I heard from my octogenarian step-mother that she is due to be vaccinated on Friday in a fairly small Devon town, so things seem to be moving ahead quite well.
The talk of Lockdown 3 in Febraury is daft as by then I would imagine that the vast majority of 80+ people in this country would have had a double dose and thus be immune.
So it will be safe to let the virus spread unhindered through the whole population aged 79 and less?
One would have thought that by now the message about the danger of mutations from large-scale infections would have penetrated even the thickest of skulls.
Do you think society should only go back to "normal" once everyone has been vaccinated?
One of the first signs of "normal" will be the vaccinated over-80's jetting off for those ultra-low cost cruises. Once that happens, it will be rather more difficult to get the young buying into tight lockdowns...
The problem the cruise ships will have is getting a vaccinated crew
Private sector vaccination surely has to become a thing in short order?
Not for a while, is my guess. Once there’s a batch of vaccines approved and a flood of supply, I expect some will leak into the private sector allowing companies and individuals to pay to jump the queue. But I’d be surprised if that happens in the early stages when governments are taking and allocating it all.
That Russian vaccine will no doubt become available, courtesy of those arch-capitalists in the Kremlin....
Once we get multiple vaccines on the market for a while, perhaps the least effective will become more available to those willing to pay, or from those willing to be bribed.
"White privilege" is simply that white people (especially white, straight, men) face less barriers and obstacles in life and society, on the whole. This is due to a whole manner of historical reasons.
That doesn't mean that white people don't suffer or that white people don't earn their success. It also doesn't mean that the struggles of the white working class, for example, are any less meaningful.
There's nothing "woke" about it as a concept and it annoys me when Twitter idiots turn it into a whole lifestyle.
If you're explaining, you're losing. It's an unhelpful convection that crudely categorises people, and therefore polarises them, and it should be ditched for that reason alone.
See Robert's excellent post at the start of the thread.
Consider the following 2 sentiments -
(1) We are all individuals, unique in our differences, and should never be viewed primarily as a cog in a machine or as a mere unit of a racial or gender or class grouping. To do so is dehumanizing and alienating and does not help in the practical improvement of relationships in society.
(2) Although we are all unique individuals, a massive factor influencing life outcomes is birth circumstances. What race and gender we are, and what class are parents are. Society cannot therefore be understood unless viewed through the prism of identity.
Both these are true. (1) is an obvious truth and (2) is more challenging to accept.
So for me we need to first accept the truth of (2) and decide if we wish to do the work to make it less true. If we do, we should then bear in mind the truth of (1) when going about it.
The trouble is far too many are solely viewing society through the prism of the latter - and making everything about that.
Rather than serving to remove what remaining discriminatory attitudes we still have, which are in the minority, it's likely to increase them.
I do get that point. If your messaging in the cause of racial justice is getting in the way rather than helping, you have to look hard at it.
But I'll give you one back.
Many white people are in denial that there is a real problem to be addressed and so they never get to sentiment (2) in my example. They just stop at (1).
Then what that becomes is less an important truth than a trite - "People are People wherever They be" - sentiment employed to deflect and close down on an issue they are uncomfortable with.
I think about 10-20% of white people are, yes, and many of those are genuinely racist. The trouble is you get 50:50 polarisation on this and this doesn't explain the balance of all the opposition (I think my post, Robert's and others do).
I'm not seeing anyone on this forum who's in denial there's a problem?
Best to keep this clean so no names but my tip for spotting is to think of people whose only PB contributions on racism and sexism are in the following categories -
Originating posts about ludicrous wokies seeing racism and misogyny all over the place.
Reply posts (to the raised topic of racism or misogyny) seeking to downplay it or explain it away, or switch the focus to something else.
That is quite a few on here - and more importantly many MANY out there.
BTW, to stress, I'm not throwing "ist" accusations around. We're talking about the state of being in denial about the size and seriousness of the problem.
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
Fantasy land. Enormous resources were poured into trying to make allegations stick.
They came up with zip.
"the investigation "also does not exonerate" Trump, finding both public and private actions "by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations".[26] Ten episodes of potential obstruction by the president were described."
Not exactly zip.
Seriously do me a favour. If Trump's many powerful enemies could have got him anywhere near a court they would have.
I suspect they will in the next 6 months or so, once his protections as President from federal prosecutions lapses.
Exactly, that's precisely the point. Trump has made extensive use of that protection, to avoid court and giving testimony or to withhold evidence, he's doing it right now in multiple on-going cases. Soon that will end. Trump can preemptively get a pardon for federal charges, but the states are another matter altogether, and there are a whole load of people who want to nail Donald J. Trump to the wall.
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
Fantasy land. Enormous resources were poured into trying to make allegations stick.
They came up with zip.
"the investigation "also does not exonerate" Trump, finding both public and private actions "by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations".[26] Ten episodes of potential obstruction by the president were described."
Not exactly zip.
Seriously do me a favour. If Trump's many powerful enemies could have got him anywhere near a court they would have.
I suspect they will in the next 6 months or so, once his protections as President from federal prosecutions lapses.
Exactly, that's precisely the point. Trump has made extensive use of that protection, to avoid court and giving testimony or to withhold evidence, he's doing it right now in multiple on-going cases. Soon that will end. Trump can preemptively get a pardon for federal charges, but the states are another matter altogether, and there are a whole load of people who want to nail Donald J. Trump to the wall.
Trade with the EU is a depreciating asset. An ever less significant part of the total pie of the world economy. Divergence will probably make sense soon, regardless of cost.
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
Fantasy land. Enormous resources were poured into trying to make allegations stick.
They came up with zip.
"the investigation "also does not exonerate" Trump, finding both public and private actions "by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations".[26] Ten episodes of potential obstruction by the president were described."
Not exactly zip.
Seriously do me a favour. If Trump's many powerful enemies could have got him anywhere near a court they would have.
I suspect they will in the next 6 months or so, once his protections as President from federal prosecutions lapses.
Exactly, that's precisely the point. Trump has made extensive use of that protection, to avoid court and giving testimony or to withhold evidence, he's doing it right now in multiple on-going cases. Soon that will end. Trump can preemptively get a pardon for federal charges, but the states are another matter altogether, and there are a whole load of people who want to nail Donald J. Trump to the wall.
Whether he is guilty of anything or not.
That will be for the courts to decide. Some of these case could already have been settled if Trump is innocent, he could have provided his financial records, he could have given the DNA sample, and he could have testified as requested, instead he chose to do everything in his power to avoid answering the complaints and charges. If Trump is innocent he has nothing to fear, as the courts will be scrupulous when dealing with such politically sensitive cases.
Trade with the EU is a depreciating asset. An ever less significant part of the total pie of the world economy. Divergence will probably make sense soon, regardless of cost.
Do you think the same argument works for Scotland or Wales vis-a-vis England?
So it looks like we've found BoJo's "win", the EU won't take unilateral action but there will be a disputes mechanism setup which amounts to basically the same thing, protection of the single market - if I am understanding the Tweets correctly
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
Fantasy land. Enormous resources were poured into trying to make allegations stick.
They came up with zip.
"the investigation "also does not exonerate" Trump, finding both public and private actions "by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations".[26] Ten episodes of potential obstruction by the president were described."
Not exactly zip.
Seriously do me a favour. If Trump's many powerful enemies could have got him anywhere near a court they would have.
I suspect they will in the next 6 months or so, once his protections as President from federal prosecutions lapses.
Exactly, that's precisely the point. Trump has made extensive use of that protection, to avoid court and giving testimony or to withhold evidence, he's doing it right now in multiple on-going cases. Soon that will end. Trump can preemptively get a pardon for federal charges, but the states are another matter altogether, and there are a whole load of people who want to nail Donald J. Trump to the wall.
Whether he is guilty of anything or not.
The US courts seem to be fairly impartial. For instance, they won't adjudicate in favour of a side that offers no evidence to support their claims, even if the side failing to offer evidence represents the president who appointed the judge.
Trade with the EU is a depreciating asset. An ever less significant part of the total pie of the world economy. Divergence will probably make sense soon, regardless of cost.
Do you think the same argument works for Scotland or Wales vis-a-vis England?
Not really. For one thing England writes a huge cheque to both every year. In our relationship with the EU the subsidy has gone other way.
Managed divergence means divergence in real terms because the potential gains in terms of trade with the growing bits will outweigh the penalty of diverging with an ever smaller part of the pie.
Trade with the EU is a depreciating asset. An ever less significant part of the total pie of the world economy. Divergence will probably make sense soon, regardless of cost.
Do you think the same argument works for Scotland or Wales vis-a-vis England?
Not really. For one thing England writes a huge cheque to both every year. In our relationship with the EU the subsidy has gone other way.
Managed divergence means divergence in real terms because the potential gains in terms of trade with the growing bits will outweigh the penalty of diverging with an ever smaller part of the pie.
In what way will divergence help increase trade? There are two possibilities: we lower our standards, or we align our standards with another large power in the hope of increasing bilateral trade. Which one do you think we should do?
I like being privileged. I enjoy the privileges I have, and I'm excited about the thought of accruing more privileges as I go through life. I don't wish others were less privileged so I could be more privileged - that seems like screwed up logic.
Congratulations on finding a new way of spectacularly missing the point on the issue of white privilege, a significant achievement given the wide range of bone-headed responses we've already seen on this topic here.
We await your insightful contributions with interest.
I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record. Bottom line - living in a multiracial household I belive white privilege to be real, I have seen it in action. It is one of many ways (like class or sex) that some groups are treated better than others in ways that are unconnected to their talents or intrinsic worth. To be honest, it surprises me that people find it controversial and put so much effort into proving it doesn't exist, rather than listening to those who say it has affected them and finding ways of making society fairer.
The idea of white privilege is (afaik) that white people communicating with other white people benefit from a sort of unconscious shortcut of supposed familiarity and approbation. So is the 'solution' to this problem that white people should be more suspicious and disapproving of each other? How would that help society? The problem is not white people being too privileged, it is non-white people not being privileged enough, and therefore the solution does not lie in attacking white privilege, but building non-white privilege. See also every other problem based on 'those people' having 'too much'. That's why white privilege being a problem is an absurdity.
That is not what white privilege means, which perhaps explains your opposition to it. From the dictionary: “inherent advantages possessed by a white person on the basis of their race in a society characterized by racial inequality and injustice.“
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
Fantasy land. Enormous resources were poured into trying to make allegations stick.
They came up with zip.
"the investigation "also does not exonerate" Trump, finding both public and private actions "by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations".[26] Ten episodes of potential obstruction by the president were described."
Not exactly zip.
Seriously do me a favour. If Trump's many powerful enemies could have got him anywhere near a court they would have.
I suspect they will in the next 6 months or so, once his protections as President from federal prosecutions lapses.
Exactly, that's precisely the point. Trump has made extensive use of that protection, to avoid court and giving testimony or to withhold evidence, he's doing it right now in multiple on-going cases. Soon that will end. Trump can preemptively get a pardon for federal charges, but the states are another matter altogether, and there are a whole load of people who want to nail Donald J. Trump to the wall.
Whether he is guilty of anything or not.
The US courts seem to be fairly impartial. For instance, they won't adjudicate in favour of a side that offers no evidence to support their claims, even if the side failing to offer evidence represents the president who appointed the judge.
Trump has never had a chance to present such evidence as he has, because the courts' rulings have been largely on procedure.
I'm sure if the evidence ever did actually get to court, it would become clear that the 100 plus sworn testimonies he has from ordinary Americans connected to the election, on penalty of perjury, were 100% liars.
I like being privileged. I enjoy the privileges I have, and I'm excited about the thought of accruing more privileges as I go through life. I don't wish others were less privileged so I could be more privileged - that seems like screwed up logic.
Congratulations on finding a new way of spectacularly missing the point on the issue of white privilege, a significant achievement given the wide range of bone-headed responses we've already seen on this topic here.
