected, I believe take back control from our unelected rulers is something beloved by so many Brits.
I mean if the Royals were really popular they'd easily every regular election for head of state right?
I mean if we don't allow hereditary Prime Ministers then we shouldn't allow hereditary head of states.
No, because it is not - and for good reason - democracy all the way down. When it is, you end up with disasters like Brexit. You don't think it is democracy all the way down because you never, ever write headers saying that that we should have a plebiscite on lockdown, or the budget, or each and every item in the Queen's speech, or bloody anything, because you know it would be a bloody stupid idea. There is no reason why we shouldn't vote region by region on which tier we would like to be in, so why not?
tl;dr Donald Trump is an elected head of state. tl;dr 2 imagine Brexit was a person, and ran for head of state with Dominic Cummings as its campaign manager.
But with a general election we cede our power for five years to a government on things like the budget, lockdown, and general governance.
We've never done that for the Monarchy.
Remember the monarch has an awful lot of power, I worry about the day when we have an absolute idiot (or worse) as monarch.
Lest we forget but for his libido we would have had a Nazi sympathiser as monarch in the run up and during WWII.
I mean could you imagine Edward VIII appointing Churchill as PM in May 1940, he would have picked the appeaser Lord Halifax.
Rolling the hereditary dice is *on average* less likely to yield a complete and utter shit than democracy is; your point fails because Halifax would have been going up against (or not) the democratically elected Hitler. The available systems all suck, and it's best to stick with what we have for fear of unintended consequences.
Has Morris Dancer been giving you history lessons?
I mean saying the 1933 German election was free and fair and anything approaching democracy is so laughable that I've damaged a rib laughing.
Hitler lost the only remotely democratic election he ever contested, and the result wasn't close despite his main rival being 84 and increasingly gaga:
I think a commitment to move Faslane to Plymouth or Portsmouth would be useful as that is a very specific issue for a lot of people, removing that from the equation is, IMO, a simple way of winning a few people over.
Where is the new equivalent of RNAD Coulport going to be? You'd have to demolish half of Pompey or Guzz.
Truthfully, the obvious place to put a new Faslane wouldn't be Plymouth, but Anglesey. Take over the old Anglesey Aluminium site and add a bit of security, and have night life somewhere near Bangor.
And because the local economy since that site closed is in a more desperate condition than the liver of somebody who agreed to drink one sip of wine every time Trump lies on Twitter, there probably wouldn't be much protest.
The inevitable answer is that the MoD would find the massive cost savings of co-locating them with the USN boomers at King's Bay simply irresistible.
The er... independent deterrent has to make regular visits there anyway as the UK has no ability to service Trident airframes, no degauss facility and no test range or instrumented range ship.
I see the Guardian are making a big deal out of Rishi not declaring that his father in law is a billionaire. Apparently it's a huge secret that they (actually the private eye) have exposed. Honestly, these smears are becoming extremely tiresome.
It's this kind of reporting that makes the Guardian an unserious newspaper.
It is more that he hasn't recorded his relationships in the register of interests, nor his wife's substantial shareholding in Infosys.
I would very much doubt it unless they had also repeated the allegations on her donations page.
I suspect however she is in big trouble if she's not able to argue the story was true. It's not like that weirdo from Bath where Dugdale's comments were ruled wrong, but a reasonable interpretation of the comments expressed as an honest opinion. This is criminality she was alleging.
She has thrown in the towel I believe, so that is all by the bye. And if she is liable for costs - you'd need a Court order, but in principle if you fund litigation you can be on the hook for costs. Compare the situation where A sues B but in practice A has been sorted out by his own insurers and it's really A's insurers suing B or B's insurers.. If A loses his insurers pay up.
I just can't see what other defence is open to her.
Edit - re funding, I don't think that counts for a defence, only for the plaintiff, although I could be wrong. It shouldn't do, but then law and sense have never been easy bedfellows.
She is continuing with a public interest defence I believe.
Public interest to tell a bunch of lies about someone and wrongly impugn their character. I can see how that might appeal to some of the 13% I guess.
Max, who the devil are this "13%" you keep referring to?
I would very much doubt it unless they had also repeated the allegations on her donations page.
I suspect however she is in big trouble if she's not able to argue the story was true. It's not like that weirdo from Bath where Dugdale's comments were ruled wrong, but a reasonable interpretation of the comments expressed as an honest opinion. This is criminality she was alleging.
She has thrown in the towel I believe, so that is all by the bye. And if she is liable for costs - you'd need a Court order, but in principle if you fund litigation you can be on the hook for costs. Compare the situation where A sues B but in practice A has been sorted out by his own insurers and it's really A's insurers suing B or B's insurers.. If A loses his insurers pay up.
I just can't see what other defence is open to her.
Edit - re funding, I don't think that counts for a defence, only for the plaintiff, although I could be wrong. It shouldn't do, but then law and sense have never been easy bedfellows.
She is continuing with a public interest defence I believe.
Public interest to tell a bunch of lies about someone and wrongly impugn their character. I can see how that might appeal to some of the 13% I guess.
The problem is, if it was not true it's very hard indeed to see how publishing it was in any way in the public interest. Arguably, quite the opposite.
If the Liberal Democrats are to have a future, they need to start rebuilding at a local level. They need, above all, to build support where they have a chance of winning and accept they shouldn’t waste time pretending to be a national party. If they do that, opinion polls cease to be of real relevance to them.
The snag is that their most fruitful potential areas - slightly left-leaning suburbs who despise the Tories but are suspicious of Labour - are with rare exceptions not areas of traditional strength (Wales, the West Country and the Scottish Highlands have gone and are not returning) so the organisation just isn’t there to pull things round.
The notion the LDs were ever a "national" party was a chimera (to be fair, neither the Conservatives nor Labour are either). Small islands of strength were surrounded by oceans of inactivity or extreme weakness.
In London, for example, you have Sutton, Richmond and Kingston. Of the 152 LD Councillors in London, 111 are in those three Boroughs. Beyond that, there are 11 in Southwark and 15 in Haringey so that just leaves 15 Councillors across the remaining 27 Boroughs, 22 of which have no LD representation whatsoever.
The Conservatives are represented on 27 Boroughs and Labour on 30.
Go back to 2006 and the LDs had 318 London Councillors. Again, just the three Boroughs with a majority - the same three as now but far more Councils with LD representation.
The point is it's a chimera the Tories and Labour can afford to indulge. The Yellows can't any longer.
I think a commitment to move Faslane to Plymouth or Portsmouth would be useful as that is a very specific issue for a lot of people, removing that from the equation is, IMO, a simple way of winning a few people over.
Where is the new equivalent of RNAD Coulport going to be? You'd have to demolish half of Pompey or Guzz.
Truthfully, the obvious place to put a new Faslane wouldn't be Plymouth, but Anglesey. Take over the old Anglesey Aluminium site and add a bit of security, and have night life somewhere near Bangor.
