It's so odd, because one thing that the Tories used to really understand, and where they had a good case to make, was how this kind of annoying paperwork - "red tape" - has a deadening effect on economic activity. And yet they are presiding over the biggest explosion in costly paperwork in decades, all in the name of "free trade". It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
It becomes painfully obvious that Brexit was never about free trade, but Xenophobia.
Adding Red tape for immigrants was always the point.
For skilled immigrants, like my wife, the red tape just got a whole load easier.
Treating everyone the same, on their own merits, no matter where in the world they come from, is the exact opposite of xenophobia.
What rubbish. Irish citizens living in the U.K. are now in a far better position than British citizens. So are other EU citizens but the Irish trump even them because they have the automatic right to live in Britain.
Irish citizens are an exception for well-known historic reasons. It’s certainly not rubbish that my wife and I can now choose to live in my country, having being forced to live abroad for the five years of our marriage to date.
It's rubbish to attribute that to the EU or Brexit.
On the contrary, it’s entirely due to Brexit, and the ending of a two-tier system of immigration which treated EU and non-EU passport holders very differently. The new system is merit-based, rather than nationality-based, and my wife overwhelmingly qualifies for the new system when she didn’t under the old one.
So it was previously impossible for non-EU citizens to live in the UK?
In practical terms, as the spouse of a U.K. citizen currently living abroad, yes.
The non-EU system was designed for:
1. Indian brides, arranging marriages with British citizens living in the U.K. 2. Exceptionally-skilled workers, with PhDs or specific company skills.
The idea that a British citizen might meet and marry someone whilst living abroad, then wish to relocate back to the U.K., was a massive hole in the system. The key point was the need to prove my income in order to sponsor my wife, but with income earned outside the U.K. not eligible.
But that was down to the British government's rules. Not the EU's. And could have been changed at any time. They were not dependant on Brexit.
The EU has been cunning on the fisheries deal, it seems, by maximising species in its quota for which the only market is the European Union. Even if the UK repatriated that quota, it wouldn't be able to sell it, while also losing its most important market for other species.
There is a reason why fishermen are unhappy. It's not a particularly good deal for them, overall.
And you conclude that from the Institute of Government's Fishing release?
That fishermen are unhappy with the deal? This is a bland statement from the Scottish Fishermen's Federation but it doesn't seem to be happy ?
I'm not surprised that the industry isn't happy it didn't get everything it wanted. But that was never going to happen, was it?
I agree with that. Expectations were unrealistic. I was expecting the EU to give up about a third of its quota - a meaningful amount for the UK while keeping things mostly the same for the EU. It worked out like that.
For 5.5 years, not the 14 they had originally asked for. In the end both sides compromised, and after the transition period the negotiations are like for other costal states.
No they aren't. The way the agreement is written the presumption is that EU states will get the same quotas as during the transitional period. If they don't then the EU can impose retaliatory measures such as tariffs. So fishermen might get increased quotas but at the cost of reduced access to the market for their produce.
Furthermore, fishing is linked to the other parts of the deal and is not stand-alone as the government wanted. So divergence elsewhere could lead to retaliation against fishing.
This is not quite the same as negotiations for other coastal states.
From what I've read the tariffs apply if the access is withdrawn during the transition period, not at the end of it.
Within a couple of years, on the question of tariffs, the government is going to have a dilemma across the board. Attempt to lower standards by fair means or foul, and face a political disaster when tariffs are imposed, or finally bring some of the Britannia Unchained crowd to heel. I can't see the latter happening at all, with the new basis of the Brexiters in the Tory party, so it would be a brave man who didn't predict some form of fractious political hullabaloo all over again, and even at depressingly regular intervals, if the entire arrangement has to be reviewed again every four years.
By 31 December 2021 PB remainers will still be banging on about Brexit
Well you don’t seem to be able to leave it alone this morning.
And given the whole 4 year review thing, the debate ain't going anywhere for long. Is it a one-off, or will there be a review pencilled in for every 4 years? If the second, heaven help us all...
Brexit is a process where we will drift off gradually from the EU
Where will this process of drifting apart leave Northern Ireland?
What does the border look like, between an independent Scotland and England, if the former wishes to join the EU?
Same asd it has always been for the last 4 centuries or so, one village football ground aside. The different legal systems clearly identify the land in question, for one thing.
Apart from the barbed wire, and the customs posts?
Why any different to the border at Dover. Trade in goods and agriculture via trusted trader schemes (or so we get assured by Leavers).
The only way an Indyscotland border becomes a problem is if the England/EU becomes one too.
The Agreement makes Scottish Independence more rather than less viable.
The border at Dover has barbed wire and customs posts. An indy Scotland joining the CU would create the same at Berwick and Carlisle.