We await your insightful contributions with interest.
I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record. Bottom line - living in a multiracial household I belive white privilege to be real, I have seen it in action. It is one of many ways (like class or sex) that some groups are treated better than others in ways that are unconnected to their talents or intrinsic worth. To be honest, it surprises me that people find it controversial and put so much effort into proving it doesn't exist, rather than listening to those who say it has affected them and finding ways of making society fairer.
The idea of white privilege is (afaik) that white people communicating with other white people benefit from a sort of unconscious shortcut of supposed familiarity and approbation. So is the 'solution' to this problem that white people should be more suspicious and disapproving of each other? How would that help society? The problem is not white people being too privileged, it is non-white people not being privileged enough, and therefore the solution does not lie in attacking white privilege, but building non-white privilege. See also every other problem based on 'those people' having 'too much'. That's why white privilege being a problem is an absurdity.
This is not the idea, no. White Privilege refers to the fact that in Western society by and large a white person may face many challenges and obstacles in life but their skin colour will not be one of them. They quite literally never have to think about it in the way that many others have to all or most or much the time. This is a privilege in the true sense of the word since it is relative to others and is not earned. Its oddity (as a privilege) is that it applies to a majority, which could be why it jars. Speaking personally, I find it a useful and powerful way of looking at the race issue. It brings it home rather keeping it at arms length.
Trade with the EU is a depreciating asset. An ever less significant part of the total pie of the world economy. Divergence will probably make sense soon, regardless of cost.
Do you think the same argument works for Scotland or Wales vis-a-vis England?
Not really. For one thing England writes a huge cheque to both every year. In our relationship with the EU the subsidy has gone other way.
Managed divergence means divergence in real terms because the potential gains in terms of trade with the growing bits will outweigh the penalty of diverging with an ever smaller part of the pie.
In what way will divergence help increase trade? There are two possibilities: we lower our standards, or we align our standards with another large power in the hope of increasing bilateral trade. Which one do you think we should do?
I don;t know, but I can see why it makes sense to agree to managed divergence with the EU, given what will transpire in trade trends over the coming years.
The four nations have agreed the three family rules at Christmas remains but in Wales the guidance is for two
So the law is 3 but guidance is 2 in Wales
You could not make this up
BBC pathetically confused.
Unable to decide whether Mr Drakeford's changes in Wales are "advice" or "Rules".
They are advice
There is a big problem with advice in general when it comes to corporations, in my experience. To avoid both legal liability and moral judgment, advice tends to get treated as a rule - and with some margin superimposed on the 'advice' to ensure you don't accidentally 'break' that 'advice'.
Much of the time, that is an inconvenience (e.g. advice on how heavy an item delivery person is required under their job description to lift). However, when that advice covers something that is already a careful balance of benefits (COVID infection control) and costs (loss of access to near death relatives), pursuing the 'advice' PLUS reflexively can get you a long way from the optimal balance point very quickly.
As we can witness from the care home discussion below - people want to visit the residents, the residents want their children to visit but the risk is so great that the only solution is to not allow any visitors and watch everyone complain.
The problem would be greatly ameliorated if the government were to underwrite the insurance of care homes on this. As it is, many just don't dare take this risk, as they are uninsured.
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
Fantasy land. Enormous resources were poured into trying to make allegations stick.
They came up with zip.
"the investigation "also does not exonerate" Trump, finding both public and private actions "by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations".[26] Ten episodes of potential obstruction by the president were described."
Not exactly zip.
Seriously do me a favour. If Trump's many powerful enemies could have got him anywhere near a court they would have.
That's at least partly due to immunity from civil action (Nixon v Fitzgerald) - basically you can't sue a sitting President for actions in office (although you can for prior conduct - Clinton v Jones).
There is some debate over whether you can prosecute a sitting President on a criminal matter. Some argue that the whole point of impeachment is as a replacement for prosecution (and covers only "high crimes and misdemeanors" ) but the general view is you technically can.
There are two key reasons why Presidents aren't prosecuted (well, three - another is most try not to commit crimes). Firstly, DOJ guidance is not to prosecute sitting Presidents - that was Mueller's point as the Special Counsel's Office is part of the DOJ so he was saying you may well be able to charge Trump but, since DOJ policy is not to do so, the option wasn't open to him. Secondly, it's extremely difficult in practice to investigate because of the civil immunity point and other protections designed to avoid the President being embroiled in time-consuming legal processes - so New York prosecutors, for example, are investigating financial irregularities, but there's a lot of material they can't access and people they can't question.
None of that applies post-Presidency. The US has the odd practice that Obama is still President Obama and Hillary Clinton is Secretary Clinton... but those are purely courtesy titles carrying no legal privileges, and they are simply private citizens now, as Trump will be on the afternoon of 20th January.
Trade with the EU is a depreciating asset. An ever less significant part of the total pie of the world economy. Divergence will probably make sense soon, regardless of cost.
Do you think the same argument works for Scotland or Wales vis-a-vis England?
Not really. For one thing England writes a huge cheque to both every year. In our relationship with the EU the subsidy has gone other way.
Managed divergence means divergence in real terms because the potential gains in terms of trade with the growing bits will outweigh the penalty of diverging with an ever smaller part of the pie.
In what way will divergence help increase trade? There are two possibilities: we lower our standards, or we align our standards with another large power in the hope of increasing bilateral trade. Which one do you think we should do?
I don;t know, but I can see why it makes sense to agree to managed divergence with the EU, given what will transpire in trade trends over the coming years.
"Managed divergence" is a Brexiteer-friendly way of branding managed convergence.
I like being privileged. I enjoy the privileges I have, and I'm excited about the thought of accruing more privileges as I go through life. I don't wish others were less privileged so I could be more privileged - that seems like screwed up logic.
Congratulations on finding a new way of spectacularly missing the point on the issue of white privilege, a significant achievement given the wide range of bone-headed responses we've already seen on this topic here.
We await your insightful contributions with interest.
I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record. Bottom line - living in a multiracial household I belive white privilege to be real, I have seen it in action. It is one of many ways (like class or sex) that some groups are treated better than others in ways that are unconnected to their talents or intrinsic worth. To be honest, it surprises me that people find it controversial and put so much effort into proving it doesn't exist, rather than listening to those who say it has affected them and finding ways of making society fairer.
The idea of white privilege is (afaik) that white people communicating with other white people benefit from a sort of unconscious shortcut of supposed familiarity and approbation. So is the 'solution' to this problem that white people should be more suspicious and disapproving of each other? How would that help society? The problem is not white people being too privileged, it is non-white people not being privileged enough, and therefore the solution does not lie in attacking white privilege, but building non-white privilege. See also every other problem based on 'those people' having 'too much'. That's why white privilege being a problem is an absurdity.
This is not the idea, no. White Privilege refers to the fact that in Western society by and large a white person may face many challenges and obstacles in life but their skin colour will not be one of them. They quite literally never have to think about it in the way that many others have to all or most or much the time. This is a privilege in the true sense of the word since it is relative to others and is not earned. Its oddity (as a privilege) is that it applies to a majority, which could be why it jars. Speaking personally, I find it a useful and powerful way of looking at the race issue. It brings it home rather keeping it at arms length.
And given that working class white boys are amongst the lowest educational achievers in society already, what is the remedy for this privilege?
My confusion is that I would have thought that this was what the UK would have been asking for all the time. The idea they would get any more than this is mad. It seems a reasonable result for both sides.
Trade with the EU is a depreciating asset. An ever less significant part of the total pie of the world economy. Divergence will probably make sense soon, regardless of cost.
Do you think the same argument works for Scotland or Wales vis-a-vis England?
Not really. For one thing England writes a huge cheque to both every year. In our relationship with the EU the subsidy has gone other way.
Managed divergence means divergence in real terms because the potential gains in terms of trade with the growing bits will outweigh the penalty of diverging with an ever smaller part of the pie.
In what way will divergence help increase trade? There are two possibilities: we lower our standards, or we align our standards with another large power in the hope of increasing bilateral trade. Which one do you think we should do?
I don;t know, but I can see why it makes sense to agree to managed divergence with the EU, given what will transpire in trade trends over the coming years.
"Managed divergence" is a Brexiteer-friendly way of branding managed convergence.
It really isn;t when you look at the numbers. Most British companies don't have dealing with EU. The trade that there is is coming mostly our way and that trade is an ever shrinking part of the total.
So it stands to reason divergence will make sense at some point.
I like being privileged. I enjoy the privileges I have, and I'm excited about the thought of accruing more privileges as I go through life. I don't wish others were less privileged so I could be more privileged - that seems like screwed up logic.
Congratulations on finding a new way of spectacularly missing the point on the issue of white privilege, a significant achievement given the wide range of bone-headed responses we've already seen on this topic here.
We await your insightful contributions with interest.
I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record. Bottom line - living in a multiracial household I belive white privilege to be real, I have seen it in action. It is one of many ways (like class or sex) that some groups are treated better than others in ways that are unconnected to their talents or intrinsic worth. To be honest, it surprises me that people find it controversial and put so much effort into proving it doesn't exist, rather than listening to those who say it has affected them and finding ways of making society fairer.
The idea of white privilege is (afaik) that white people communicating with other white people benefit from a sort of unconscious shortcut of supposed familiarity and approbation. So is the 'solution' to this problem that white people should be more suspicious and disapproving of each other? How would that help society? The problem is not white people being too privileged, it is non-white people not being privileged enough, and therefore the solution does not lie in attacking white privilege, but building non-white privilege. See also every other problem based on 'those people' having 'too much'. That's why white privilege being a problem is an absurdity.
This is not the idea, no. White Privilege refers to the fact that in Western society by and large a white person may face many challenges and obstacles in life but their skin colour will not be one of them. They quite literally never have to think about it in the way that many others have to all or most or much the time. This is a privilege in the true sense of the word since it is relative to others and is not earned. Its oddity (as a privilege) is that it applies to a majority, which could be why it jars. Speaking personally, I find it a useful and powerful way of looking at the race issue. It brings it home rather keeping it at arms length.
'Quite literally never have to think about it'? Perhaps that was true once, but not after the super-saturation of wokeness throughout our entire media and popular culture. One can't even watch a football match without having the rituals of wokeness performed in front of you, so it's really quite hard to avoid these days.
Trade with the EU is a depreciating asset. An ever less significant part of the total pie of the world economy. Divergence will probably make sense soon, regardless of cost.
Do you think the same argument works for Scotland or Wales vis-a-vis England?
Not really. For one thing England writes a huge cheque to both every year. In our relationship with the EU the subsidy has gone other way.
Managed divergence means divergence in real terms because the potential gains in terms of trade with the growing bits will outweigh the penalty of diverging with an ever smaller part of the pie.
Not England, please. United Kingdom. Irrespective of the size of the cherque or the direction of the flows at any one time.
We await your insightful contributions with interest.
I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record.
Maybe because you're not engaging with the real issue?
I don't think anyone (certainly not here) is contesting that some minorities, particularly black people, experience disadvantage in the UK. The pub-nudge, street-crossing, kids in the bank queue, eye-averting and hovering security guard all being personal examples that were shared with me. It exists. It's real. Not everyone does it, but enough do to make the experiences of black people living here uncomfortable. It needs to end.
The problem with "White Privilege" is that when you say it anyone who is white hears that because they are white they have privilege. That will instantly make many say, "no, I'm not" because privilege is commonly understood to mean being granted special rights but they've often had very hard lives, and suffer unemployment, bad health and bad education. It will then in turn makes others say, "yes, you do" because of the reasons in my first paragraph, possibly coupled with a slight that if they disagree they're either totally ignorant or a secret racist too. A number of the latter then double-down with nonsense about slavery and colonialism too, which introduces another complexifying vector into it - particular if your family ancestors had a really rough time of it down the factories and mines in the 19th Century too.