And because the local economy since that site closed is in a more desperate condition than the liver of somebody who agreed to drink one sip of wine every time Trump lies on Twitter, there probably wouldn't be much protest.
That's fine, my point was to remove it from Scotland which has long been a point of contention.
Not particularly disagreeing with you, but there's a certain strand of Unionist opinion that actually sees Faslane/Coulport as a symbol of the Union, and that removing it would be damaging. I'm pretty sure that BJ, Gove etc are part of that strand.
I was truthfully thinking more of what to do with it if Scotland goes independent, because that's when it becomes obvious it can't stay. Faslane isn't Sevastapol.
And I can't see relocating the main base to Plymouth causing anything but chaos.
Christ, don't give HYUFD ideas about a Crimean option, he'll be planning an annexation of Argyll and Bute afore ye know it.
If the Liberal Democrats are to have a future, they need to start rebuilding at a local level. They need, above all, to build support where they have a chance of winning and accept they shouldn’t waste time pretending to be a national party. If they do that, opinion polls cease to be of real relevance to them.
The snag is that their most fruitful potential areas - slightly left-leaning suburbs who despise the Tories but are suspicious of Labour - are with rare exceptions not areas of traditional strength (Wales, the West Country and the Scottish Highlands have gone and are not returning) so the organisation just isn’t there to pull things round.
The notion the LDs were ever a "national" party was a chimera (to be fair, neither the Conservatives nor Labour are either). Small islands of strength were surrounded by oceans of inactivity or extreme weakness.
In London, for example, you have Sutton, Richmond and Kingston. Of the 152 LD Councillors in London, 111 are in those three Boroughs. Beyond that, there are 11 in Southwark and 15 in Haringey so that just leaves 15 Councillors across the remaining 27 Boroughs, 22 of which have no LD representation whatsoever.
The Conservatives are represented on 27 Boroughs and Labour on 30.
Go back to 2006 and the LDs had 318 London Councillors. Again, just the three Boroughs with a majority - the same three as now but far more Councils with LD representation.
No that just demonstrates that FPTP squeezes smaller parties.
We saw in last years Euro elections that there is widespread support across the country for both Lib Dem and Green parties.
From 1966 to 1974 the Liberals doubled their votes share, though with hardly any more seats, by moving from standing in half to standing in all Westminster seats.
I see the Guardian are making a big deal out of Rishi not declaring that his father in law is a billionaire. Apparently it's a huge secret that they (actually the private eye) have exposed. Honestly, these smears are becoming extremely tiresome.
It's this kind of reporting that makes the Guardian an unserious newspaper.
In what way was it a secret? We all knew it, didn't we?
Just as we all know Johnson's a serial liar and adulterer, Macdonnell was privately educated and Emily Thornberry's a snob?
It’s not that it’s a secret - it’s whether he recognises it as an interest to declare. Which is somewhat unlikely, but not quite as ridiculous.
If the Liberal Democrats are to have a future, they need to start rebuilding at a local level. They need, above all, to build support where they have a chance of winning and accept they shouldn’t waste time pretending to be a national party. If they do that, opinion polls cease to be of real relevance to them.
The snag is that their most fruitful potential areas - slightly left-leaning suburbs who despise the Tories but are suspicious of Labour - are with rare exceptions not areas of traditional strength (Wales, the West Country and the Scottish Highlands have gone and are not returning) so the organisation just isn’t there to pull things round.
The notion the LDs were ever a "national" party was a chimera (to be fair, neither the Conservatives nor Labour are either). Small islands of strength were surrounded by oceans of inactivity or extreme weakness.
In London, for example, you have Sutton, Richmond and Kingston. Of the 152 LD Councillors in London, 111 are in those three Boroughs. Beyond that, there are 11 in Southwark and 15 in Haringey so that just leaves 15 Councillors across the remaining 27 Boroughs, 22 of which have no LD representation whatsoever.
The Conservatives are represented on 27 Boroughs and Labour on 30.
Go back to 2006 and the LDs had 318 London Councillors. Again, just the three Boroughs with a majority - the same three as now but far more Councils with LD representation.
No that just demonstrates that FPTP squeezes smaller parties.
We saw in last years Euro elections that there is widespread support across the country for both Lib Dem and Green parties.
From 1966 to 1974 the Liberals doubled their votes share, though with hardly any more seats, by moving from standing in half to standing in all Westminster seats.
It is beginning to feel a bit terminal for them, though. And I think (apart from Labour’s turn back In the direction towards electability) the big problem is that young new voters are now more likely to opt for the Greens.
I think a commitment to move Faslane to Plymouth or Portsmouth would be useful as that is a very specific issue for a lot of people, removing that from the equation is, IMO, a simple way of winning a few people over.
Where is the new equivalent of RNAD Coulport going to be? You'd have to demolish half of Pompey or Guzz.
Truthfully, the obvious place to put a new Faslane wouldn't be Plymouth, but Anglesey. Take over the old Anglesey Aluminium site and add a bit of security, and have night life somewhere near Bangor.
And because the local economy since that site closed is in a more desperate condition than the liver of somebody who agreed to drink one sip of wine every time Trump lies on Twitter, there probably wouldn't be much protest.
That's fine, my point was to remove it from Scotland which has long been a point of contention.
Not particularly disagreeing with you, but there's a certain strand of Unionist opinion that actually sees Faslane/Coulport as a symbol of the Union, and that removing it would be damaging. I'm pretty sure that BJ, Gove etc are part of that strand.
While obviously unpopular with some, is there any polling across Scotland on closing Faslane?
I would have thought closing Faslane would be a net vote winner in Scotland.
There's still a tone of inevitably on here that I don't quite recognise - many wishing for an amicable seperation (which I'd want too, but can't see happening)
14 odd polls have shown yes in the lead. Any ref campaign would likely see things shift around. And if - god forbid - it was 52% yes against 48% no, I'm not convinced that's particularly stable grounds for a united country (as we've seen here)
Oh well, better stick with the country imposing its instability on us after a 52-48 referendum result.
The really crazy thing is that the Scots voted to stay in the EU by a much bigger margin than to stay in the UK, and by a much bigger margin than the English voted to leave the EU, but the Scots' desire to stay in the EU is the one decision that's not been honoured.
Before the the EU referendum I'd mischievously suggested that the result for maximum entertainment would have been England voting closely to Leave with the Remain vote in Scotland tipping the UK to staying in the EU (actually in retrospect a much more live possibility than I'd thought).
It would have been interesting to see how England would have taken it, I suspect that result would have been even more damaging to the Union than have been the last four years.
If the Liberal Democrats are to have a future, they need to start rebuilding at a local level. They need, above all, to build support where they have a chance of winning and accept they shouldn’t waste time pretending to be a national party. If they do that, opinion polls cease to be of real relevance to them.