I'm not sure how the brexit deal makes indy scotland more viable - or indeed easier. We can kid ourselves and say an Ireland type arrangement could work - but Scotland first needs to get over the currency and debt issue first. Followed by instilling some confidence in its market. Followed by replicating infrastructure including an embassy network and so forth. Even after that, we've no idea what the appetite for the EU to repeat all that pain of the last 4 years in terms of protecting a further border with rUK - nevertheless the issue around the precedence it sets for other regions to go indy in the EU.
Complicated - despite what most nats would have us believe
It's so odd, because one thing that the Tories used to really understand, and where they had a good case to make, was how this kind of annoying paperwork - "red tape" - has a deadening effect on economic activity. And yet they are presiding over the biggest explosion in costly paperwork in decades, all in the name of "free trade". It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
It becomes painfully obvious that Brexit was never about free trade, but Xenophobia.
Adding Red tape for immigrants was always the point.
For skilled immigrants, like my wife, the red tape just got a whole load easier.
Treating everyone the same, on their own merits, no matter where in the world they come from, is the exact opposite of xenophobia.
What rubbish. Irish citizens living in the U.K. are now in a far better position than British citizens. So are other EU citizens but the Irish trump even them because they have the automatic right to live in Britain.
Irish citizens are an exception for well-known historic reasons. It’s certainly not rubbish that my wife and I can now choose to live in my country, having being forced to live abroad for the five years of our marriage to date.
It's rubbish to attribute that to the EU or Brexit.
On the contrary, it’s entirely due to Brexit, and the ending of a two-tier system of immigration which treated EU and non-EU passport holders very differently. The new system is merit-based, rather than nationality-based, and my wife overwhelmingly qualifies for the new system when she didn’t under the old one.
So it was previously impossible for non-EU citizens to live in the UK?
In practical terms, as the spouse of a U.K. citizen currently living abroad, yes.
The non-EU system was designed for:
1. Indian brides, arranging marriages with British citizens living in the U.K. 2. Exceptionally-skilled workers, with PhDs or specific company skills.
The idea that a British citizen might meet and marry someone whilst living abroad, then wish to relocate back to the U.K., was a massive hole in the system. The key point was the need to prove my income in order to sponsor my wife, but with income earned outside the U.K. not eligible.
But that was down to the British government's rules. Not the EU's. And could have been changed at any time. They were not dependant on Brexit.
That’s correct, except that allowing free EU migration put such a strain on public services and housing, that draconian restrictions on non-EU migration were required to keep overall numbers down.
Brexit has allowed a reset in the immigration requirements, such that I look forward to relocating back to the U.K. with my wife in the near future.
Can you imagine the gnashing of false teeth when the film of Boris' life is made in a decade or two?
Won the Mayoralty twice Won the referendum Won the Tory Leadership Won a huge majority Fell ill during a worldwide pandemic Recovered to be PM of first country to get the vaccine Agrees a deal with the EU
All on the backdrop of his haters saying he wouldn't be able to do any of them (against the odds) and bedding dozens of women. It is paint by numbers Hollywood, and the rush to point out all the bits that are exaggerated/left out will only make it more successful
Just like trump
Admired by the same kind of people.
Happy not to be one of them.
Good on you. After all, what are those petty achievements next to the ability to copy and paste umpteen thousands of tweets?
The EU has been cunning on the fisheries deal, it seems, by maximising species in its quota for which the only market is the European Union. Even if the UK repatriated that quota, it wouldn't be able to sell it, while also losing its most important market for other species.
There is a reason why fishermen are unhappy. It's not a particularly good deal for them, overall.
And you conclude that from the Institute of Government's Fishing release?
That fishermen are unhappy with the deal? This is a bland statement from the Scottish Fishermen's Federation but it doesn't seem to be happy ?
I'm not surprised that the industry isn't happy it didn't get everything it wanted. But that was never going to happen, was it?
I agree with that. Expectations were unrealistic. I was expecting the EU to give up about a third of its quota - a meaningful amount for the UK while keeping things mostly the same for the EU. It worked out like that.
For 5.5 years, not the 14 they had originally asked for. In the end both sides compromised, and after the transition period the negotiations are like for other costal states.
No they aren't. The way the agreement is written the presumption is that EU states will get the same quotas as during the transitional period. If they don't then the EU can impose retaliatory measures such as tariffs. So fishermen might get increased quotas but at the cost of reduced access to the market for their produce.
Furthermore, fishing is linked to the other parts of the deal and is not stand-alone as the government wanted. So divergence elsewhere could lead to retaliation against fishing.
This is not quite the same as negotiations for other coastal states.
From what I've read the tariffs apply if the access is withdrawn during the transition period, not at the end of it.