It therefore ends up with the conversation almost entirely about White people, who fight out its interpretation amongst themselves, and takes the attention and energy away from the real disadvantages many minority people face. I call many of its defenders "Woke" because I think they narcissistically want to make it all about themselves due to holding deep-seated insecurities and guilt - particularly prevalent amongst the professional and educated classes - which is why they make so many public declarations of their faith and belief in public, and call out transgressors, whilst doing virtually nothing to address the underlying issues at heart. I can see straight through that, it properly winds me up and I find it hard to respect people who do it.
Like "defund the police" it's a clickbaity type slogan that rises amongst the maelstrom in social media and grabs the headlines but risks making society more split, not worse.
Language matters and it's time we starting using the right language if we're interested in real results, rather than just ourselves.
So we agree, white privilege exists but White Privilege isn't a useful political slogan. I haven't engaged in the issue of the slogan's effectiveness because it isn't interesting to me. BTW white privilege should be a conversation primarily involving white people because they are where the problem lies and it will only go away if they try to fix it. That is why the phrase is accurate, even if it gets people's backs up.
Does the same apply to Black Crime?
Why the question?
White Privilege is clearly not an equivalent term to Black Crime.
What do you think I mean by Black Crime?
I was thinking you mean violent crime of the sort disproportionately committed by black men, no?
Trade with the EU is a depreciating asset. An ever less significant part of the total pie of the world economy. Divergence will probably make sense soon, regardless of cost.
Do you think the same argument works for Scotland or Wales vis-a-vis England?
Not really. For one thing England writes a huge cheque to both every year. In our relationship with the EU the subsidy has gone other way.
Managed divergence means divergence in real terms because the potential gains in terms of trade with the growing bits will outweigh the penalty of diverging with an ever smaller part of the pie.
In what way will divergence help increase trade? There are two possibilities: we lower our standards, or we align our standards with another large power in the hope of increasing bilateral trade. Which one do you think we should do?
I don;t know, but I can see why it makes sense to agree to managed divergence with the EU, given what will transpire in trade trends over the coming years.
"Managed divergence" is a Brexiteer-friendly way of branding managed convergence.
It really isn;t when you look at the numbers. Most British companies don't have dealing with EU. The trade that there is is coming mostly our way and that trade is an ever shrinking part of the total.
So it stands to reason divergence will make sense at some point.
And yet when I asked you to speculate on what form that divergence might take, you didn't have any ideas.
Trade with the EU is a depreciating asset. An ever less significant part of the total pie of the world economy. Divergence will probably make sense soon, regardless of cost.
Do you think the same argument works for Scotland or Wales vis-a-vis England?
Not really. For one thing England writes a huge cheque to both every year. In our relationship with the EU the subsidy has gone other way.
Managed divergence means divergence in real terms because the potential gains in terms of trade with the growing bits will outweigh the penalty of diverging with an ever smaller part of the pie.
In what way will divergence help increase trade? There are two possibilities: we lower our standards, or we align our standards with another large power in the hope of increasing bilateral trade. Which one do you think we should do?
Reducing the cost base and making UK exports more competitive globally, also allowing us to strike bilateral trade deals in services with other advanced nations to get mutual recognition of qualifications and certifications.
The EU is just one market and it's not even a very important one globally speaking. Their continued attempts to become a regulatory exporter keep failing, they've once again given up with the UK where they started with all trade depending on 100% alignment forever with EU standards to now saying an arbitration process can set tariffs if there is sufficient divergence from the current levels which are going to be written into the treaty.
$markets now 83% yes to some sort of Brexit deal in 2020. Paddys 1/7 yes, 7/2 no.
I`ve just chucked a few more quid on "No" (Smarkets)
That's ostensibly a mug bet - a deal being certain - and you aren't a mug, so I'm assuming you are looking at a "not officially signed off by 31 Dec" type scenario?
I think Wales are in for at least 6 weeks of lockdown this time, as they have announced it will be reviewed every 3, and no way that numbers will be squashed enough by then...unless they want to just repeat the circuit breaker disaster.
I presume England will spend most of January in lockdown or near lockdown.
Trade with the EU is a depreciating asset. An ever less significant part of the total pie of the world economy. Divergence will probably make sense soon, regardless of cost.
Do you think the same argument works for Scotland or Wales vis-a-vis England?
Not really. For one thing England writes a huge cheque to both every year. In our relationship with the EU the subsidy has gone other way.
Managed divergence means divergence in real terms because the potential gains in terms of trade with the growing bits will outweigh the penalty of diverging with an ever smaller part of the pie.
In what way will divergence help increase trade? There are two possibilities: we lower our standards, or we align our standards with another large power in the hope of increasing bilateral trade. Which one do you think we should do?
Reducing the cost base and making UK exports more competitive globally, also allowing us to strike bilateral trade deals in services with other advanced nations to get mutual recognition of qualifications and certifications.
The EU is just one market and it's not even a very important one globally speaking. Their continued attempts to become a regulatory exporter keep failing, they've once again given up with the UK where they started with all trade depending on 100% alignment forever with EU standards to now saying an arbitration process can set tariffs if there is sufficient divergence from the current levels which are going to be written into the treaty.
That's my point its becoming less and less important. And so if we did decide to meaningfully diverge it would hit an ever smaller part of our GDP if there were sanctions or tariffs.
Trade with the EU is a depreciating asset. An ever less significant part of the total pie of the world economy. Divergence will probably make sense soon, regardless of cost.
Do you think the same argument works for Scotland or Wales vis-a-vis England?
Not really. For one thing England writes a huge cheque to both every year. In our relationship with the EU the subsidy has gone other way.
Managed divergence means divergence in real terms because the potential gains in terms of trade with the growing bits will outweigh the penalty of diverging with an ever smaller part of the pie.
In what way will divergence help increase trade? There are two possibilities: we lower our standards, or we align our standards with another large power in the hope of increasing bilateral trade. Which one do you think we should do?
I don;t know, but I can see why it makes sense to agree to managed divergence with the EU, given what will transpire in trade trends over the coming years.
"Managed divergence" is a Brexiteer-friendly way of branding managed convergence.
I was thinking you mean violent crime of the sort disproportionately committed by black people, no?
I was deliberately vague, but was thinking of that section of drug and violent crime committed by youth gangs. I think most people would have an idea of what the term meant and would probably accept that it exists, and that it should be tackled. But calling it Black Crime would be totally unhelpful in trying to fight it.
My confusion is that I would have thought that this was what the UK would have been asking for all the time. The idea they would get any more than this is mad. It seems a reasonable result for both sides.
So it looks like we've found BoJo's "win", the EU won't take unilateral action but there will be a disputes mechanism setup which amounts to basically the same thing, protection of the single market - if I am understanding the Tweets correctly
It's an absolutely massive concession from the EU. Now there will be rules and arbitration on tariff setting and a standards baseline to work from. It's literally everything we've been asking for on the LPF, freedom to diverge, freedom to not follow new EU standards without any repercussions, arbitration led tariffs following treaty rules where divergence from treaty standards are considered in breach by either party, neither party able to easily regress from current standards.
Honestly, it's great and if we don't sign this deal then the government clearly never wanted a deal in the first place. It's everything we ever wanted.
So it looks like we've found BoJo's "win", the EU won't take unilateral action but there will be a disputes mechanism setup which amounts to basically the same thing, protection of the single market - if I am understanding the Tweets correctly
Not quite the same thing - before it looked as if the EI could take action unilaterally, that would not happen if such a mechanism is in place.
Trade with the EU is a depreciating asset. An ever less significant part of the total pie of the world economy. Divergence will probably make sense soon, regardless of cost.
Do you think the same argument works for Scotland or Wales vis-a-vis England?
Not really. For one thing England writes a huge cheque to both every year. In our relationship with the EU the subsidy has gone other way.
Managed divergence means divergence in real terms because the potential gains in terms of trade with the growing bits will outweigh the penalty of diverging with an ever smaller part of the pie.
In what way will divergence help increase trade? There are two possibilities: we lower our standards, or we align our standards with another large power in the hope of increasing bilateral trade. Which one do you think we should do?
Reducing the cost base and making UK exports more competitive globally, also allowing us to strike bilateral trade deals in services with other advanced nations to get mutual recognition of qualifications and certifications.
The EU is just one market and it's not even a very important one globally speaking. Their continued attempts to become a regulatory exporter keep failing, they've once again given up with the UK where they started with all trade depending on 100% alignment forever with EU standards to now saying an arbitration process can set tariffs if there is sufficient divergence from the current levels which are going to be written into the treaty.
Reducing the cost base? How will we do that in a way that we couldn't before Brexit?
I think Wales are in for at least 6 weeks of lockdown this time, as they have announced it will be reviewed every 3, and no way that numbers will be squashed enough by then...unless they want to just repeat the circuit breaker disaster.
I presume England will spend most of January in lockdown or near lockdown.
"Managed divergence" is a Brexiteer-friendly way of branding managed convergence.
As I pointed out way back during the referendum campaign, in practice there's not going to be any divergence. Even if there are a few minor legal divergences, which in itself is going to be rare, no business is going to want to limit itself to meeting the UK-only version of the standard when there's a stonking great market six times as big (plus all the satellite economies following EU standards) on the doorstep.
Trade with the EU is a depreciating asset. An ever less significant part of the total pie of the world economy. Divergence will probably make sense soon, regardless of cost.
Do you think the same argument works for Scotland or Wales vis-a-vis England?
Not really. For one thing England writes a huge cheque to both every year. In our relationship with the EU the subsidy has gone other way.
Managed divergence means divergence in real terms because the potential gains in terms of trade with the growing bits will outweigh the penalty of diverging with an ever smaller part of the pie.
In what way will divergence help increase trade? There are two possibilities: we lower our standards, or we align our standards with another large power in the hope of increasing bilateral trade. Which one do you think we should do?
I don;t know, but I can see why it makes sense to agree to managed divergence with the EU, given what will transpire in trade trends over the coming years.
"Managed divergence" is a Brexiteer-friendly way of branding managed convergence.
I do not think so - it means exactly what it says
Shutting down businesses which trade with Europe ?
Trade with the EU is a depreciating asset. An ever less significant part of the total pie of the world economy. Divergence will probably make sense soon, regardless of cost.
Do you think the same argument works for Scotland or Wales vis-a-vis England?
Not really. For one thing England writes a huge cheque to both every year. In our relationship with the EU the subsidy has gone other way.
Managed divergence means divergence in real terms because the potential gains in terms of trade with the growing bits will outweigh the penalty of diverging with an ever smaller part of the pie.
In what way will divergence help increase trade? There are two possibilities: we lower our standards, or we align our standards with another large power in the hope of increasing bilateral trade. Which one do you think we should do?
I don;t know, but I can see why it makes sense to agree to managed divergence with the EU, given what will transpire in trade trends over the coming years.
"Managed divergence" is a Brexiteer-friendly way of branding managed convergence.
No it really isn't. The EU will continue to be an ever reducing part of our export markets and the important point is that they will now no longer be able to dictate what our standards are and how we trade with the other 93% of the world.
I like being privileged. I enjoy the privileges I have, and I'm excited about the thought of accruing more privileges as I go through life. I don't wish others were less privileged so I could be more privileged - that seems like screwed up logic.
Congratulations on finding a new way of spectacularly missing the point on the issue of white privilege, a significant achievement given the wide range of bone-headed responses we've already seen on this topic here.
We await your insightful contributions with interest.
I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record. Bottom line - living in a multiracial household I belive white privilege to be real, I have seen it in action. It is one of many ways (like class or sex) that some groups are treated better than others in ways that are unconnected to their talents or intrinsic worth. To be honest, it surprises me that people find it controversial and put so much effort into proving it doesn't exist, rather than listening to those who say it has affected them and finding ways of making society fairer.