The snag is that their most fruitful potential areas - slightly left-leaning suburbs who despise the Tories but are suspicious of Labour - are with rare exceptions not areas of traditional strength (Wales, the West Country and the Scottish Highlands have gone and are not returning) so the organisation just isn’t there to pull things round.
The notion the LDs were ever a "national" party was a chimera (to be fair, neither the Conservatives nor Labour are either). Small islands of strength were surrounded by oceans of inactivity or extreme weakness.
In London, for example, you have Sutton, Richmond and Kingston. Of the 152 LD Councillors in London, 111 are in those three Boroughs. Beyond that, there are 11 in Southwark and 15 in Haringey so that just leaves 15 Councillors across the remaining 27 Boroughs, 22 of which have no LD representation whatsoever.
The Conservatives are represented on 27 Boroughs and Labour on 30.
Go back to 2006 and the LDs had 318 London Councillors. Again, just the three Boroughs with a majority - the same three as now but far more Councils with LD representation.
No that just demonstrates that FPTP squeezes smaller parties.
We saw in last years Euro elections that there is widespread support across the country for both Lib Dem and Green parties.
From 1966 to 1974 the Liberals doubled their votes share, though with hardly any more seats, by moving from standing in half to standing in all Westminster seats.
It is beginning to feel a bit terminal for them, though. And I think (apart from Labour’s turn back In the direction towards electability) the big problem is that young new voters are now more likely to opt for the Greens.
Nah, such predictions have been made regularly for the last century, but the LDs survive and evolve.
Starmer is nowhere near as centrist as the Corbynites claim.
I see the Guardian are making a big deal out of Rishi not declaring that his father in law is a billionaire. Apparently it's a huge secret that they (actually the private eye) have exposed. Honestly, these smears are becoming extremely tiresome.
It's this kind of reporting that makes the Guardian an unserious newspaper.
In what way was it a secret? We all knew it, didn't we?
Just as we all know Johnson's a serial liar and adulterer, Macdonnell was privately educated and Emily Thornberry's a snob?
It’s not that it’s a secret - it’s whether he recognises it as an interest to declare. Which is somewhat unlikely, but not quite as ridiculous.
I see Foxy has rather better made the point.
It's his father in law and his wife's business, not his.
I think a commitment to move Faslane to Plymouth or Portsmouth would be useful as that is a very specific issue for a lot of people, removing that from the equation is, IMO, a simple way of winning a few people over.
Where is the new equivalent of RNAD Coulport going to be? You'd have to demolish half of Pompey or Guzz.
Truthfully, the obvious place to put a new Faslane wouldn't be Plymouth, but Anglesey. Take over the old Anglesey Aluminium site and add a bit of security, and have night life somewhere near Bangor.
And because the local economy since that site closed is in a more desperate condition than the liver of somebody who agreed to drink one sip of wine every time Trump lies on Twitter, there probably wouldn't be much protest.
That's fine, my point was to remove it from Scotland which has long been a point of contention.
Not particularly disagreeing with you, but there's a certain strand of Unionist opinion that actually sees Faslane/Coulport as a symbol of the Union, and that removing it would be damaging. I'm pretty sure that BJ, Gove etc are part of that strand.
While obviously unpopular with some, is there any polling across Scotland on closing Faslane?
I would have thought closing Faslane would be a net vote winner in Scotland.
@Dura_Ace ’s solution would be the only remotely affordable one. I can’t see it would make much difference to a referendum campaign.
If the Liberal Democrats are to have a future, they need to start rebuilding at a local level. They need, above all, to build support where they have a chance of winning and accept they shouldn’t waste time pretending to be a national party. If they do that, opinion polls cease to be of real relevance to them.
The snag is that their most fruitful potential areas - slightly left-leaning suburbs who despise the Tories but are suspicious of Labour - are with rare exceptions not areas of traditional strength (Wales, the West Country and the Scottish Highlands have gone and are not returning) so the organisation just isn’t there to pull things round.
The notion the LDs were ever a "national" party was a chimera (to be fair, neither the Conservatives nor Labour are either). Small islands of strength were surrounded by oceans of inactivity or extreme weakness.
In London, for example, you have Sutton, Richmond and Kingston. Of the 152 LD Councillors in London, 111 are in those three Boroughs. Beyond that, there are 11 in Southwark and 15 in Haringey so that just leaves 15 Councillors across the remaining 27 Boroughs, 22 of which have no LD representation whatsoever.
The Conservatives are represented on 27 Boroughs and Labour on 30.
Go back to 2006 and the LDs had 318 London Councillors. Again, just the three Boroughs with a majority - the same three as now but far more Councils with LD representation.
No that just demonstrates that FPTP squeezes smaller parties.
We saw in last years Euro elections that there is widespread support across the country for both Lib Dem and Green parties.
From 1966 to 1974 the Liberals doubled their votes share, though with hardly any more seats, by moving from standing in half to standing in all Westminster seats.
It is beginning to feel a bit terminal for them, though. And I think (apart from Labour’s turn back In the direction towards electability) the big problem is that young new voters are now more likely to opt for the Greens.
Is there recent polling on the Green / LD split in the young demographic?
The BBC has just rather loopily put Caroline Lucas as number one on its "Womens' Hour Power List", though - if that means anything.
I think a commitment to move Faslane to Plymouth or Portsmouth would be useful as that is a very specific issue for a lot of people, removing that from the equation is, IMO, a simple way of winning a few people over.
Where is the new equivalent of RNAD Coulport going to be? You'd have to demolish half of Pompey or Guzz.
Truthfully, the obvious place to put a new Faslane wouldn't be Plymouth, but Anglesey. Take over the old Anglesey Aluminium site and add a bit of security, and have night life somewhere near Bangor.
And because the local economy since that site closed is in a more desperate condition than the liver of somebody who agreed to drink one sip of wine every time Trump lies on Twitter, there probably wouldn't be much protest.
That's fine, my point was to remove it from Scotland which has long been a point of contention.
Not particularly disagreeing with you, but there's a certain strand of Unionist opinion that actually sees Faslane/Coulport as a symbol of the Union, and that removing it would be damaging. I'm pretty sure that BJ, Gove etc are part of that strand.
While obviously unpopular with some, is there any polling across Scotland on closing Faslane?
I would have thought closing Faslane would be a net vote winner in Scotland.
Difficult to separate opinions on getting rid of Trident, getting rid of Trident from Scotland, unilateral nuclear disarmament and closing down Faslane completely. The official SNP position aiui is to turn Faslane into a conventional naval base (to much 'you Jocks coulnae afford a rowing boat if you left us' guffawing from certain parties).
There's still a tone of inevitably on here that I don't quite recognise - many wishing for an amicable seperation (which I'd want too, but can't see happening)
14 odd polls have shown yes in the lead. Any ref campaign would likely see things shift around. And if - god forbid - it was 52% yes against 48% no, I'm not convinced that's particularly stable grounds for a united country (as we've seen here)
Oh well, better stick with the country imposing its instability on us after a 52-48 referendum result.