I'm not sure that is correct. As I read it, if access is reduced from what it is during the transition period after June 2026, "compensatory measures"can be imposed. These have to be "commensurate to the economic and societal impact of the change" and there will be a joint tribunal to sit and decide, if necessary. Those measures can include tariffs and closures of markets or fishing grounds.
Plenty of scope for argument and legal interpretation. The claim that with one bound we will be free, as claimed by the PM, is simply untrue.
I have been a bit confused by some of the interpretations on this thread of the AZN/Oxford vaccine data. Someone kindly linked to the Lancet paper and I have had a look at it. Here is my understanding of the data. Apologies if I'm just repeating what has already been said.
There were 131 symptomatic cases across all arms of the trial and the figure quoted on overall vaccine efficacy of 70.4% relates to these symptomatic cases.
Then there were also 69 asymptomatic cases identified. These were all from COV002, the UK arms of the trial where some had LD/SD and some had SD/SD. Here the LD/SD patients were protected by the vaccine from getting asymptomatic infection, 7 cases in the vaccinated group against 17 in the control group. This represents 58.9% efficacy. But the SD/SD regime was not effective at preventing asymptomatic infection, 22 cases against 23 in the control group. This represents 3.8% efficacy.
Interestingly in the COV002 UK placebo arms of the trial there were 68 symptomatic cases and 40 asymptomatic cases. So quite a high proportion of asymptomatic cases.
It's quite a difficult public policy challenge. Clearly something that prevents 60-70% of infections is a good thing. But it's probably not enough to persuade most people to get back to normal. A 35%ish chance if I'm infected of getting a disease that kills me or may leave lasting side-effects? No thanks. So if I'm offered the Oxford vaccine I'll take it, and then continue to avoid shops, restaurants etc. indefinitely. If that's typical of many, then dishing out the Oxford to millions of us won't really shift the economic dial back to normality.
So vaccinating everyone with Pfizer/Moderna or some other vaccination of similar effectiveness is better. But we don't have enough, and won't have until late 2021 even if we now order massive amounts. And if we wait for that, thousands of deaths will result. From the health viewpoint, therefore, the optimal is to give Pfizer/Moderna to all the higher risk categoiries till it runs out, then give Oxford to everyone else, then reorder Pfizer with 100 million this time, and re-inoculate everyone in a year's time, which also copes with any weakening of the vaccines after a year.
Expensive, but probably better than just dishing out Oxford and expecting things to return to normal.
It's so odd, because one thing that the Tories used to really understand, and where they had a good case to make, was how this kind of annoying paperwork - "red tape" - has a deadening effect on economic activity. And yet they are presiding over the biggest explosion in costly paperwork in decades, all in the name of "free trade". It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
It becomes painfully obvious that Brexit was never about free trade, but Xenophobia.
Adding Red tape for immigrants was always the point.
For skilled immigrants, like my wife, the red tape just got a whole load easier.
Treating everyone the same, on their own merits, no matter where in the world they come from, is the exact opposite of xenophobia.
What rubbish. Irish citizens living in the U.K. are now in a far better position than British citizens. So are other EU citizens but the Irish trump even them because they have the automatic right to live in Britain.
Irish citizens are an exception for well-known historic reasons. It’s certainly not rubbish that my wife and I can now choose to live in my country, having being forced to live abroad for the five years of our marriage to date.
It's rubbish to attribute that to the EU or Brexit.
On the contrary, it’s entirely due to Brexit, and the ending of a two-tier system of immigration which treated EU and non-EU passport holders very differently. The new system is merit-based, rather than nationality-based, and my wife overwhelmingly qualifies for the new system when she didn’t under the old one.
So it was previously impossible for non-EU citizens to live in the UK?
In practical terms, as the spouse of a U.K. citizen currently living abroad, yes.
The non-EU system was designed for:
1. Indian brides, arranging marriages with British citizens living in the U.K. 2. Exceptionally-skilled workers, with PhDs or specific company skills.
The idea that a British citizen might meet and marry someone whilst living abroad, then wish to relocate back to the U.K., was a massive hole in the system. The key point was the need to prove my income in order to sponsor my wife, but with income earned outside the U.K. not eligible.
But that was down to the British government's rules. Not the EU's. And could have been changed at any time. They were not dependant on Brexit.
That’s correct, except that allowing free EU migration put such a strain on public services and housing, that draconian restrictions on non-EU migration were required to keep overall numbers down.
Brexit has allowed a reset in the immigration requirements, such that I look forward to relocating back to the U.K. with my wife in the near future.
These draconian restrictions under which non-EU immigration was significantly higher than EU immigration, and which have now been relaxed?
I have been a bit confused by some of the interpretations on this thread of the AZN/Oxford vaccine data. Someone kindly linked to the Lancet paper and I have had a look at it. Here is my understanding of the data. Apologies if I'm just repeating what has already been said.