The idea of white privilege is (afaik) that white people communicating with other white people benefit from a sort of unconscious shortcut of supposed familiarity and approbation. So is the 'solution' to this problem that white people should be more suspicious and disapproving of each other? How would that help society? The problem is not white people being too privileged, it is non-white people not being privileged enough, and therefore the solution does not lie in attacking white privilege, but building non-white privilege. See also every other problem based on 'those people' having 'too much'. That's why white privilege being a problem is an absurdity.
This is not the idea, no. White Privilege refers to the fact that in Western society by and large a white person may face many challenges and obstacles in life but their skin colour will not be one of them. They quite literally never have to think about it in the way that many others have to all or most or much the time. This is a privilege in the true sense of the word since it is relative to others and is not earned. Its oddity (as a privilege) is that it applies to a majority, which could be why it jars. Speaking personally, I find it a useful and powerful way of looking at the race issue. It brings it home rather keeping it at arms length.
And given that working class white boys are amongst the lowest educational achievers in society already, what is the remedy for this privilege?
Class prejudice is a huge problem too - certainly a more pernicious problem than racial prejudice in this country. You do understand that there are different dimensions of privilege? I suspect that in some settings, like education, some minority kids do better precisely because their parents know that society is prejudiced and their kids need to excel if they are to overcome it. Plus, you're not really comparing like for like are you, by separating out the lowest performing group of white kids and comparing them to all minority kids. If you take a minority kid with all the disadvantages the white working class boy may have (nowhere to do homework, maybe parents who don't value education, no access to extracurricular activities, poor nutrition, not read to as a young child) they might be faring even worse.
Reducing the cost base? How will we do that in a way that we couldn't before Brexit?
By hiring 50,000 customs agents, increasing trade frictions, and setting up parallel regulatory structures paid for by one country rather than 28, of course. Do keep up with Brexiteer logic!
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
Fantasy land. Enormous resources were poured into trying to make allegations stick.
They came up with zip.
"the investigation "also does not exonerate" Trump, finding both public and private actions "by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations".[26] Ten episodes of potential obstruction by the president were described."
Not exactly zip.
Seriously do me a favour. If Trump's many powerful enemies could have got him anywhere near a court they would have.
I suspect they will in the next 6 months or so, once his protections as President from federal prosecutions lapses.
Exactly, that's precisely the point. Trump has made extensive use of that protection, to avoid court and giving testimony or to withhold evidence, he's doing it right now in multiple on-going cases. Soon that will end. Trump can preemptively get a pardon for federal charges, but the states are another matter altogether, and there are a whole load of people who want to nail Donald J. Trump to the wall.
Whether he is guilty of anything or not.
The US courts seem to be fairly impartial. For instance, they won't adjudicate in favour of a side that offers no evidence to support their claims, even if the side failing to offer evidence represents the president who appointed the judge.
Trump has never had a chance to present such evidence as he has, because the courts' rulings have been largely on procedure.
I'm sure if the evidence ever did actually get to court, it would become clear that the 100 plus sworn testimonies he has from ordinary Americans connected to the election, on penalty of perjury, were 100% liars.
How could it be any other way?
That's wrong on several levels.
Firstly, Trump has presented evidence - what hasn't happened is detailed examination of that evidence. The courts have said "even if you prove each and every one of these allegations, they would not support the remedy you seek" (normally disenfranchisement of all voters in a largely Democratic county or the entire state).
Secondly, there is a huge disconnect between Trump's (and Giuliani's) Twitter and press conference and allegations presented to courts. For example, Giuliani specifically accepted in court in his Pennsylvania case that there was no allegation of sweeping fraud. That's because lawyers face being disbarred and even criminal action for perjury if they knowingly mislead - whereas you can say just about whatever sh1t you like in the parking lot of a garden centre.
Thirdly, a defence wouldn't need to prove every sworn testimony was a lie. Many are, frankly, irrelevant (along the lines "I saw a postman acting suspiciously"). Many are trivial (e.g. "it's bad if your Dad didn't receive his postal voting papers, but doesn't change the result in Pennsylvania, Madam"). Some are lies (is a court going to accept as true the testimony of that woman who showed up at the legislative hearing in Nevada or wherever it was, plainly intoxicated and as it turns out with a criminal record? I suspect not). Some are errors.
All a defence needs to show is that, even put at their maximum, these are non-election changing allegations. They have done so easily and repeatedly in courts up and down the land and in front of Republican appointed and supporting judges. If required to, they would also show that the full extent of them is less than alleged - but the damning reality is they haven't been required to as that's just gravy and there is no need for the courts to waste their time on it.
"Managed divergence" is a Brexiteer-friendly way of branding managed convergence.
As I pointed out way back during the referendum campaign, in practice there's not going to be any divergence. Even if there are a few minor legal divergences, which in itself is going to be rare, no business is going to want to limit itself to meeting the UK-only version of the standard when there's a stonking great market six times as big (plus all the satellite economies following EU standards) on the doorstep.
Trade with the EU is a depreciating asset. An ever less significant part of the total pie of the world economy. Divergence will probably make sense soon, regardless of cost.
Do you think the same argument works for Scotland or Wales vis-a-vis England?
Not really. For one thing England writes a huge cheque to both every year. In our relationship with the EU the subsidy has gone other way.
Managed divergence means divergence in real terms because the potential gains in terms of trade with the growing bits will outweigh the penalty of diverging with an ever smaller part of the pie.
In what way will divergence help increase trade? There are two possibilities: we lower our standards, or we align our standards with another large power in the hope of increasing bilateral trade. Which one do you think we should do?
Reducing the cost base and making UK exports more competitive globally, also allowing us to strike bilateral trade deals in services with other advanced nations to get mutual recognition of qualifications and certifications.
The EU is just one market and it's not even a very important one globally speaking. Their continued attempts to become a regulatory exporter keep failing, they've once again given up with the UK where they started with all trade depending on 100% alignment forever with EU standards to now saying an arbitration process can set tariffs if there is sufficient divergence from the current levels which are going to be written into the treaty.
Reducing the cost base? How will we do that in a way that we couldn't before Brexit?
You really need to move on
Brexit is happening and it looks like a deal is on the cusp of being signed
You are beginning to sound like the Japanese soldier who refused to surrender and spent 29 years in the jungle as he did not believe the war had ended
Once a deal is signed the vast majority of the country will sigh a sigh of relief and move on
I was thinking you mean violent crime of the sort disproportionately committed by black people, no?
I was deliberately vague, but was thinking of that section of drug and violent crime committed by youth gangs. I think most people would have an idea of what the term meant and would probably accept that it exists, and that it should be tackled. But calling it Black Crime would be totally unhelpful in trying to fight it.
Ok. I see the point you're making. If a term hinders rather than helps, don't use it. Fine as a generalism.
But that's as far as I'd go with the example. Because Black Crime, as such, does not exist in the way that White Privilege does. BC is a shorthand for "violent street crimes disproportionately committed by young black men". For BC to be an equivalent term to WP, it would mean that ALL such crimes are committed by young black men, that every young black man commits them, and that young men who are not black could not commit one even of they tried.
We were talking at cross purposes. And why not. I love talking at cross purposes.
So it looks like we've found BoJo's "win", the EU won't take unilateral action but there will be a disputes mechanism setup which amounts to basically the same thing, protection of the single market - if I am understanding the Tweets correctly
Which is fine. If there is no material divergence the issue does not arise. If there is it will be looked at on a case by case basis with some sort of impartial adjudication. I don’t think that we could ask for more than that.
Trade with the EU is a depreciating asset. An ever less significant part of the total pie of the world economy. Divergence will probably make sense soon, regardless of cost.
Do you think the same argument works for Scotland or Wales vis-a-vis England?
Not really. For one thing England writes a huge cheque to both every year. In our relationship with the EU the subsidy has gone other way.
Managed divergence means divergence in real terms because the potential gains in terms of trade with the growing bits will outweigh the penalty of diverging with an ever smaller part of the pie.
In what way will divergence help increase trade? There are two possibilities: we lower our standards, or we align our standards with another large power in the hope of increasing bilateral trade. Which one do you think we should do?
I don;t know, but I can see why it makes sense to agree to managed divergence with the EU, given what will transpire in trade trends over the coming years.
"Managed divergence" is a Brexiteer-friendly way of branding managed convergence.
I do not think so - it means exactly what it says
Shutting down businesses which trade with Europe ?
You know that is not what I mean and on the signature of a deal we need to move on
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
Fantasy land. Enormous resources were poured into trying to make allegations stick.
They came up with zip.
"the investigation "also does not exonerate" Trump, finding both public and private actions "by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations".[26] Ten episodes of potential obstruction by the president were described."
Not exactly zip.
Seriously do me a favour. If Trump's many powerful enemies could have got him anywhere near a court they would have.
I suspect they will in the next 6 months or so, once his protections as President from federal prosecutions lapses.
Exactly, that's precisely the point. Trump has made extensive use of that protection, to avoid court and giving testimony or to withhold evidence, he's doing it right now in multiple on-going cases. Soon that will end. Trump can preemptively get a pardon for federal charges, but the states are another matter altogether, and there are a whole load of people who want to nail Donald J. Trump to the wall.
Whether he is guilty of anything or not.
The US courts seem to be fairly impartial. For instance, they won't adjudicate in favour of a side that offers no evidence to support their claims, even if the side failing to offer evidence represents the president who appointed the judge.
Trump has never had a chance to present such evidence as he has, because the courts' rulings have been largely on procedure.
I'm sure if the evidence ever did actually get to court, it would become clear that the 100 plus sworn testimonies he has from ordinary Americans connected to the election, on penalty of perjury, were 100% liars.
How could it be any other way?
That's wrong on several levels.
Firstly, Trump has presented evidence - what hasn't happened is detailed examination of that evidence. The courts have said "even if you prove each and every one of these allegations, they would not support the remedy you seek" (normally disenfranchisement of all voters in a largely Democratic county or the entire state).
Secondly, there is a huge disconnect between Trump's (and Giuliani's) Twitter and press conference and allegations presented to courts. For example, Giuliani specifically accepted in court in his Pennsylvania case that there was no allegation of sweeping fraud. That's because lawyers face being disbarred and even criminal action for perjury if they knowingly mislead - whereas you can say just about whatever sh1t you like in the parking lot of a garden centre.
Thirdly, a defence wouldn't need to prove every sworn testimony was a lie. Many are, frankly, irrelevant (along the lines "I saw a postman acting suspiciously"). Many are trivial (e.g. "it's bad if your Dad didn't receive his postal voting papers, but doesn't change the result in Pennsylvania, Madam"). Some are lies (is a court going to accept as true the testimony of that woman who showed up at the legislative hearing in Nevada or wherever it was, plainly intoxicated and as it turns out with a criminal record? I suspect not). Some are errors.
All a defence needs to show is that, even put at their maximum, these are non-election changing allegations. They have done so easily and repeatedly in courts up and down the land and in front of Republican appointed and supporting judges. If required to, they would also show that the full extent of them is less than alleged - but the damning reality is they haven't been required to as that's just gravy and there is no need for the courts to waste their time on it.
Trade with the EU is a depreciating asset. An ever less significant part of the total pie of the world economy. Divergence will probably make sense soon, regardless of cost.
Do you think the same argument works for Scotland or Wales vis-a-vis England?
Not really. For one thing England writes a huge cheque to both every year. In our relationship with the EU the subsidy has gone other way.
Managed divergence means divergence in real terms because the potential gains in terms of trade with the growing bits will outweigh the penalty of diverging with an ever smaller part of the pie.
In what way will divergence help increase trade? There are two possibilities: we lower our standards, or we align our standards with another large power in the hope of increasing bilateral trade. Which one do you think we should do?
Reducing the cost base and making UK exports more competitive globally, also allowing us to strike bilateral trade deals in services with other advanced nations to get mutual recognition of qualifications and certifications.