The really crazy thing is that the Scots voted to stay in the EU by a much bigger margin than to stay in the UK, and by a much bigger margin than the English voted to leave the EU, but the Scots' desire to stay in the EU is the one decision that's not been honoured.
Before the the EU referendum I'd mischievously suggested that the result for maximum entertainment would have been England voting closely to Leave with the Remain vote in Scotland tipping the UK to staying in the EU (actually in retrospect a much more live possibility than I'd thought).
It would have been interesting to see how England would have taken it, I suspect that result would have been even more damaging to the Union than have been the last four years.
Can you imagine the absolute scenes. They still haven't got over the whole Hand of God thing, and that was in 1986.
I think a commitment to move Faslane to Plymouth or Portsmouth would be useful as that is a very specific issue for a lot of people, removing that from the equation is, IMO, a simple way of winning a few people over.
Where is the new equivalent of RNAD Coulport going to be? You'd have to demolish half of Pompey or Guzz.
Truthfully, the obvious place to put a new Faslane wouldn't be Plymouth, but Anglesey. Take over the old Anglesey Aluminium site and add a bit of security, and have night life somewhere near Bangor.
And because the local economy since that site closed is in a more desperate condition than the liver of somebody who agreed to drink one sip of wine every time Trump lies on Twitter, there probably wouldn't be much protest.
That's fine, my point was to remove it from Scotland which has long been a point of contention.
Not particularly disagreeing with you, but there's a certain strand of Unionist opinion that actually sees Faslane/Coulport as a symbol of the Union, and that removing it would be damaging. I'm pretty sure that BJ, Gove etc are part of that strand.
I was truthfully thinking more of what to do with it if Scotland goes independent, because that's when it becomes obvious it can't stay. Faslane isn't Sevastapol.
And I can't see relocating the main base to Plymouth causing anything but chaos.
Christ, don't give HYUFD ideas about a Crimean option, he'll be planning an annexation of Argyll and Bute afore ye know it.
Argyll was originally annexed, though, wasn't it? It was part of Dalriada. Perhaps it should return to being joined with Antrim? If we are in to that kind of thing...
I see the Guardian are making a big deal out of Rishi not declaring that his father in law is a billionaire. Apparently it's a huge secret that they (actually the private eye) have exposed. Honestly, these smears are becoming extremely tiresome.
It's this kind of reporting that makes the Guardian an unserious newspaper.
It is more that he hasn't recorded his relationships in the register of interests, nor his wife's substantial shareholding in Infosys.
How would it work if an MPs family member said none of your business when the MP asks them about their shareholdings? Even his wife isn't obliged to tell him what shares she owns?
Thanks for very interesting Header. My view is that Sindy is now inevitable. I'm a little bit sad about this - I have a chunk of family up there - but I cannot see any stable destination for the England/Scotland relationship other than that of an amicable separation. So on the grounds of "if it is to be done it is best it be done quickly" - Shakey nailing things there even though he died before the Union about to break was even formed - I would like to see a referendum in this parliament and a clear Yes result. Usual caveat of I don't have a vote and it's a matter for Scots, but I think this is the optimal outcome.
For one awful moment I thought that you were revealing Shaking Stevens had kicked the bucket. Phew!
If the Liberal Democrats are to have a future, they need to start rebuilding at a local level. They need, above all, to build support where they have a chance of winning and accept they shouldn’t waste time pretending to be a national party. If they do that, opinion polls cease to be of real relevance to them.
The snag is that their most fruitful potential areas - slightly left-leaning suburbs who despise the Tories but are suspicious of Labour - are with rare exceptions not areas of traditional strength (Wales, the West Country and the Scottish Highlands have gone and are not returning) so the organisation just isn’t there to pull things round.
The notion the LDs were ever a "national" party was a chimera (to be fair, neither the Conservatives nor Labour are either). Small islands of strength were surrounded by oceans of inactivity or extreme weakness.
In London, for example, you have Sutton, Richmond and Kingston. Of the 152 LD Councillors in London, 111 are in those three Boroughs. Beyond that, there are 11 in Southwark and 15 in Haringey so that just leaves 15 Councillors across the remaining 27 Boroughs, 22 of which have no LD representation whatsoever.
The Conservatives are represented on 27 Boroughs and Labour on 30.
Go back to 2006 and the LDs had 318 London Councillors. Again, just the three Boroughs with a majority - the same three as now but far more Councils with LD representation.
No that just demonstrates that FPTP squeezes smaller parties.
We saw in last years Euro elections that there is widespread support across the country for both Lib Dem and Green parties.
From 1966 to 1974 the Liberals doubled their votes share, though with hardly any more seats, by moving from standing in half to standing in all Westminster seats.
It is beginning to feel a bit terminal for them, though. And I think (apart from Labour’s turn back In the direction towards electability) the big problem is that young new voters are now more likely to opt for the Greens.
Is there recent polling on the Green / LD split in the young demographic?
The BBC has just rather loopily put Caroline Lucas as number one on its "Womens' Hour Power List", though - if that means anything.
Actually meant more activists than voters. The traditional strength of the Lib-Dems has been its foot soldiers. My instinct is that those idealistic youngsters are now more likely to devote their energies to green causes, either within or without the Green Party.
If the Liberal Democrats are to have a future, they need to start rebuilding at a local level. They need, above all, to build support where they have a chance of winning and accept they shouldn’t waste time pretending to be a national party. If they do that, opinion polls cease to be of real relevance to them.
The snag is that their most fruitful potential areas - slightly left-leaning suburbs who despise the Tories but are suspicious of Labour - are with rare exceptions not areas of traditional strength (Wales, the West Country and the Scottish Highlands have gone and are not returning) so the organisation just isn’t there to pull things round.
The notion the LDs were ever a "national" party was a chimera (to be fair, neither the Conservatives nor Labour are either). Small islands of strength were surrounded by oceans of inactivity or extreme weakness.
In London, for example, you have Sutton, Richmond and Kingston. Of the 152 LD Councillors in London, 111 are in those three Boroughs. Beyond that, there are 11 in Southwark and 15 in Haringey so that just leaves 15 Councillors across the remaining 27 Boroughs, 22 of which have no LD representation whatsoever.
The Conservatives are represented on 27 Boroughs and Labour on 30.
Go back to 2006 and the LDs had 318 London Councillors. Again, just the three Boroughs with a majority - the same three as now but far more Councils with LD representation.
No that just demonstrates that FPTP squeezes smaller parties.
We saw in last years Euro elections that there is widespread support across the country for both Lib Dem and Green parties.
From 1966 to 1974 the Liberals doubled their votes share, though with hardly any more seats, by moving from standing in half to standing in all Westminster seats.