There were 131 symptomatic cases across all arms of the trial and the figure quoted on overall vaccine efficacy of 70.4% relates to these symptomatic cases.
Then there were also 69 asymptomatic cases identified. These were all from COV002, the UK arms of the trial where some had LD/SD and some had SD/SD. Here the LD/SD patients were protected by the vaccine from getting asymptomatic infection, 7 cases in the vaccinated group against 17 in the control group. This represents 58.9% efficacy. But the SD/SD regime was not effective at preventing asymptomatic infection, 22 cases against 23 in the control group. This represents 3.8% efficacy.
Interestingly in the COV002 UK placebo arms of the trial there were 68 symptomatic cases and 40 asymptomatic cases. So quite a high proportion of asymptomatic cases.
It's quite a difficult public policy challenge. Clearly something that prevents 60-70% of infections is a good thing. But it's probably not enough to persuade most people to get back to normal. A 35%ish chance if I'm infected of getting a disease that kills me or may leave lasting side-effects? No thanks. So if I'm offered the Oxford vaccine I'll take it, and then continue to avoid shops, restaurants etc. indefinitely. If that's typical of many, then dishing out the Oxford to millions of us won't really shift the economic dial back to normality.
So vaccinating everyone with Pfizer/Moderna or some other vaccination of similar effectiveness is better. But we don't have enough, and won't have until late 2021 even if we now order massive amounts. And if we wait for that, thousands of deaths will result. From the health viewpoint, therefore, the optimal is to give Pfizer/Moderna to all the higher risk categoiries till it runs out, then give Oxford to everyone else, then reorder Pfizer with 100 million this time, and re-inoculate everyone in a year's time, which also copes with any weakening of the vaccines after a year.
Expensive, but probably better than just dishing out Oxford and expecting things to return to normal.
Based purely on the 60/70 somethings I know, they’d be back to normal without a vaccine. The issue is what level of continued Covid deaths will be tolerated by the political and media class. I suspect they’ll tolerate quite a lot.
By 31 December 2021 PB remainers will still be banging on about Brexit
Well you don’t seem to be able to leave it alone this morning.
And given the whole 4 year review thing, the debate ain't going anywhere for long. Is it a one-off, or will there be a review pencilled in for every 4 years? If the second, heaven help us all...
Brexit is a process where we will drift off gradually from the EU
Where will this process of drifting apart leave Northern Ireland?
What does the border look like, between an independent Scotland and England, if the former wishes to join the EU?
Same asd it has always been for the last 4 centuries or so, one village football ground aside. The different legal systems clearly identify the land in question, for one thing.
Apart from the barbed wire, and the customs posts?
Why any different to the border at Dover. Trade in goods and agriculture via trusted trader schemes (or so we get assured by Leavers).
The only way an Indyscotland border becomes a problem is if the England/EU becomes one too.
The Agreement makes Scottish Independence more rather than less viable.
The border at Dover has barbed wire and customs posts. An indy Scotland joining the CU would create the same at Berwick and Carlisle.
I'm not sure how the brexit deal makes indy scotland more viable - or indeed easier. We can kid ourselves and say an Ireland type arrangement could work - but Scotland first needs to get over the currency and debt issue first. Followed by instilling some confidence in its market. Followed by replicating infrastructure including an embassy network and so forth. Even after that, we've no idea what the appetite for the EU to repeat all that pain of the last 4 years in terms of protecting a further border with rUK - nevertheless the issue around the precedence it sets for other regions to go indy in the EU.
Complicated - despite what most nats would have us believe
Look forward to all these links to nats saying Indy would be uncomplicated.
However we were told only a couple of weeks ago that 'No deal would be wonderful for Britain' and 'allow us to do exactly what we want', so the benchmark for brainless, dishonest optimism has been set pretty high.
The German Federal elections next September are certainly the main international elections next year and will be the first since 2002 in which Merkel will not be the CDU/CSU Chancellor candidate. In my view the CDU membership will pick Friedrich Merz to be their candidate who is more rightwing and conservative than Merkel is as well as being a multimillionaire corporate lawyer and former CDU/CSU Bundestag leader from 2000 to 2002.
In terms of the election itself the CDU/CSU will almost certainly be the largest party in the Bundestag but I cannot see the Greens who are likely to overtake the SPD for second as Robert states supporting Merz for Chancellor and nor can I see a CDU led by Merz supporting the Greens leader, Annalena Baerbock for Chancellor either.
So that leaves Baerbock to become Chancellor if the Greens, SPD and Linke combined seat total is more than that for the CDU/CSU and FDP combined or Merz to become Chancellor if the CDU/CSU and FDP combined total is more than the Greens, SPD and Linke combined. Assuming too of course Merz will follow Merkel's lead and still refuse to do any deal with the AfD
Yes, why not keep on speculating about a subject on which you clearly know very little.