The EU is just one market and it's not even a very important one globally speaking. Their continued attempts to become a regulatory exporter keep failing, they've once again given up with the UK where they started with all trade depending on 100% alignment forever with EU standards to now saying an arbitration process can set tariffs if there is sufficient divergence from the current levels which are going to be written into the treaty.
Reducing the cost base? How will we do that in a way that we couldn't before Brexit?
The simplest way is devaluation, I suppose, but cutting workers rights and consumer protections will be much more difficult under the LPF rules being discussed.
Trade with the EU is a depreciating asset. An ever less significant part of the total pie of the world economy. Divergence will probably make sense soon, regardless of cost.
Do you think the same argument works for Scotland or Wales vis-a-vis England?
Not really. For one thing England writes a huge cheque to both every year. In our relationship with the EU the subsidy has gone other way.
Managed divergence means divergence in real terms because the potential gains in terms of trade with the growing bits will outweigh the penalty of diverging with an ever smaller part of the pie.
In what way will divergence help increase trade? There are two possibilities: we lower our standards, or we align our standards with another large power in the hope of increasing bilateral trade. Which one do you think we should do?
Reducing the cost base and making UK exports more competitive globally, also allowing us to strike bilateral trade deals in services with other advanced nations to get mutual recognition of qualifications and certifications.
The EU is just one market and it's not even a very important one globally speaking. Their continued attempts to become a regulatory exporter keep failing, they've once again given up with the UK where they started with all trade depending on 100% alignment forever with EU standards to now saying an arbitration process can set tariffs if there is sufficient divergence from the current levels which are going to be written into the treaty.
Reducing the cost base? How will we do that in a way that we couldn't before Brexit?
You really need to move on
Brexit is happening and it looks like a deal is on the cusp of being signed
You are beginning to sound like the Japanese soldier who refused to surrender and spent 29 years in the jungle as he did not believe the war had ended
Once a deal is signed the vast majority of the country will sigh a sigh of relief and move on
Move on to judging the outcome - which is what we're discussing. For some businesses, that is likely to be quite painful.
But sure, a deal is better than the car crash alternative.
My confusion is that I would have thought that this was what the UK would have been asking for all the time. The idea they would get any more than this is mad. It seems a reasonable result for both sides.
It does doesn't it
For all the breathlessness, the big picture of the deal is what it was always going to be.
The UK can continue to have tariff-free (but not admin-free) goods access to the EU market and vice versa.
If the UK takes the mickey with standards, the EU has a retaliation mechanism.
Nothing on services.
Forget the excitement about a small industry that employs a vocal minority in a few places, or the exact design of the LPF process. They're trivial compared with the big picture.
And in big picture terms, the UK has the freedom it craved, and the EU have maintained the access-alignment staircase. Both sides have what they wanted. Win-win.
Now let's see how the UK can operate the setup it asked for.
Trade with the EU is a depreciating asset. An ever less significant part of the total pie of the world economy. Divergence will probably make sense soon, regardless of cost.
Do you think the same argument works for Scotland or Wales vis-a-vis England?
Not really. For one thing England writes a huge cheque to both every year. In our relationship with the EU the subsidy has gone other way.
Managed divergence means divergence in real terms because the potential gains in terms of trade with the growing bits will outweigh the penalty of diverging with an ever smaller part of the pie.
In what way will divergence help increase trade? There are two possibilities: we lower our standards, or we align our standards with another large power in the hope of increasing bilateral trade. Which one do you think we should do?
Reducing the cost base and making UK exports more competitive globally, also allowing us to strike bilateral trade deals in services with other advanced nations to get mutual recognition of qualifications and certifications.
The EU is just one market and it's not even a very important one globally speaking. Their continued attempts to become a regulatory exporter keep failing, they've once again given up with the UK where they started with all trade depending on 100% alignment forever with EU standards to now saying an arbitration process can set tariffs if there is sufficient divergence from the current levels which are going to be written into the treaty.
Reducing the cost base? How will we do that in a way that we couldn't before Brexit?
You really need to move on
Brexit is happening and it looks like a deal is on the cusp of being signed
You are beginning to sound like the Japanese soldier who refused to surrender and spent 29 years in the jungle as he did not believe the war had ended
Once a deal is signed the vast majority of the country will sigh a sigh of relief and move on
Move on to judging the outcome - which is what we're discussing. For some businesses, that is likely to be quite painful.
But sure, a deal is better than the car crash alternative.
One thing I do agree is this will herald big changes, but to be honest a deal with the EU is the best Christmas present, alongside the vaccine, the Country could have
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
Fantasy land. Enormous resources were poured into trying to make allegations stick.
They came up with zip.
"the investigation "also does not exonerate" Trump, finding both public and private actions "by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations".[26] Ten episodes of potential obstruction by the president were described."
Not exactly zip.
Seriously do me a favour. If Trump's many powerful enemies could have got him anywhere near a court they would have.
I suspect they will in the next 6 months or so, once his protections as President from federal prosecutions lapses.
Exactly, that's precisely the point. Trump has made extensive use of that protection, to avoid court and giving testimony or to withhold evidence, he's doing it right now in multiple on-going cases. Soon that will end. Trump can preemptively get a pardon for federal charges, but the states are another matter altogether, and there are a whole load of people who want to nail Donald J. Trump to the wall.
Whether he is guilty of anything or not.
The US courts seem to be fairly impartial. For instance, they won't adjudicate in favour of a side that offers no evidence to support their claims, even if the side failing to offer evidence represents the president who appointed the judge.
Trump has never had a chance to present such evidence as he has, because the courts' rulings have been largely on procedure.
I'm sure if the evidence ever did actually get to court, it would become clear that the 100 plus sworn testimonies he has from ordinary Americans connected to the election, on penalty of perjury, were 100% liars.
How could it be any other way?
Seriously, what's more likely? That the entire US electoral and legal system is so bent - including Republican-run states and Republican- or even Trump-appointed judges - that Trump can be robbed of millions of votes by fraud, have the evidence to prove it, but still lose every case in court? Or that he lost fair and square, and is just trying to con his more gullible supporters into believing that it was stolen?
Which scenario is more likely to have actually happened? I probably agree with you politically on a lot of right-populist issues - the pandemic response is probably the biggest exception to that - but if the right falls into the trap of denying reality then we are going to be utterly destroyed in the long term.
I like being privileged. I enjoy the privileges I have, and I'm excited about the thought of accruing more privileges as I go through life. I don't wish others were less privileged so I could be more privileged - that seems like screwed up logic.
Congratulations on finding a new way of spectacularly missing the point on the issue of white privilege, a significant achievement given the wide range of bone-headed responses we've already seen on this topic here.
We await your insightful contributions with interest.
I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record. Bottom line - living in a multiracial household I belive white privilege to be real, I have seen it in action. It is one of many ways (like class or sex) that some groups are treated better than others in ways that are unconnected to their talents or intrinsic worth. To be honest, it surprises me that people find it controversial and put so much effort into proving it doesn't exist, rather than listening to those who say it has affected them and finding ways of making society fairer.
The idea of white privilege is (afaik) that white people communicating with other white people benefit from a sort of unconscious shortcut of supposed familiarity and approbation. So is the 'solution' to this problem that white people should be more suspicious and disapproving of each other? How would that help society? The problem is not white people being too privileged, it is non-white people not being privileged enough, and therefore the solution does not lie in attacking white privilege, but building non-white privilege. See also every other problem based on 'those people' having 'too much'. That's why white privilege being a problem is an absurdity.
This is not the idea, no. White Privilege refers to the fact that in Western society by and large a white person may face many challenges and obstacles in life but their skin colour will not be one of them. They quite literally never have to think about it in the way that many others have to all or most or much the time. This is a privilege in the true sense of the word since it is relative to others and is not earned. Its oddity (as a privilege) is that it applies to a majority, which could be why it jars. Speaking personally, I find it a useful and powerful way of looking at the race issue. It brings it home rather keeping it at arms length.
'Quite literally never have to think about it'? Perhaps that was true once, but not after the super-saturation of wokeness throughout our entire media and popular culture. One can't even watch a football match without having the rituals of wokeness performed in front of you, so it's really quite hard to avoid these days.
I struggle to see you with your Latin and your ancient wit & wisdoms in true simpatico with the Proud Boys down in The Den.
"Managed divergence" is a Brexiteer-friendly way of branding managed convergence.
As I pointed out way back during the referendum campaign, in practice there's not going to be any divergence. Even if there are a few minor legal divergences, which in itself is going to be rare, no business is going to want to limit itself to meeting the UK-only version of the standard when there's a stonking great market six times as big (plus all the satellite economies following EU standards) on the doorstep.
For a globalist, that's an oddly parochial point.
Nothing parochial about it at all. The world has one dominant regulatory superpower, which is the EU. The US is almost as important, but its regulatory reach is less (except in a few areas like finance, intellectual property, and economic sanctions) for a number of reasons, but mainly because it is less interested in regulatory consistency. There are no others at the moment; we can't align with a 'Korean' or 'Australian' set of international rules because there is no such thing, and we can't create our own. So in practice, manufacturers stick to EU or US standards, or, if they can, both, and that's not going to change.
I was thinking you mean violent crime of the sort disproportionately committed by black people, no?
I was deliberately vague, but was thinking of that section of drug and violent crime committed by youth gangs. I think most people would have an idea of what the term meant and would probably accept that it exists, and that it should be tackled. But calling it Black Crime would be totally unhelpful in trying to fight it.
Ok. I see the point you're making. If a term hinders rather than helps, don't use it. Fine as a generalism.
But that's as far as I'd go with the example. Because Black Crime, as such, does not exist in the way that White Privilege does. BC is a shorthand for "violent street crimes disproportionately committed by young black men". For BC to be an equivalent term to WP, it would mean that ALL such crimes are committed by young black men, that every young black man commits them, and that young men who are not black could not commit one even of they tried.
We were talking at cross purposes. And why not. I love talking at cross purposes.
I learnt this morning from the Canary woman that black people can have White Privilege, so I don't see why Black Crime can't be committed by white youths.
I like being privileged. I enjoy the privileges I have, and I'm excited about the thought of accruing more privileges as I go through life. I don't wish others were less privileged so I could be more privileged - that seems like screwed up logic.
Congratulations on finding a new way of spectacularly missing the point on the issue of white privilege, a significant achievement given the wide range of bone-headed responses we've already seen on this topic here.
We await your insightful contributions with interest.
I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record. Bottom line - living in a multiracial household I belive white privilege to be real, I have seen it in action. It is one of many ways (like class or sex) that some groups are treated better than others in ways that are unconnected to their talents or intrinsic worth. To be honest, it surprises me that people find it controversial and put so much effort into proving it doesn't exist, rather than listening to those who say it has affected them and finding ways of making society fairer.
The idea of white privilege is (afaik) that white people communicating with other white people benefit from a sort of unconscious shortcut of supposed familiarity and approbation. So is the 'solution' to this problem that white people should be more suspicious and disapproving of each other? How would that help society? The problem is not white people being too privileged, it is non-white people not being privileged enough, and therefore the solution does not lie in attacking white privilege, but building non-white privilege. See also every other problem based on 'those people' having 'too much'. That's why white privilege being a problem is an absurdity.
This is not the idea, no. White Privilege refers to the fact that in Western society by and large a white person may face many challenges and obstacles in life but their skin colour will not be one of them. They quite literally never have to think about it in the way that many others have to all or most or much the time. This is a privilege in the true sense of the word since it is relative to others and is not earned. Its oddity (as a privilege) is that it applies to a majority, which could be why it jars. Speaking personally, I find it a useful and powerful way of looking at the race issue. It brings it home rather keeping it at arms length.
And given that working class white boys are amongst the lowest educational achievers in society already, what is the remedy for this privilege?