It is beginning to feel a bit terminal for them, though. And I think (apart from Labour’s turn back In the direction towards electability) the big problem is that young new voters are now more likely to opt for the Greens.
Nah, such predictions have been made regularly for the last century, but the LDs survive and evolve.
Starmer is nowhere near as centrist as the Corbynites claim.
A question for the LD leadership. Will the UK be more or less liberal and democratic if they disband than if they continue?
I think it would be better if they disband, it could bring both main parties back to the centre and also make the Greens the party of both protest and innovation (some LDs would drift to the Greens as well, helping win the battle of mainstream greens vs far left greens in that party as well).
I think a commitment to move Faslane to Plymouth or Portsmouth would be useful as that is a very specific issue for a lot of people, removing that from the equation is, IMO, a simple way of winning a few people over.
Where is the new equivalent of RNAD Coulport going to be? You'd have to demolish half of Pompey or Guzz.
Truthfully, the obvious place to put a new Faslane wouldn't be Plymouth, but Anglesey. Take over the old Anglesey Aluminium site and add a bit of security, and have night life somewhere near Bangor.
And because the local economy since that site closed is in a more desperate condition than the liver of somebody who agreed to drink one sip of wine every time Trump lies on Twitter, there probably wouldn't be much protest.
That's fine, my point was to remove it from Scotland which has long been a point of contention.
Not particularly disagreeing with you, but there's a certain strand of Unionist opinion that actually sees Faslane/Coulport as a symbol of the Union, and that removing it would be damaging. I'm pretty sure that BJ, Gove etc are part of that strand.
I was truthfully thinking more of what to do with it if Scotland goes independent, because that's when it becomes obvious it can't stay. Faslane isn't Sevastapol.
And I can't see relocating the main base to Plymouth causing anything but chaos.
Christ, don't give HYUFD ideas about a Crimean option, he'll be planning an annexation of Argyll and Bute afore ye know it.
Argyll was originally annexed, though, wasn't it? It was part of Dalriada. Perhaps it should return to being joined with Antrim? If we are in to that kind of thing...
The clue is in the name, after all.
Annexation by the People of the Seax would be a radical departure though..
If the Liberal Democrats are to have a future, they need to start rebuilding at a local level. They need, above all, to build support where they have a chance of winning and accept they shouldn’t waste time pretending to be a national party. If they do that, opinion polls cease to be of real relevance to them.
The snag is that their most fruitful potential areas - slightly left-leaning suburbs who despise the Tories but are suspicious of Labour - are with rare exceptions not areas of traditional strength (Wales, the West Country and the Scottish Highlands have gone and are not returning) so the organisation just isn’t there to pull things round.
The notion the LDs were ever a "national" party was a chimera (to be fair, neither the Conservatives nor Labour are either). Small islands of strength were surrounded by oceans of inactivity or extreme weakness.
In London, for example, you have Sutton, Richmond and Kingston. Of the 152 LD Councillors in London, 111 are in those three Boroughs. Beyond that, there are 11 in Southwark and 15 in Haringey so that just leaves 15 Councillors across the remaining 27 Boroughs, 22 of which have no LD representation whatsoever.
The Conservatives are represented on 27 Boroughs and Labour on 30.
Go back to 2006 and the LDs had 318 London Councillors. Again, just the three Boroughs with a majority - the same three as now but far more Councils with LD representation.
No that just demonstrates that FPTP squeezes smaller parties.
We saw in last years Euro elections that there is widespread support across the country for both Lib Dem and Green parties.
From 1966 to 1974 the Liberals doubled their votes share, though with hardly any more seats, by moving from standing in half to standing in all Westminster seats.
It is beginning to feel a bit terminal for them, though. And I think (apart from Labour’s turn back In the direction towards electability) the big problem is that young new voters are now more likely to opt for the Greens.
When people realize there’s is no where else ypto go they will bounce back with a clean pair of hands, labour still toxic , tories responsible for whatever mess at the time.
If the Liberal Democrats are to have a future, they need to start rebuilding at a local level. They need, above all, to build support where they have a chance of winning and accept they shouldn’t waste time pretending to be a national party. If they do that, opinion polls cease to be of real relevance to them.
The snag is that their most fruitful potential areas - slightly left-leaning suburbs who despise the Tories but are suspicious of Labour - are with rare exceptions not areas of traditional strength (Wales, the West Country and the Scottish Highlands have gone and are not returning) so the organisation just isn’t there to pull things round.
The notion the LDs were ever a "national" party was a chimera (to be fair, neither the Conservatives nor Labour are either). Small islands of strength were surrounded by oceans of inactivity or extreme weakness.
In London, for example, you have Sutton, Richmond and Kingston. Of the 152 LD Councillors in London, 111 are in those three Boroughs. Beyond that, there are 11 in Southwark and 15 in Haringey so that just leaves 15 Councillors across the remaining 27 Boroughs, 22 of which have no LD representation whatsoever.
The Conservatives are represented on 27 Boroughs and Labour on 30.
Go back to 2006 and the LDs had 318 London Councillors. Again, just the three Boroughs with a majority - the same three as now but far more Councils with LD representation.
No that just demonstrates that FPTP squeezes smaller parties.
We saw in last years Euro elections that there is widespread support across the country for both Lib Dem and Green parties.
From 1966 to 1974 the Liberals doubled their votes share, though with hardly any more seats, by moving from standing in half to standing in all Westminster seats.
It is beginning to feel a bit terminal for them, though. And I think (apart from Labour’s turn back In the direction towards electability) the big problem is that young new voters are now more likely to opt for the Greens.
When people realize there’s is no where else ypto go they will bounce back with a clean pair of hands, labour still toxic , tories responsible for whatever mess at the time.
What is the point of them if they wont do coalitions with a positive attitude?
I think a commitment to move Faslane to Plymouth or Portsmouth would be useful as that is a very specific issue for a lot of people, removing that from the equation is, IMO, a simple way of winning a few people over.
Where is the new equivalent of RNAD Coulport going to be? You'd have to demolish half of Pompey or Guzz.
Truthfully, the obvious place to put a new Faslane wouldn't be Plymouth, but Anglesey. Take over the old Anglesey Aluminium site and add a bit of security, and have night life somewhere near Bangor.
And because the local economy since that site closed is in a more desperate condition than the liver of somebody who agreed to drink one sip of wine every time Trump lies on Twitter, there probably wouldn't be much protest.
That's fine, my point was to remove it from Scotland which has long been a point of contention.
Not particularly disagreeing with you, but there's a certain strand of Unionist opinion that actually sees Faslane/Coulport as a symbol of the Union, and that removing it would be damaging. I'm pretty sure that BJ, Gove etc are part of that strand.
While obviously unpopular with some, is there any polling across Scotland on closing Faslane?
I would have thought closing Faslane would be a net vote winner in Scotland.