Well what makes you the oracle of German politics then if you want to make such a pompous, patronising comment?
Every time you comment on Germany you talk about the possibility of the CDU and the Afd doing a deal.
It's as if a German keeps commenting on British politics and every time says "if the LibDems fail to get an absolute majority at the next election...."
Where? Where did I mention that, nowhere.
However if say Merz is CDU chancellor candidate I think it is unlikely the Greens will do a deal with him and vice versa and if the only viable alternatives are a Green and SPD and Linke deal or a CDU and FDP and AfD deal who knows what would happen.
You're unbelievable, literally in the post I replied to you said
"Assuming too of course Merz will follow Merkel's lead and still refuse to do any deal with the Afd"
And now again
"or a CDU and FDP and AfD deal"
It's not going to happen. I'll indulge you: Say Merz becomes CDU chair (possible though far from certain) And say the CDU/CSU are the largest group after the next election (probable) And say the only 2 party coalition that can mathematically command a majority is with the Greens(which seems to be what you are suggesting) or Union plus AfD (which looks unlikely) And say the CDU first choice chancellor candidate is Merz And say the price for the Greens going into coalition is Merz not being chancellor Then we know what won't happen: the CDU won't go into coalition with the AfD. Either there will be a Union Green coalition with someone else as chancellor, or the CDU will go into coalition with FDP SPD, or there will be a CDU minority government, or there will be fresh elections (in that order of likelihood).
You suggest the possibility of a Green SPD Linke coalition, but as I think you will realise on reflection, if Union plus AfD (plus FDP) is a majority then Green plus SPD plus Linke isn't.
Wrong, if the CDU /CSU will not do a deal with the AfD and the Greens plus SPD plus Linke has more seats than the CDU/CSU and FDP then the Greens plus SPD plus Linke can form a government without a majority if say Merz is leader and the Greens refuse to do a deal with a Merz led CDU and the SPD prefer the Greens to Merz.
That would be even with the CDU/CSU still the largest party in the Bundestag
Can you imagine the gnashing of false teeth when the film of Boris' life is made in a decade or two?
Won the Mayoralty twice Won the referendum Won the Tory Leadership Won a huge majority Fell ill during a worldwide pandemic Recovered to be PM of first country to get the vaccine Agrees a deal with the EU
All on the backdrop of his haters saying he wouldn't be able to do any of them (against the odds) and bedding dozens of women. It is paint by numbers Hollywood, and the rush to point out all the bits that are exaggerated/left out will only make it more successful
It is a point to which they have no answer whatsoever other than driving them to despair
Lol, there is a simple answer. One of my favourite films is the Godfather, Michael Corleone is a fascinating character, as is Johnson (or Trump), but I would not vote for him! Being a good film character is not part of my criteria for judging a politicians merit or success.
Surely he would make you an offer you couldn't refuse? He is his father after all.
It's so odd, because one thing that the Tories used to really understand, and where they had a good case to make, was how this kind of annoying paperwork - "red tape" - has a deadening effect on economic activity. And yet they are presiding over the biggest explosion in costly paperwork in decades, all in the name of "free trade". It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
It becomes painfully obvious that Brexit was never about free trade, but Xenophobia.
Adding Red tape for immigrants was always the point.
For skilled immigrants, like my wife, the red tape just got a whole load easier.
Treating everyone the same, on their own merits, no matter where in the world they come from, is the exact opposite of xenophobia.
What rubbish. Irish citizens living in the U.K. are now in a far better position than British citizens. So are other EU citizens but the Irish trump even them because they have the automatic right to live in Britain.
Irish citizens are an exception for well-known historic reasons. It’s certainly not rubbish that my wife and I can now choose to live in my country, having being forced to live abroad for the five years of our marriage to date.
It's rubbish to attribute that to the EU or Brexit.
On the contrary, it’s entirely due to Brexit, and the ending of a two-tier system of immigration which treated EU and non-EU passport holders very differently. The new system is merit-based, rather than nationality-based, and my wife overwhelmingly qualifies for the new system when she didn’t under the old one.
As I understand it Britain had the right to treat non-EU citizens as favourably as it wanted long before Brexit. If so your complaint is with various British governments not with the EU.
True. We could also have changed the benefits system to mitigate "comin' over ere" sentiment. Plus countless other things. In fact there was little of great import other than political extremism of left and right that was in practice prohibited by EU membership. It comes down to brain chemistry in the end imo. Some people, for whatever reason, felt oppressed by Berlin and Brussels as they went about their daily business. I find it odd but don't doubt the sincerity.