Class prejudice is a huge problem too - certainly a more pernicious problem than racial prejudice in this country. You do understand that there are different dimensions of privilege? I suspect that in some settings, like education, some minority kids do better precisely because their parents know that society is prejudiced and their kids need to excel if they are to overcome it. Plus, you're not really comparing like for like are you, by separating out the lowest performing group of white kids and comparing them to all minority kids. If you take a minority kid with all the disadvantages the white working class boy may have (nowhere to do homework, maybe parents who don't value education, no access to extracurricular activities, poor nutrition, not read to as a young child) they might be faring even worse.
You seem to be arguing that its right, or even moral, that white working class boys get a rough deal in education, that their poor educational performance is a necessary and just counterbalance to them being born white.
How do you propose the same counterbalance for white middle class children or, heaven forfend, white upper class children?
Mr. Urquhart, isn't it a matter of historical agreement that one of the Aishas was, shall we say, on the young side?
A problem with the censorious approach taken by the media (ITV did likewise over some tweet or other in the dim and distant past) is that it becomes impossible to assess whether it's a witch hunt or genuine case of bigotry. The ITV story, from memory, was about a celebrity or somesuch who had said something racist, but they didn't indicate whatsoever what the comment was. So how can it be judged whether punitive consequences are valid or not?
Burchill might have simply related a commonly agreed fact on the age of one of Mohammed's wives. Or she might have gone much further. But reporting condemnation in full whilst not presenting the evidence means the audience is left with half the argument. It's the approach of a Witchsmeller Pursuivant.
"My lord, will you force us to listen to the pleadings of a man who might be a witch himself?"
"Good point. That concludes the case for the defence."
"Managed divergence" is a Brexiteer-friendly way of branding managed convergence.
As I pointed out way back during the referendum campaign, in practice there's not going to be any divergence. Even if there are a few minor legal divergences, which in itself is going to be rare, no business is going to want to limit itself to meeting the UK-only version of the standard when there's a stonking great market six times as big (plus all the satellite economies following EU standards) on the doorstep.
I think, with respect, that is confusing 2 different things. It’s unlikely that we will change the technical standards for electrical equipment for exactly the reason you have said. Even if we went back to light bulbs that actually work, for example, I don’t see any basis for tariffs because it would be illegal to export them. But if the EU sought to argue that our rules had been amended in a way that allowed the Scottish government to build a ferry in a local port or give contracts for wind farms to local fabricators, then they may seek to argue that sort of divergence is incompatible with unrestricted access to the SM. We would then have to decide if the changes were sufficiently important to us to accept the consequences.
Mountain Hares can be surprisingly difficult to see in a white coat where there are grey granite or schistose rocks - even with a lack of snow. They are also good at hiding in vegetation.
They are the native species (Brown Hare is introduced) and are the only one that lives in Ireland, where snow is much rarer than Scotland. There they have managed to adapt to the current conditions, although some people reckon the Irish hare should be a separate species (as opposed to a subspecies).
They also survive near Ladybower in the Peak District, where snow is also somewhat limited and doesn't lie long.
Their main problem is not that golden eagles find them easily, but that they get shot in large numbers.
I like being privileged. I enjoy the privileges I have, and I'm excited about the thought of accruing more privileges as I go through life. I don't wish others were less privileged so I could be more privileged - that seems like screwed up logic.
Congratulations on finding a new way of spectacularly missing the point on the issue of white privilege, a significant achievement given the wide range of bone-headed responses we've already seen on this topic here.
We await your insightful contributions with interest.
I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record. Bottom line - living in a multiracial household I belive white privilege to be real, I have seen it in action. It is one of many ways (like class or sex) that some groups are treated better than others in ways that are unconnected to their talents or intrinsic worth. To be honest, it surprises me that people find it controversial and put so much effort into proving it doesn't exist, rather than listening to those who say it has affected them and finding ways of making society fairer.
The idea of white privilege is (afaik) that white people communicating with other white people benefit from a sort of unconscious shortcut of supposed familiarity and approbation. So is the 'solution' to this problem that white people should be more suspicious and disapproving of each other? How would that help society? The problem is not white people being too privileged, it is non-white people not being privileged enough, and therefore the solution does not lie in attacking white privilege, but building non-white privilege. See also every other problem based on 'those people' having 'too much'. That's why white privilege being a problem is an absurdity.
This is not the idea, no. White Privilege refers to the fact that in Western society by and large a white person may face many challenges and obstacles in life but their skin colour will not be one of them. They quite literally never have to think about it in the way that many others have to all or most or much the time. This is a privilege in the true sense of the word since it is relative to others and is not earned. Its oddity (as a privilege) is that it applies to a majority, which could be why it jars. Speaking personally, I find it a useful and powerful way of looking at the race issue. It brings it home rather keeping it at arms length.
And given that working class white boys are amongst the lowest educational achievers in society already, what is the remedy for this privilege?
I've many times given mine. End educational elitism, end the private optout, everyone goes to their local state school, pour resource into underperforming areas, turn Leveling Up into more than a soundbite.
This will do rather more to address the problem than denying the existence of a different problem.
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
Fantasy land. Enormous resources were poured into trying to make allegations stick.
They came up with zip.
"the investigation "also does not exonerate" Trump, finding both public and private actions "by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations".[26] Ten episodes of potential obstruction by the president were described."
Not exactly zip.
Seriously do me a favour. If Trump's many powerful enemies could have got him anywhere near a court they would have.
I suspect they will in the next 6 months or so, once his protections as President from federal prosecutions lapses.
Exactly, that's precisely the point. Trump has made extensive use of that protection, to avoid court and giving testimony or to withhold evidence, he's doing it right now in multiple on-going cases. Soon that will end. Trump can preemptively get a pardon for federal charges, but the states are another matter altogether, and there are a whole load of people who want to nail Donald J. Trump to the wall.
Whether he is guilty of anything or not.
The US courts seem to be fairly impartial. For instance, they won't adjudicate in favour of a side that offers no evidence to support their claims, even if the side failing to offer evidence represents the president who appointed the judge.
Trump has never had a chance to present such evidence as he has, because the courts' rulings have been largely on procedure.
I'm sure if the evidence ever did actually get to court, it would become clear that the 100 plus sworn testimonies he has from ordinary Americans connected to the election, on penalty of perjury, were 100% liars.
How could it be any other way?
Seriously, what's more likely? That the entire US electoral and legal system is so bent - including Republican-run states and Republican- or even Trump-appointed judges - that Trump can be robbed of millions of votes by fraud, have the evidence to prove it, but still lose every case in court? Or that he lost fair and square, and is just trying to con his more gullible supporters into believing that it was stolen?
Which scenario is more likely to have actually happened? I probably agree with you politically on a lot of right-populist issues - the pandemic response is probably the biggest exception to that - but if the right falls into the trap of denying reality then we are going to be utterly destroyed in the long term.
Well some good points, except the same people who are asking you to believe the 2020 election was free and fair are asking you to believe the 2016 election was completely bent and decided by interference from Russia, and that the President who won that election was and remains a Russian asset.
"Managed divergence" is a Brexiteer-friendly way of branding managed convergence.
As I pointed out way back during the referendum campaign, in practice there's not going to be any divergence. Even if there are a few minor legal divergences, which in itself is going to be rare, no business is going to want to limit itself to meeting the UK-only version of the standard when there's a stonking great market six times as big (plus all the satellite economies following EU standards) on the doorstep.
I think, with respect, that is confusing 2 different things. It’s unlikely that we will change the technical standards for electrical equipment for exactly the reason you have said. Even if we went back to light bulbs that actually work, for example, I don’t see any basis for tariffs because it would be illegal to export them. But if the EU sought to argue that our rules had been amended in a way that allowed the Scottish government to build a ferry in a local port or give contracts for wind farms to local fabricators, then they may seek to argue that sort of divergence is incompatible with unrestricted access to the SM. We would then have to decide if the changes were sufficiently important to us to accept the consequences.
That's true, we've got an Alice-in-Wonderland scenario where the right wing of the Conservative Party - people like John Redwood, for heaven's sake - are arguing we need the right to go back to the bad old ways which Margaret Thatcher first swept away here, and which then, by example and through UK diplomacy, we persuaded the EU to sweep away. It's a funny old world, to be sure.
I like being privileged. I enjoy the privileges I have, and I'm excited about the thought of accruing more privileges as I go through life. I don't wish others were less privileged so I could be more privileged - that seems like screwed up logic.
Congratulations on finding a new way of spectacularly missing the point on the issue of white privilege, a significant achievement given the wide range of bone-headed responses we've already seen on this topic here.
We await your insightful contributions with interest.
I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record. Bottom line - living in a multiracial household I belive white privilege to be real, I have seen it in action. It is one of many ways (like class or sex) that some groups are treated better than others in ways that are unconnected to their talents or intrinsic worth. To be honest, it surprises me that people find it controversial and put so much effort into proving it doesn't exist, rather than listening to those who say it has affected them and finding ways of making society fairer.
The idea of white privilege is (afaik) that white people communicating with other white people benefit from a sort of unconscious shortcut of supposed familiarity and approbation. So is the 'solution' to this problem that white people should be more suspicious and disapproving of each other? How would that help society? The problem is not white people being too privileged, it is non-white people not being privileged enough, and therefore the solution does not lie in attacking white privilege, but building non-white privilege. See also every other problem based on 'those people' having 'too much'. That's why white privilege being a problem is an absurdity.
This is not the idea, no. White Privilege refers to the fact that in Western society by and large a white person may face many challenges and obstacles in life but their skin colour will not be one of them. They quite literally never have to think about it in the way that many others have to all or most or much the time. This is a privilege in the true sense of the word since it is relative to others and is not earned. Its oddity (as a privilege) is that it applies to a majority, which could be why it jars. Speaking personally, I find it a useful and powerful way of looking at the race issue. It brings it home rather keeping it at arms length.
And given that working class white boys are amongst the lowest educational achievers in society already, what is the remedy for this privilege?
Class prejudice is a huge problem too - certainly a more pernicious problem than racial prejudice in this country. You do understand that there are different dimensions of privilege? I suspect that in some settings, like education, some minority kids do better precisely because their parents know that society is prejudiced and their kids need to excel if they are to overcome it. Plus, you're not really comparing like for like are you, by separating out the lowest performing group of white kids and comparing them to all minority kids. If you take a minority kid with all the disadvantages the white working class boy may have (nowhere to do homework, maybe parents who don't value education, no access to extracurricular activities, poor nutrition, not read to as a young child) they might be faring even worse.
You seem to be arguing that its right, or even moral, that white working class boys get a rough deal in education, that their poor educational performance is a necessary and just counterbalance to them being born white.
How do you propose the same counterbalance for white middle class children or, heaven forfend, white upper class children?
One shudders to think.
Insane misreading of what I have written. I have re-read what I have written, and read your interpretation, and cannot see any connection between the two.
I think Wales are in for at least 6 weeks of lockdown this time, as they have announced it will be reviewed every 3, and no way that numbers will be squashed enough by then...unless they want to just repeat the circuit breaker disaster.
Maybe the reporting system will work again by then. "Essential service upgrades".
Trade with the EU is a depreciating asset. An ever less significant part of the total pie of the world economy. Divergence will probably make sense soon, regardless of cost.
Do you think the same argument works for Scotland or Wales vis-a-vis England?
Not really. For one thing England writes a huge cheque to both every year. In our relationship with the EU the subsidy has gone other way.
Managed divergence means divergence in real terms because the potential gains in terms of trade with the growing bits will outweigh the penalty of diverging with an ever smaller part of the pie.
In what way will divergence help increase trade? There are two possibilities: we lower our standards, or we align our standards with another large power in the hope of increasing bilateral trade. Which one do you think we should do?
Reducing the cost base and making UK exports more competitive globally, also allowing us to strike bilateral trade deals in services with other advanced nations to get mutual recognition of qualifications and certifications.