Also, not closing it [edit: as a Trident base] would be lethal for any SNP administration, as most of their MSPs, Labour (other than Ms Baillie), LD, and SG are agin it.
I see the Guardian are making a big deal out of Rishi not declaring that his father in law is a billionaire. Apparently it's a huge secret that they (actually the private eye) have exposed. Honestly, these smears are becoming extremely tiresome.
It's this kind of reporting that makes the Guardian an unserious newspaper.
It is more that he hasn't recorded his relationships in the register of interests, nor his wife's substantial shareholding in Infosys.
If the Liberal Democrats are to have a future, they need to start rebuilding at a local level. They need, above all, to build support where they have a chance of winning and accept they shouldn’t waste time pretending to be a national party. If they do that, opinion polls cease to be of real relevance to them.
The snag is that their most fruitful potential areas - slightly left-leaning suburbs who despise the Tories but are suspicious of Labour - are with rare exceptions not areas of traditional strength (Wales, the West Country and the Scottish Highlands have gone and are not returning) so the organisation just isn’t there to pull things round.
The notion the LDs were ever a "national" party was a chimera (to be fair, neither the Conservatives nor Labour are either). Small islands of strength were surrounded by oceans of inactivity or extreme weakness.
In London, for example, you have Sutton, Richmond and Kingston. Of the 152 LD Councillors in London, 111 are in those three Boroughs. Beyond that, there are 11 in Southwark and 15 in Haringey so that just leaves 15 Councillors across the remaining 27 Boroughs, 22 of which have no LD representation whatsoever.
The Conservatives are represented on 27 Boroughs and Labour on 30.
Go back to 2006 and the LDs had 318 London Councillors. Again, just the three Boroughs with a majority - the same three as now but far more Councils with LD representation.
No that just demonstrates that FPTP squeezes smaller parties.
We saw in last years Euro elections that there is widespread support across the country for both Lib Dem and Green parties.
From 1966 to 1974 the Liberals doubled their votes share, though with hardly any more seats, by moving from standing in half to standing in all Westminster seats.
It is beginning to feel a bit terminal for them, though. And I think (apart from Labour’s turn back In the direction towards electability) the big problem is that young new voters are now more likely to opt for the Greens.
When people realize there’s is no where else ypto go they will bounce back with a clean pair of hands, labour still toxic , tories responsible for whatever mess at the time.
I did use to think that. But 2019 was a superb opportunity for them, and though they picked up 4 seats and increased their vote by 50% the result was massively disappointing given the circumstances.
I know the usual explanation on here is the supposed uselessness of Jo Swindon, but I think the explanation is more structural.
The more interesting question is which tory is orchestrating the smear against the Goldman Sachs Elf? Johson lacks the organisational capacity so I suppose it's the perennial answer of Gove.
If the Liberal Democrats are to have a future, they need to start rebuilding at a local level. They need, above all, to build support where they have a chance of winning and accept they shouldn’t waste time pretending to be a national party. If they do that, opinion polls cease to be of real relevance to them.
The snag is that their most fruitful potential areas - slightly left-leaning suburbs who despise the Tories but are suspicious of Labour - are with rare exceptions not areas of traditional strength (Wales, the West Country and the Scottish Highlands have gone and are not returning) so the organisation just isn’t there to pull things round.
The notion the LDs were ever a "national" party was a chimera (to be fair, neither the Conservatives nor Labour are either). Small islands of strength were surrounded by oceans of inactivity or extreme weakness.
In London, for example, you have Sutton, Richmond and Kingston. Of the 152 LD Councillors in London, 111 are in those three Boroughs. Beyond that, there are 11 in Southwark and 15 in Haringey so that just leaves 15 Councillors across the remaining 27 Boroughs, 22 of which have no LD representation whatsoever.
The Conservatives are represented on 27 Boroughs and Labour on 30.
Go back to 2006 and the LDs had 318 London Councillors. Again, just the three Boroughs with a majority - the same three as now but far more Councils with LD representation.
No that just demonstrates that FPTP squeezes smaller parties.
We saw in last years Euro elections that there is widespread support across the country for both Lib Dem and Green parties.
From 1966 to 1974 the Liberals doubled their votes share, though with hardly any more seats, by moving from standing in half to standing in all Westminster seats.
It is beginning to feel a bit terminal for them, though. And I think (apart from Labour’s turn back In the direction towards electability) the big problem is that young new voters are now more likely to opt for the Greens.
Is there recent polling on the Green / LD split in the young demographic?
The BBC has just rather loopily put Caroline Lucas as number one on its "Womens' Hour Power List", though - if that means anything.
Actually meant more activists than voters. The traditional strength of the Lib-Dems has been its foot soldiers. My instinct is that those idealistic youngsters are now more likely to devote their energies to green causes, either within or without the Green Party.
I agree with that first sentence, but that wasn't what the BBC called it.
And imo the Green Party is not at the heart of green achievement - they are on the margins shouting, whilst the country is rapidly moving to where we need to be. Over time they will become gradually more irrelevant than they are already.
Around here (North Notts / Derbys) I am in an area of approx 750 sq km where there are no Lib Dem councillors at all afaik. And all the incumbent parties seem to be doing pavement politics. Including the Tory MPs.
I would say one LD issue needs to be back to property taxes - Local Income Tax etc - where to my eye the ground is shifting.
Nah, such predictions have been made regularly for the last century, but the LDs survive and evolve.
Starmer is nowhere near as centrist as the Corbynites claim.
Indeed, there are plenty on here willing to write the obituary for the LDs.
I'm confident the LDs will return - the Party went through a cycle from 1970 to 2015 based on community politics and eventually prospered as first Labour and then the Conservatives went through their own periods of trauma and weakness. The Party was in Government with both Labour and the Conservatives and on both occasions paid the price for that.
Whether or not you think these things are cyclical, there will come a point when the Conservatives are unpopular again - the 2019 local elections showed the LDs (and others) can be beneficiaries of such unpopularity. There will come a point when the Conservatives are polling 25% and it'll be then that local by-elections will be won and Conservative morale will suffer as we saw in the 1990s when the Tory local base was almost completely hollowed out in a cycle of local contests.
Nothing lasts forever - the last few years should confirm that. I've little doubt the LDs will be at the margins for some period to come - even in the mid-2000s, the Party was really only competitive in 100 seats but sometimes that's enough to be the balance and the Party must learn from the 2010-15 experience should the opportunity arise again to be in a position of influence within a divided Commons.
The question is whether the next re-alignment will be on the centre-right. To what extent would or will Reform be able to say those things the Conservatives can't and start drawing support from the blues? I suspect the tension between liberal and social conservatism hasn't gone away.
If the Liberal Democrats are to have a future, they need to start rebuilding at a local level. They need, above all, to build support where they have a chance of winning and accept they shouldn’t waste time pretending to be a national party. If they do that, opinion polls cease to be of real relevance to them.