I have been a bit confused by some of the interpretations on this thread of the AZN/Oxford vaccine data. Someone kindly linked to the Lancet paper and I have had a look at it. Here is my understanding of the data. Apologies if I'm just repeating what has already been said.
There were 131 symptomatic cases across all arms of the trial and the figure quoted on overall vaccine efficacy of 70.4% relates to these symptomatic cases.
Then there were also 69 asymptomatic cases identified. These were all from COV002, the UK arms of the trial where some had LD/SD and some had SD/SD. Here the LD/SD patients were protected by the vaccine from getting asymptomatic infection, 7 cases in the vaccinated group against 17 in the control group. This represents 58.9% efficacy. But the SD/SD regime was not effective at preventing asymptomatic infection, 22 cases against 23 in the control group. This represents 3.8% efficacy.
Interestingly in the COV002 UK placebo arms of the trial there were 68 symptomatic cases and 40 asymptomatic cases. So quite a high proportion of asymptomatic cases.
It's quite a difficult public policy challenge. Clearly something that prevents 60-70% of infections is a good thing. But it's probably not enough to persuade most people to get back to normal. A 35%ish chance if I'm infected of getting a disease that kills me or may leave lasting side-effects? No thanks. So if I'm offered the Oxford vaccine I'll take it, and then continue to avoid shops, restaurants etc. indefinitely. If that's typical of many, then dishing out the Oxford to millions of us won't really shift the economic dial back to normality.
So vaccinating everyone with Pfizer/Moderna or some other vaccination of similar effectiveness is better. But we don't have enough, and won't have until late 2021 even if we now order massive amounts. And if we wait for that, thousands of deaths will result. From the health viewpoint, therefore, the optimal is to give Pfizer/Moderna to all the higher risk categoiries till it runs out, then give Oxford to everyone else, then reorder Pfizer with 100 million this time, and re-inoculate everyone in a year's time, which also copes with any weakening of the vaccines after a year.
Expensive, but probably better than just dishing out Oxford and expecting things to return to normal.
I think we need to wait for the last data for Oxford AZ. If it is >90% effective then happy days.
A great predictions piece to kick things off. A few people have already made many of my points: 1. Violence in America. They are not going to transition to the Biden Presidency without a whole load of blood. 2. The Brexit Betrayal. Never mind "remoaners" it will be leavers making the loudest noises. They were sold a magic bullet and as we go through the actual treaty and start implementing the thing it will make Osborne's Omnishambles budget look like a flawless piece of economics 3. The Ulster conundrum. On one hand Norniron has just become hot property, a one foot in each camp territory that should be able to do very very well in this decade. The conundrum is how the DUP handle this divergence. Its economically and socially Good for their electorate. But is clearly no longer a part of the main UK which they have always said is Bad for their electorate... 4. The Scottish Play. Combine the effects of points 2 and 3 and the push for independence will be something that even the truculent form of General HYUFD cannot stop. The SNP will win the 2021 election and win big - hell I might vote for them just to kick this off. At which point the fun begins... 5. I fear for party politics in England. The Brexit Betrayal will lead to people looking for other solutions. The Good News for both batshit elements of Labour and Tory Parties is that they will get an audience. The bad news for everyone else is that it will make our increasingly polarised politics increasingly polarised.
4 Had we gone to No Deal then the SNP would likely have won big, now we have a Deal I think most Scots will shrug their shoulders and move on, the 55% who voted No in particular will not take kindly to Sturgeon still pushing for indyref2 and Unionist tactical voting could well deny her a majority. At which point she will face a May 2017 style humiliation and the SNP will collapse into civil war between the Salmond and Sturgeon factions.
Even if the SNP did win a majority Boris would refuse a legal indyref2 and Unionists would boycott any illegal indyref making it irrelevant
Of that 55% who voted no, a good quarter must be voting Yes in recent polls.
And you are as usual completly forgetting that the deal we have is an atrocious one which will even piss off the fishing communities in the Tory seats as well as many of the professionals in the cushier suburbs. That's two of your favourite Union voter communities. And that's before we see how the export through Dover actually works out. That's the fisherfolk and farming vote at huge risk from your point of view.
Irrespective of your scrabbling, there is the serious point that we have all in Scotland been waiting to see what happens, and even now Brexit is still not happening yet. There are far too many open ends yet.
All recent polls were taken with the presumption of No Deal so are now out of date.
So I think it will be a Deal most Scots can live with including professionals in the suburbs.
As for fishing communities they will welcome the fact they will get more of their own catch, certainly that will be better for them than the contemptible attitude of you and your fellow nationalists in having the audacity to criticise this deal when you would have kept Scotland firmly within the CFP
Your party sold out the Scottish fishermen and has been trying to blame everyone else since. You are utterly shameless.