The EU is just one market and it's not even a very important one globally speaking. Their continued attempts to become a regulatory exporter keep failing, they've once again given up with the UK where they started with all trade depending on 100% alignment forever with EU standards to now saying an arbitration process can set tariffs if there is sufficient divergence from the current levels which are going to be written into the treaty.
Reducing the cost base? How will we do that in a way that we couldn't before Brexit?
You really need to move on
Brexit is happening and it looks like a deal is on the cusp of being signed
You are beginning to sound like the Japanese soldier who refused to surrender and spent 29 years in the jungle as he did not believe the war had ended
Once a deal is signed the vast majority of the country will sigh a sigh of relief and move on
Move on to judging the outcome - which is what we're discussing. For some businesses, that is likely to be quite painful.
But sure, a deal is better than the car crash alternative.
One thing I do agree is this will herald big changes, but to be honest a deal with the EU is the best Christmas present, alongside the vaccine, the Country could have
The best Xmas present for us and the EU.
The thing is that a deal is close, so even if it can't quite be done now then in the months ahead a deal will be done.
No doubt any gap will be difficult, but perhaps such a gap might help to focus minds on both sides anyway.
Well some good points, except the same people who are asking you to believe the 2020 election was free and fair are asking you to believe the 2016 election was completely bent and decided by interference from Russia, and that the President who won that election was and remains a Russian asset.
I'm sure you will forgive my questioning them.
I don't agree with you on very much, but I think you have a valid point there. Obviously there's a big difference of degree between the two (arguing that voters were influenced by interference by Russia or whatever is different from arguing that the actual votes cast were illegal or not correctly counted), but the Democrats set a bad precedent in not really accepting that Trump's 2016 victory was entirely legitimate, which they then made worse with the ridiculous impeachment attempt.
Trade with the EU is a depreciating asset. An ever less significant part of the total pie of the world economy. Divergence will probably make sense soon, regardless of cost.
Do you think the same argument works for Scotland or Wales vis-a-vis England?
Not really. For one thing England writes a huge cheque to both every year. In our relationship with the EU the subsidy has gone other way.
Managed divergence means divergence in real terms because the potential gains in terms of trade with the growing bits will outweigh the penalty of diverging with an ever smaller part of the pie.
In what way will divergence help increase trade? There are two possibilities: we lower our standards, or we align our standards with another large power in the hope of increasing bilateral trade. Which one do you think we should do?
Reducing the cost base and making UK exports more competitive globally, also allowing us to strike bilateral trade deals in services with other advanced nations to get mutual recognition of qualifications and certifications.
The EU is just one market and it's not even a very important one globally speaking. Their continued attempts to become a regulatory exporter keep failing, they've once again given up with the UK where they started with all trade depending on 100% alignment forever with EU standards to now saying an arbitration process can set tariffs if there is sufficient divergence from the current levels which are going to be written into the treaty.
Reducing the cost base? How will we do that in a way that we couldn't before Brexit?
You really need to move on
Brexit is happening and it looks like a deal is on the cusp of being signed
You are beginning to sound like the Japanese soldier who refused to surrender and spent 29 years in the jungle as he did not believe the war had ended
Once a deal is signed the vast majority of the country will sigh a sigh of relief and move on
Move on to judging the outcome - which is what we're discussing. For some businesses, that is likely to be quite painful.
But sure, a deal is better than the car crash alternative.
One thing I do agree is this will herald big changes, but to be honest a deal with the EU is the best Christmas present, alongside the vaccine, the Country could have
The best Xmas present for us and the EU.
The thing is that a deal is close, so even if it can't quite be done now then in the months ahead a deal will be done.
No doubt any gap will be difficult, but perhaps such a gap might help to focus minds on both sides anyway.
I just wish I didn't feel as if Mr Johnson had stolen every present from under the tree, but might yet be persuaded to return a few of the minor presents.
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
Fantasy land. Enormous resources were poured into trying to make allegations stick.
They came up with zip.
"the investigation "also does not exonerate" Trump, finding both public and private actions "by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations".[26] Ten episodes of potential obstruction by the president were described."
Not exactly zip.
Seriously do me a favour. If Trump's many powerful enemies could have got him anywhere near a court they would have.
I suspect they will in the next 6 months or so, once his protections as President from federal prosecutions lapses.
Exactly, that's precisely the point. Trump has made extensive use of that protection, to avoid court and giving testimony or to withhold evidence, he's doing it right now in multiple on-going cases. Soon that will end. Trump can preemptively get a pardon for federal charges, but the states are another matter altogether, and there are a whole load of people who want to nail Donald J. Trump to the wall.
Whether he is guilty of anything or not.
The US courts seem to be fairly impartial. For instance, they won't adjudicate in favour of a side that offers no evidence to support their claims, even if the side failing to offer evidence represents the president who appointed the judge.
Trump has never had a chance to present such evidence as he has, because the courts' rulings have been largely on procedure.
I'm sure if the evidence ever did actually get to court, it would become clear that the 100 plus sworn testimonies he has from ordinary Americans connected to the election, on penalty of perjury, were 100% liars.
How could it be any other way?
Seriously, what's more likely? That the entire US electoral and legal system is so bent - including Republican-run states and Republican- or even Trump-appointed judges - that Trump can be robbed of millions of votes by fraud, have the evidence to prove it, but still lose every case in court? Or that he lost fair and square, and is just trying to con his more gullible supporters into believing that it was stolen?
Which scenario is more likely to have actually happened? I probably agree with you politically on a lot of right-populist issues - the pandemic response is probably the biggest exception to that - but if the right falls into the trap of denying reality then we are going to be utterly destroyed in the long term.
Well some good points, except the same people who are asking you to believe the 2020 election was free and fair are asking you to believe the 2016 election was completely bent and decided by interference from Russia, and that the President who won that election was and remains a Russian asset.
I'm sure you will forgive my questioning them.
I don’t recall there being a rash of spurious court cases brought by the losing side in 2016. There was quite a lot of noise about persuading electors to flip sides & so on of course.
Mr. Omnium, at the time, Demosthenes excoriated Macedon as barbaros, meaning foreign and non-Greek (xenos was foreign but Greek, from another city). Immediately after Alexander's death Eumenes of Cardia struggled to gain acceptance among the Diadochi because he alone of the Successors was Greek.
The Angevins took over from the Normans less than a century after the Conquest.
My confusion is that I would have thought that this was what the UK would have been asking for all the time. The idea they would get any more than this is mad. It seems a reasonable result for both sides.
It does doesn't it
For all the breathlessness, the big picture of the deal is what it was always going to be.
The UK can continue to have tariff-free (but not admin-free) goods access to the EU market and vice versa.
If the UK takes the mickey with standards, the EU has a retaliation mechanism.
Nothing on services.
Forget the excitement about a small industry that employs a vocal minority in a few places, or the exact design of the LPF process. They're trivial compared with the big picture.
And in big picture terms, the UK has the freedom it craved, and the EU have maintained the access-alignment staircase. Both sides have what they wanted. Win-win.
Now let's see how the UK can operate the setup it asked for.
Interesting. Checked Wikipedia, and apparently there's lots of arguments over the age.
Not that Wikipedia's always right. It thinks Alexander was Greek...
Greece thought Alexander was Greek. The right to compete at the Olympics was pretty definitive. And if he wasn't, so what? If you leave out the racist content of the claim that he wasn't is anything left? It is mere birtherism without even a natural born citizen clause.
Well some good points, except the same people who are asking you to believe the 2020 election was free and fair are asking you to believe the 2016 election was completely bent and decided by interference from Russia, and that the President who won that election was and remains a Russian asset.
I'm sure you will forgive my questioning them.
I don't agree with you on very much, but I think you have a valid point there. Obviously there's a big difference of degree between the two (arguing that voters were influenced by interference by Russia or whatever is different from arguing that the actual votes cast were illegal or not correctly counted), but the Democrats set a bad precedent in not really accepting that Trump's 2016 victory was entirely legitimate, which they then made worse with the ridiculous impeachment attempt.
Astonishing (!) post from you. As in, I'm astonished. There's no equivalence at all here. Serious Russian interference in 16 is a proven fact. Serious voter fraud in 20 is a proven nonsense. Trump & Co are saying 20 is flat out illegitimate and refusing the result. The Dems conceded 16 promptly and accepted the result. Trump was impeached for an impeachable offence that the evidence says he committed. He was acquitted for partisan reasons only. As the Dems knew he would be. Hence why they were reluctant to do it.
So it looks like we've found BoJo's "win", the EU won't take unilateral action but there will be a disputes mechanism setup which amounts to basically the same thing, protection of the single market - if I am understanding the Tweets correctly
Which is fine. If there is no material divergence the issue does not arise. If there is it will be looked at on a case by case basis with some sort of impartial adjudication. I don’t think that we could ask for more than that.
Well, apparently we did ask for more, namely the ability to ignore future EU rule changes without consequence. Did it really have to take this long to meet somewhere in the middle?
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
Fantasy land. Enormous resources were poured into trying to make allegations stick.
They came up with zip.
"the investigation "also does not exonerate" Trump, finding both public and private actions "by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations".[26] Ten episodes of potential obstruction by the president were described."
Not exactly zip.
Seriously do me a favour. If Trump's many powerful enemies could have got him anywhere near a court they would have.
I suspect they will in the next 6 months or so, once his protections as President from federal prosecutions lapses.
Exactly, that's precisely the point. Trump has made extensive use of that protection, to avoid court and giving testimony or to withhold evidence, he's doing it right now in multiple on-going cases. Soon that will end. Trump can preemptively get a pardon for federal charges, but the states are another matter altogether, and there are a whole load of people who want to nail Donald J. Trump to the wall.
Whether he is guilty of anything or not.
The US courts seem to be fairly impartial. For instance, they won't adjudicate in favour of a side that offers no evidence to support their claims, even if the side failing to offer evidence represents the president who appointed the judge.
Trump has never had a chance to present such evidence as he has, because the courts' rulings have been largely on procedure.
I'm sure if the evidence ever did actually get to court, it would become clear that the 100 plus sworn testimonies he has from ordinary Americans connected to the election, on penalty of perjury, were 100% liars.
How could it be any other way?
Seriously, what's more likely? That the entire US electoral and legal system is so bent - including Republican-run states and Republican- or even Trump-appointed judges - that Trump can be robbed of millions of votes by fraud, have the evidence to prove it, but still lose every case in court? Or that he lost fair and square, and is just trying to con his more gullible supporters into believing that it was stolen?
Which scenario is more likely to have actually happened? I probably agree with you politically on a lot of right-populist issues - the pandemic response is probably the biggest exception to that - but if the right falls into the trap of denying reality then we are going to be utterly destroyed in the long term.
Well some good points, except the same people who are asking you to believe the 2020 election was free and fair are asking you to believe the 2016 election was completely bent and decided by interference from Russia, and that the President who won that election was and remains a Russian asset.
I'm sure you will forgive my questioning them.
There's a huge difference between saying that external influence made sufficient voters vote in a way that they wouldn't have had without it and saying that massive numbers of actual fraudulent votes were cast. No-one claimed that Trump dd not win the ballots and electoral votes that got him the Presidency, rather that unfair and possibly illegal foreign influence may have delivered them. And I write "may" deliberately there as there is no way anyone can ever prove it one way or the other.
The Democrats should propose a bi-partisan commission to examine in depth both the 2016 foreign influence claims and the 2020 fraudulent ballots claims. Somehow I doubt that the Republicans will bite.
Well some good points, except the same people who are asking you to believe the 2020 election was free and fair are asking you to believe the 2016 election was completely bent and decided by interference from Russia, and that the President who won that election was and remains a Russian asset.
I'm sure you will forgive my questioning them.