The snag is that their most fruitful potential areas - slightly left-leaning suburbs who despise the Tories but are suspicious of Labour - are with rare exceptions not areas of traditional strength (Wales, the West Country and the Scottish Highlands have gone and are not returning) so the organisation just isn’t there to pull things round.
The notion the LDs were ever a "national" party was a chimera (to be fair, neither the Conservatives nor Labour are either). Small islands of strength were surrounded by oceans of inactivity or extreme weakness.
In London, for example, you have Sutton, Richmond and Kingston. Of the 152 LD Councillors in London, 111 are in those three Boroughs. Beyond that, there are 11 in Southwark and 15 in Haringey so that just leaves 15 Councillors across the remaining 27 Boroughs, 22 of which have no LD representation whatsoever.
The Conservatives are represented on 27 Boroughs and Labour on 30.
Go back to 2006 and the LDs had 318 London Councillors. Again, just the three Boroughs with a majority - the same three as now but far more Councils with LD representation.
No that just demonstrates that FPTP squeezes smaller parties.
We saw in last years Euro elections that there is widespread support across the country for both Lib Dem and Green parties.
From 1966 to 1974 the Liberals doubled their votes share, though with hardly any more seats, by moving from standing in half to standing in all Westminster seats.
It is beginning to feel a bit terminal for them, though. And I think (apart from Labour’s turn back In the direction towards electability) the big problem is that young new voters are now more likely to opt for the Greens.
When people realize there’s is no where else ypto go they will bounce back with a clean pair of hands, labour still toxic , tories responsible for whatever mess at the time.
What is the point of them if they wont do coalitions with a positive attitude?
All you need to do is to reform the voting system so that the smaller party in a coalition government is not always punished for the sins of its partner. I think Lib Dems would be very positive about coalitions then.
The more interesting question is which tory is orchestrating the smear against the Goldman Sachs Elf? Johson lacks the organisational capacity so I suppose it's the perennial answer of Gove.
Nah, such predictions have been made regularly for the last century, but the LDs survive and evolve.
Starmer is nowhere near as centrist as the Corbynites claim.
Indeed, there are plenty on here willing to write the obituary for the LDs.
I'm confident the LDs will return - the Party went through a cycle from 1970 to 2015 based on community politics and eventually prospered as first Labour and then the Conservatives went through their own periods of trauma and weakness. The Party was in Government with both Labour and the Conservatives and on both occasions paid the price for that.
Whether or not you think these things are cyclical, there will come a point when the Conservatives are unpopular again - the 2019 local elections showed the LDs (and others) can be beneficiaries of such unpopularity. There will come a point when the Conservatives are polling 25% and it'll be then that local by-elections will be won and Conservative morale will suffer as we saw in the 1990s when the Tory local base was almost completely hollowed out in a cycle of local contests.
Nothing lasts forever - the last few years should confirm that. I've little doubt the LDs will be at the margins for some period to come - even in the mid-2000s, the Party was really only competitive in 100 seats but sometimes that's enough to be the balance and the Party must learn from the 2010-15 experience should the opportunity arise again to be in a position of influence within a divided Commons.
The question is whether the next re-alignment will be on the centre-right. To what extent would or will Reform be able to say those things the Conservatives can't and start drawing support from the blues? I suspect the tension between liberal and social conservatism hasn't gone away.
I am not saying they will disappear, I am saying it will be better for their underlying political cause (as opposed to the party) if they disband. They won't of course.
Comments
Just thinking more about the practical implications.
"Lost in a wilderness of our own creation! I see no way out, especially with Labour presenting a much more sensible image. The big question is “What point is there in voting Lib Dem, indeed what point is there in having a Lib Dem party?”. Honest and realistic answers please, because after supporting the party since 1959 I have no idea."
from an LDV yesterday by a supporter:
https://www.libdemvoice.org/keeping-hope-alive-66416.html
The snag is that their most fruitful potential areas - slightly left-leaning suburbs who despise the Tories but are suspicious of Labour - are with rare exceptions not areas of traditional strength (Wales, the West Country and the Scottish Highlands have gone and are not returning) so the organisation just isn’t there to pull things round.
Dunno, IANALBIUTB. Funding other people's litigation used to constitute the tort of maintenance and/or champerty, but like most of the law I remember that is now obsolete.
I think the In/Remain/No campaign would have to be based on the weight of history, what Scotland and England have achieved together throughout the partnership of 300 years and what can still be achieved together.
I think a commitment to move Faslane to Plymouth or Portsmouth would be useful as that is a very specific issue for a lot of people, removing that from the equation is, IMO, a simple way of winning a few people over.
Other than that I think spelling out "consequences" isn't going to work very well. I'd push hard on the currency issue but nothing else. I think talk of a "union dividend" is wasted unless the argument can be shifted successfully to what the SNP would cut from the day to day budget post independence, which I don't think is going to possible, the SNP are far too good at politics to let that happen.
Looking in from the outside I think there are too many things that need to go right for the union for an In/Remain/No vote. It's possible for a narrow victory but I'm not sure how likely it is. I think that's why basing the campaign on the weight of history makes the most sense, a sentimental approach of "don't make this decision based on today's politics, think of the last 300 years of success" can have a very positive polling booth effect for unionists.
I actually think that's what the remain side in the EU referendum didn't do enough of, though the achievements of the UK and EU together are much smaller than the rise of an Empire and changing the face of the planet.
A country is a shared society. A country is cultural values. A country is something to which people willingly belong.
Should a country descend into tyranny, it becomes hateful. It distorts belonging into compulsion.
I want the Scots to stay with us. But out of choice, not compulsion. To force them to stay would be to make their fears of being treated as a conquered colony into truth and to force them into that would be abhorrent. If they freely choose to leave, then I would regret it, but wish them good luck.
Your apparent vision of what is and is not treason and what a country should and should not be is not one I recognise. I do not hate my country, but a country that forced itself on the Scottish people would be hateful.
I swore an oath 25 years ago to Queen and Country when I put on a uniform. Although I since retired, I do not regret that in the slightest. The oath I swore, though, was because I believed in that country - not because I happened to be living there and therefore must do it, but because I believed in what I saw that country believing in.
I utterly reject your charge of treason against people who would not stand for this country being tyrannical towards an entire subset of it - and before you call me a traitor, I will say on record that I was willing to put my life on the line for this country; some people I served with lost their lives doing so. I do not know if you ever have done so.
Edit: and, thinking of family and friends, one can't legitimately privilege Scots in EWNI over those in, say, Ireland or Estonia or NZ or Trinidad or Brazil. Which makes the proposal even more difficult to implement.
'Trading Standards has seen an increase in new food businesses importing food from outside the EU.