And that poll is fouir years and more old.
No, the SNP sold out Scottish fishermen by keeping Scotland in the CFP, hence fishing seats like Banff and Buchan the SNP have held for decades went Tory at the 2017 and 2019 general elections.
That poll remains valid now, show me one poll most Scots oppose a Canada style trade deal?
You are showing amazing ignorance, or mendacity, I won't speculate which, in your astonishing belief that the Scottish Governments were ever given power to renegotiate the various agreements with the EU.
See - you are trying to blame everyone else for your party's selling out the fishermen. As they have done yet again, on which the fishermen are very clear.
As for the poll, given how the background has changed and how public sentiment has changed over the last 4 years, it's about as useful as a Which article on the relative merits of an Austin Maxi and a Ford Cortina would be for the average buyer today. ,
You can insult me as much as your little Nat head wants, it does not change the fact the SNP were and are committed to keeping Scotland in the CFP and selling out Scottish fishermen.
As for that poll, I see you still have not found any evidence to contradict it, nor a single poll that shows Scots oppose a Canada style FTA
I didn't insult you - simply drew the clear two inferences from your repeated inaccuracy, to be very polite, on the fact that your party sold out the fishermen, which I pointed out yesterday. In fact, you can't claim ignorance, come to think of it, so ...
And you don't have a poll more recent than 4 years and a bit ago? That to me tells me your argument is utterly worthless.
I showed you a poll showing most Scots are happy with a Canada style FTA, you still have not managed to produce a single poll to refute that
I have been a bit confused by some of the interpretations on this thread of the AZN/Oxford vaccine data. Someone kindly linked to the Lancet paper and I have had a look at it. Here is my understanding of the data. Apologies if I'm just repeating what has already been said.
There were 131 symptomatic cases across all arms of the trial and the figure quoted on overall vaccine efficacy of 70.4% relates to these symptomatic cases.
Then there were also 69 asymptomatic cases identified. These were all from COV002, the UK arms of the trial where some had LD/SD and some had SD/SD. Here the LD/SD patients were protected by the vaccine from getting asymptomatic infection, 7 cases in the vaccinated group against 17 in the control group. This represents 58.9% efficacy. But the SD/SD regime was not effective at preventing asymptomatic infection, 22 cases against 23 in the control group. This represents 3.8% efficacy.
Interestingly in the COV002 UK placebo arms of the trial there were 68 symptomatic cases and 40 asymptomatic cases. So quite a high proportion of asymptomatic cases.
It's quite a difficult public policy challenge. Clearly something that prevents 60-70% of infections is a good thing. But it's probably not enough to persuade most people to get back to normal. A 35%ish chance if I'm infected of getting a disease that kills me or may leave lasting side-effects? No thanks. So if I'm offered the Oxford vaccine I'll take it, and then continue to avoid shops, restaurants etc. indefinitely. If that's typical of many, then dishing out the Oxford to millions of us won't really shift the economic dial back to normality.
So vaccinating everyone with Pfizer/Moderna or some other vaccination of similar effectiveness is better. But we don't have enough, and won't have until late 2021 even if we now order massive amounts. And if we wait for that, thousands of deaths will result. From the health viewpoint, therefore, the optimal is to give Pfizer/Moderna to all the higher risk categoiries till it runs out, then give Oxford to everyone else, then reorder Pfizer with 100 million this time, and re-inoculate everyone in a year's time, which also copes with any weakening of the vaccines after a year.
Expensive, but probably better than just dishing out Oxford and expecting things to return to normal.
IIRC there were no severe cases in the vaccine arm(s) of the trial.
The arrival of vaccines is great news. But if we are slow at actually giving the vaccines, it will be a very long time before any sort of normality is resumed.
A great predictions piece to kick things off. A few people have already made many of my points: 1. Violence in America. They are not going to transition to the Biden Presidency without a whole load of blood. 2. The Brexit Betrayal. Never mind "remoaners" it will be leavers making the loudest noises. They were sold a magic bullet and as we go through the actual treaty and start implementing the thing it will make Osborne's Omnishambles budget look like a flawless piece of economics 3. The Ulster conundrum. On one hand Norniron has just become hot property, a one foot in each camp territory that should be able to do very very well in this decade. The conundrum is how the DUP handle this divergence. Its economically and socially Good for their electorate. But is clearly no longer a part of the main UK which they have always said is Bad for their electorate... 4. The Scottish Play. Combine the effects of points 2 and 3 and the push for independence will be something that even the truculent form of General HYUFD cannot stop. The SNP will win the 2021 election and win big - hell I might vote for them just to kick this off. At which point the fun begins... 5. I fear for party politics in England. The Brexit Betrayal will lead to people looking for other solutions. The Good News for both batshit elements of Labour and Tory Parties is that they will get an audience. The bad news for everyone else is that it will make our increasingly polarised politics increasingly polarised.