I don't agree with you on very much, but I think you have a valid point there. Obviously there's a big difference of degree between the two (arguing that voters were influenced by interference by Russia or whatever is different from arguing that the actual votes cast were illegal or not correctly counted), but the Democrats set a bad precedent in not really accepting that Trump's 2016 victory was entirely legitimate, which they then made worse with the ridiculous impeachment attempt.
The Democrats complaints about 2016 were primarily about campaign interference, and essentially every sensible body agrees it occured. The DNI said it was happening again in 2020, and benefitting Trump once more.
Trump's complaints about 2020 are primarily about the ballot, and the courts have rejected almost all of the complaints, and none of the complaints are substantive. The DHS has actually done a lot of work to improve election security, and seemingly successfully so. Of course you don't need to stuff ballot boxes to "steal an election" it's the harder to counteract campaigning, districting, and registration that are where the weakest links are found.
I do wonder - if Boris gets a deal, and things carry on broadly as before in terms of trade with the EU, will that weaken the sense of grievance amongst a certain softer part of the Scottish independence vote?
Mr. Omnium, at the time, Demosthenes excoriated Macedon as barbaros, meaning foreign and non-Greek (xenos was foreign but Greek, from another city). Immediately after Alexander's death Eumenes of Cardia struggled to gain acceptance among the Diadochi because he alone of the Successors was Greek.
The Angevins took over from the Normans less than a century after the Conquest.
Ok, but it's finding a line that counts.
William and Mary were clearly the nations rulers and so you could argue that they were the big change, or the Hanoverians.
Who knows. (Just my views below I've made no great study of this)
The Normans seem to me to be the most recent really great upheaval in the British gene-pool though.
Greek culture changed with Alexander - it's that culture that is now Greek.
So it looks like we've found BoJo's "win", the EU won't take unilateral action but there will be a disputes mechanism setup which amounts to basically the same thing, protection of the single market - if I am understanding the Tweets correctly
Which is fine. If there is no material divergence the issue does not arise. If there is it will be looked at on a case by case basis with some sort of impartial adjudication. I don’t think that we could ask for more than that.
Well, apparently we did ask for more, namely the ability to ignore future EU rule changes without consequence. Did it really have to take this long to meet somewhere in the middle?
It seems kind of obvious doesn't it? We cannot be compelled to follow the EU into more bureaucracy but we don't get a free pass if we don't. Seems fair to me and we really should have got to this point a good year ago. Here's hoping it is finalised soon.
Comments
Originating posts about ludicrous wokies seeing racism and misogyny all over the place.
Reply posts (to the raised topic of racism or misogyny) seeking to downplay it or explain it away, or switch the focus to something else.
That is quite a few on here - and more importantly many MANY out there.
BTW, to stress, I'm not throwing "ist" accusations around. We're talking about the state of being in denial about the size and seriousness of the problem.
Thoughts?
Well done Mark Drakeford, time for the rest of the UK to do the same. He must also cancel the Christmas easing too otherwise he has blood on his hands
The law of three household remains but in Wales the guidance is 2
There is a difference between law and guidance
Managed divergence means divergence in real terms because the potential gains in terms of trade with the growing bits will outweigh the penalty of diverging with an ever smaller part of the pie.
“inherent advantages possessed by a white person on the basis of their race in a society characterized by racial inequality and injustice.“
https://twitter.com/iaindocherty/status/1339205412499968001?s=20
Can we also add Neil to the scared of being bummed by his girlfriend faction?
I'm sure if the evidence ever did actually get to court, it would become clear that the 100 plus sworn testimonies he has from ordinary Americans connected to the election, on penalty of perjury, were 100% liars.
How could it be any other way?
There is some debate over whether you can prosecute a sitting President on a criminal matter. Some argue that the whole point of impeachment is as a replacement for prosecution (and covers only "high crimes and misdemeanors" ) but the general view is you technically can.
There are two key reasons why Presidents aren't prosecuted (well, three - another is most try not to commit crimes). Firstly, DOJ guidance is not to prosecute sitting Presidents - that was Mueller's point as the Special Counsel's Office is part of the DOJ so he was saying you may well be able to charge Trump but, since DOJ policy is not to do so, the option wasn't open to him. Secondly, it's extremely difficult in practice to investigate because of the civil immunity point and other protections designed to avoid the President being embroiled in time-consuming legal processes - so New York prosecutors, for example, are investigating financial irregularities, but there's a lot of material they can't access and people they can't question.
None of that applies post-Presidency. The US has the odd practice that Obama is still President Obama and Hillary Clinton is Secretary Clinton... but those are purely courtesy titles carrying no legal privileges, and they are simply private citizens now, as Trump will be on the afternoon of 20th January.
So it stands to reason divergence will make sense at some point.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55330297
The EU is just one market and it's not even a very important one globally speaking. Their continued attempts to become a regulatory exporter keep failing, they've once again given up with the UK where they started with all trade depending on 100% alignment forever with EU standards to now saying an arbitration process can set tariffs if there is sufficient divergence from the current levels which are going to be written into the treaty.
I presume England will spend most of January in lockdown or near lockdown.
And so managed divergence makes sense.
Make Mexico pay for it.
Honestly, it's great and if we don't sign this deal then the government clearly never wanted a deal in the first place. It's everything we ever wanted.
I suspect that in some settings, like education, some minority kids do better precisely because their parents know that society is prejudiced and their kids need to excel if they are to overcome it. Plus, you're not really comparing like for like are you, by separating out the lowest performing group of white kids and comparing them to all minority kids. If you take a minority kid with all the disadvantages the white working class boy may have (nowhere to do homework, maybe parents who don't value education, no access to extracurricular activities, poor nutrition, not read to as a young child) they might be faring even worse.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/16/mountain-hares-at-risk-as-winter-coats-fail-to-camouflage-in-snowless-scottish-highlands
https://twitter.com/NAChristakis/status/1339195576634761216
Firstly, Trump has presented evidence - what hasn't happened is detailed examination of that evidence. The courts have said "even if you prove each and every one of these allegations, they would not support the remedy you seek" (normally disenfranchisement of all voters in a largely Democratic county or the entire state).
Secondly, there is a huge disconnect between Trump's (and Giuliani's) Twitter and press conference and allegations presented to courts. For example, Giuliani specifically accepted in court in his Pennsylvania case that there was no allegation of sweeping fraud. That's because lawyers face being disbarred and even criminal action for perjury if they knowingly mislead - whereas you can say just about whatever sh1t you like in the parking lot of a garden centre.
Thirdly, a defence wouldn't need to prove every sworn testimony was a lie. Many are, frankly, irrelevant (along the lines "I saw a postman acting suspiciously"). Many are trivial (e.g. "it's bad if your Dad didn't receive his postal voting papers, but doesn't change the result in Pennsylvania, Madam"). Some are lies (is a court going to accept as true the testimony of that woman who showed up at the legislative hearing in Nevada or wherever it was, plainly intoxicated and as it turns out with a criminal record? I suspect not). Some are errors.
All a defence needs to show is that, even put at their maximum, these are non-election changing allegations. They have done so easily and repeatedly in courts up and down the land and in front of Republican appointed and supporting judges. If required to, they would also show that the full extent of them is less than alleged - but the damning reality is they haven't been required to as that's just gravy and there is no need for the courts to waste their time on it.
Brexit is happening and it looks like a deal is on the cusp of being signed
You are beginning to sound like the Japanese soldier who refused to surrender and spent 29 years in the jungle as he did not believe the war had ended
Once a deal is signed the vast majority of the country will sigh a sigh of relief and move on
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-55331063
But that's as far as I'd go with the example. Because Black Crime, as such, does not exist in the way that White Privilege does. BC is a shorthand for "violent street crimes disproportionately committed by young black men". For BC to be an equivalent term to WP, it would mean that ALL such crimes are committed by young black men, that every young black man commits them, and that young men who are not black could not commit one even of they tried.
We were talking at cross purposes. And why not. I love talking at cross purposes.
For some businesses, that is likely to be quite painful.
But sure, a deal is better than the car crash alternative.
The UK can continue to have tariff-free (but not admin-free) goods access to the EU market and vice versa.
If the UK takes the mickey with standards, the EU has a retaliation mechanism.
Nothing on services.
Forget the excitement about a small industry that employs a vocal minority in a few places, or the exact design of the LPF process. They're trivial compared with the big picture.
And in big picture terms, the UK has the freedom it craved, and the EU have maintained the access-alignment staircase. Both sides have what they wanted. Win-win.
Now let's see how the UK can operate the setup it asked for.
Which scenario is more likely to have actually happened? I probably agree with you politically on a lot of right-populist issues - the pandemic response is probably the biggest exception to that - but if the right falls into the trap of denying reality then we are going to be utterly destroyed in the long term.
How do you propose the same counterbalance for white middle class children or, heaven forfend, white upper class children?
One shudders to think.
A problem with the censorious approach taken by the media (ITV did likewise over some tweet or other in the dim and distant past) is that it becomes impossible to assess whether it's a witch hunt or genuine case of bigotry. The ITV story, from memory, was about a celebrity or somesuch who had said something racist, but they didn't indicate whatsoever what the comment was. So how can it be judged whether punitive consequences are valid or not?
Burchill might have simply related a commonly agreed fact on the age of one of Mohammed's wives. Or she might have gone much further. But reporting condemnation in full whilst not presenting the evidence means the audience is left with half the argument. It's the approach of a Witchsmeller Pursuivant.
"My lord, will you force us to listen to the pleadings of a man who might be a witch himself?"
"Good point. That concludes the case for the defence."
But if the EU sought to argue that our rules had been amended in a way that allowed the Scottish government to build a ferry in a local port or give contracts for wind farms to local fabricators, then they may seek to argue that sort of divergence is incompatible with unrestricted access to the SM. We would then have to decide if the changes were sufficiently important to us to accept the consequences.
They are the native species (Brown Hare is introduced) and are the only one that lives in Ireland, where snow is much rarer than Scotland. There they have managed to adapt to the current conditions, although some people reckon the Irish hare should be a separate species (as opposed to a subspecies).
They also survive near Ladybower in the Peak District, where snow is also somewhat limited and doesn't lie long.
Their main problem is not that golden eagles find them easily, but that they get shot in large numbers.
This will do rather more to address the problem than denying the existence of a different problem.
Well some good points, except the same people who are asking you to believe the 2020 election was free and fair are asking you to believe the 2016 election was completely bent and decided by interference from Russia, and that the President who won that election was and remains a Russian asset.
I'm sure you will forgive my questioning them.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/health/wales-coronavirus-stats-unreliable-several-19468966
The thing is that a deal is close, so even if it can't quite be done now then in the months ahead a deal will be done.
No doubt any gap will be difficult, but perhaps such a gap might help to focus minds on both sides anyway.
Not that Wikipedia's always right. It thinks Alexander was Greek...
Hopefully when Perez is announced, if he is, that'll be a fifth the odds top 3.
I could be wrong - if so, please do enlighten me!
He may not have been Greek, but his legacy clearly is.
The Angevins took over from the Normans less than a century after the Conquest.
.
The Democrats should propose a bi-partisan commission to examine in depth both the 2016 foreign influence claims and the 2020 fraudulent ballots claims. Somehow I doubt that the Republicans will bite.
Trump's complaints about 2020 are primarily about the ballot, and the courts have rejected almost all of the complaints, and none of the complaints are substantive. The DHS has actually done a lot of work to improve election security, and seemingly successfully so. Of course you don't need to stuff ballot boxes to "steal an election" it's the harder to counteract campaigning, districting, and registration that are where the weakest links are found.
William and Mary were clearly the nations rulers and so you could argue that they were the big change, or the Hanoverians.
Who knows. (Just my views below I've made no great study of this)
The Normans seem to me to be the most recent really great upheaval in the British gene-pool though.
Greek culture changed with Alexander - it's that culture that is now Greek.