We would encourage anyone who is considering this to contact us for advice to ensure the food products being imported are safe and legally labelled. If you are importing from outside the EU then you should be aware that food legislation can be significantly different to the UK rules. You will be responsible for the safety of the food and ensuring it complies with all relevant UK/EU legislation including labelling and claims requirements. Food labelling legislation requires specific information to be declared including the name and address of the responsible business in the EU. "
That of course is for the moment but the second two sentences of the Notice could, of course, be significant from Jan 1st onwards, when the standards will be ours and ours alone.
And since we don't know what will happen next, all we can do is pontificate. And bet, if the fancy takes us.
Faites cos jeux,
A supposedly educated person who doesn't know the correct form is 'different from' should be forced to eat pineapple pizza for the rest of their lives.
https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4679
https://twitter.com/jennycolgan/status/1329037285258645510?s=20
Pineapple on pizza was bad enough.
It's this kind of reporting that makes the Guardian an unserious newspaper.
Unlike one or two here I am proud of my country as an EU member state and know that it has made, and will in the future make, an important contribution to European peace and harmony.
Just as we all know Johnson's a serial liar and adulterer, Macdonnell was privately educated and Emily Thornberry's a snob?
Our imported cod does not come mainly from the EU.
"The UK consumes about 115,000 tonnes of cod each year. Only 15,000 tonnes comes from the North Sea, with the rest imported mainly from the fertile grounds in the Barents Sea and around Norway and Iceland."
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/18/where-did-all-the-cod-go-fish-chips-north-sea-sustainable-stocks#:~:text=The UK consumes about 115,000,and around Norway and Iceland.
Norway and Iceland are not in the EU. Norway certainly has a decent fish deal with the EU. I can see no reason why we cannot do so, other than mini-me-Napoleon's stiff neck.
I mean saying the 1933 German election was free and fair and anything approaching democracy is so laughable that I've damaged a rib laughing.
And because the local economy since that site closed is in a more desperate condition than the liver of somebody who agreed to drink one sip of wine every time Trump lies on Twitter, there probably wouldn't be much protest.
Just under 2 hours until qualifying so time to mend it. Probably.
https://twitter.com/F1/status/1332656702383149057
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1932_German_presidential_election
The plebiscites held in a number of areas after the FWW did use both residency and birth place as criterion for voting.
E.g., the Nobel Prize Winner Max Born (who was later Professor in Edinburgh) was able to vote in the plebiscite that partitioned Upper Silesia between Germany & Poland, because he was in born in Breslau (now Wroclaw), even though he then lived in Gottingen.
(I don't think it is unreasonable myself).
https://twitter.com/janemerrick23/status/1332615463545827329
In London, for example, you have Sutton, Richmond and Kingston. Of the 152 LD Councillors in London, 111 are in those three Boroughs. Beyond that, there are 11 in Southwark and 15 in Haringey so that just leaves 15 Councillors across the remaining 27 Boroughs, 22 of which have no LD representation whatsoever.
The Conservatives are represented on 27 Boroughs and Labour on 30.
Go back to 2006 and the LDs had 318 London Councillors. Again, just the three Boroughs with a majority - the same three as now but far more Councils with LD representation.
And I can't see relocating the main base to Plymouth causing anything but chaos.
So you can understand their hesitancy...
The er... independent deterrent has to make regular visits there anyway as the UK has no ability to service Trident airframes, no degauss facility and no test range or instrumented range ship.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/nov/27/huge-wealth-of-sunaks-family-not-declared-in-ministerial-register
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UziZYL_gtDc
We saw in last years Euro elections that there is widespread support across the country for both Lib Dem and Green parties.
From 1966 to 1974 the Liberals doubled their votes share, though with hardly any more seats, by moving from standing in half to standing in all Westminster seats.
Which is somewhat unlikely, but not quite as ridiculous.
I see Foxy has rather better made the point.
I would have thought closing Faslane would be a net vote winner in Scotland.
It would have been interesting to see how England would have taken it, I suspect that result would have been even more damaging to the Union than have been the last four years.
Starmer is nowhere near as centrist as the Corbynites claim.
I can’t see it would make much difference to a referendum campaign.
The BBC has just rather loopily put Caroline Lucas as number one on its "Womens' Hour Power List", though - if that means anything.
https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2020/11/bahrain-pre-qualifying-2020.html
Bottas at 4.33 each way for pole was a little tempting but too tight for a minuscule probable return.
The clue is in the name, after all.
I think it would be better if they disband, it could bring both main parties back to the centre and also make the Greens the party of both protest and innovation (some LDs would drift to the Greens as well, helping win the battle of mainstream greens vs far left greens in that party as well).
The LibDem change from opposing Middle Eastern warmongering to supporting Middle Eastern warmongering was also bizarre.
The 30 best Christmas movies of all time
From ‘[spoiler redacted]’ to ‘[spoiler redacted]’ – we round up 30 of the silver screen’s festive crackers
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/30-best-christmas-movies-time/
I know the usual explanation on here is the supposed uselessness of Jo Swindon, but I think the explanation is more structural.
And imo the Green Party is not at the heart of green achievement - they are on the margins shouting, whilst the country is rapidly moving to where we need to be. Over time they will become gradually more irrelevant than they are already.
Around here (North Notts / Derbys) I am in an area of approx 750 sq km where there are no Lib Dem councillors at all afaik. And all the incumbent parties seem to be doing pavement politics. Including the Tory MPs.
I would say one LD issue needs to be back to property taxes - Local Income Tax etc - where to my eye the ground is shifting.
Spitfire wanker - ✓
Anti Lockdowner - ✓
Brexiteer - ✓
Face of Bettertogether II - ?
https://twitter.com/alanferrier/status/1332660470508101632?s=20
I'm confident the LDs will return - the Party went through a cycle from 1970 to 2015 based on community politics and eventually prospered as first Labour and then the Conservatives went through their own periods of trauma and weakness. The Party was in Government with both Labour and the Conservatives and on both occasions paid the price for that.
Whether or not you think these things are cyclical, there will come a point when the Conservatives are unpopular again - the 2019 local elections showed the LDs (and others) can be beneficiaries of such unpopularity. There will come a point when the Conservatives are polling 25% and it'll be then that local by-elections will be won and Conservative morale will suffer as we saw in the 1990s when the Tory local base was almost completely hollowed out in a cycle of local contests.
Nothing lasts forever - the last few years should confirm that. I've little doubt the LDs will be at the margins for some period to come - even in the mid-2000s, the Party was really only competitive in 100 seats but sometimes that's enough to be the balance and the Party must learn from the 2010-15 experience should the opportunity arise again to be in a position of influence within a divided Commons.
The question is whether the next re-alignment will be on the centre-right. To what extent would or will Reform be able to say those things the Conservatives can't and start drawing support from the blues? I suspect the tension between liberal and social conservatism hasn't gone away.
Reader, they still proceeded to tear The Pumas a new one.
Is Elf a promotion or demotion ?
https://twitter.com/Jim_Edwards/status/1332674178521178112