4 Had we gone to No Deal then the SNP would likely have won big, now we have a Deal I think most Scots will shrug their shoulders and move on, the 55% who voted No in particular will not take kindly to Sturgeon still pushing for indyref2 and Unionist tactical voting could well deny her a majority. At which point she will face a May 2017 style humiliation and the SNP will collapse into civil war between the Salmond and Sturgeon factions.
Even if the SNP did win a majority Boris would refuse a legal indyref2 and Unionists would boycott any illegal indyref making it irrelevant
Of that 55% who voted no, a good quarter must be voting Yes in recent polls.
And you are as usual completly forgetting that the deal we have is an atrocious one which will even piss off the fishing communities in the Tory seats as well as many of the professionals in the cushier suburbs. That's two of your favourite Union voter communities. And that's before we see how the export through Dover actually works out. That's the fisherfolk and farming vote at huge risk from your point of view.
Irrespective of your scrabbling, there is the serious point that we have all in Scotland been waiting to see what happens, and even now Brexit is still not happening yet. There are far too many open ends yet.
All recent polls were taken with the presumption of No Deal so are now out of date.
So I think it will be a Deal most Scots can live with including professionals in the suburbs.
As for fishing communities they will welcome the fact they will get more of their own catch, certainly that will be better for them than the contemptible attitude of you and your fellow nationalists in having the audacity to criticise this deal when you would have kept Scotland firmly within the CFP
Your party sold out the Scottish fishermen and has been trying to blame everyone else since. You are utterly shameless.
And that poll is fouir years and more old.
No, the SNP sold out Scottish fishermen by keeping Scotland in the CFP, hence fishing seats like Banff and Buchan the SNP have held for decades went Tory at the 2017 and 2019 general elections.
That poll remains valid now, show me one poll most Scots oppose a Canada style trade deal?
You are showing amazing ignorance, or mendacity, I won't speculate which, in your astonishing belief that the Scottish Governments were ever given power to renegotiate the various agreements with the EU.
See - you are trying to blame everyone else for your party's selling out the fishermen. As they have done yet again, on which the fishermen are very clear.
As for the poll, given how the background has changed and how public sentiment has changed over the last 4 years, it's about as useful as a Which article on the relative merits of an Austin Maxi and a Ford Cortina would be for the average buyer today. ,
You can insult me as much as your little Nat head wants, it does not change the fact the SNP were and are committed to keeping Scotland in the CFP and selling out Scottish fishermen.
As for that poll, I see you still have not found any evidence to contradict it, nor a single poll that shows Scots oppose a Canada style FTA
I didn't insult you - simply drew the clear two inferences from your repeated inaccuracy, to be very polite, on the fact that your party sold out the fishermen, which I pointed out yesterday. In fact, you can't claim ignorance, come to think of it, so ...
And you don't have a poll more recent than 4 years and a bit ago? That to me tells me your argument is utterly worthless.
I showed you a poll showing most Scots are happy with a Canada style FTA, you still have not managed to produce a single poll to refute that
You haven't produced one to even confirm your assertion. It's up to you to provide credible and timely evidence.
I have been a bit confused by some of the interpretations on this thread of the AZN/Oxford vaccine data. Someone kindly linked to the Lancet paper and I have had a look at it. Here is my understanding of the data. Apologies if I'm just repeating what has already been said.
There were 131 symptomatic cases across all arms of the trial and the figure quoted on overall vaccine efficacy of 70.4% relates to these symptomatic cases.
Then there were also 69 asymptomatic cases identified. These were all from COV002, the UK arms of the trial where some had LD/SD and some had SD/SD. Here the LD/SD patients were protected by the vaccine from getting asymptomatic infection, 7 cases in the vaccinated group against 17 in the control group. This represents 58.9% efficacy. But the SD/SD regime was not effective at preventing asymptomatic infection, 22 cases against 23 in the control group. This represents 3.8% efficacy.
Interestingly in the COV002 UK placebo arms of the trial there were 68 symptomatic cases and 40 asymptomatic cases. So quite a high proportion of asymptomatic cases.
It's quite a difficult public policy challenge. Clearly something that prevents 60-70% of infections is a good thing. But it's probably not enough to persuade most people to get back to normal. A 35%ish chance if I'm infected of getting a disease that kills me or may leave lasting side-effects? No thanks. So if I'm offered the Oxford vaccine I'll take it, and then continue to avoid shops, restaurants etc. indefinitely. If that's typical of many, then dishing out the Oxford to millions of us won't really shift the economic dial back to normality.
So vaccinating everyone with Pfizer/Moderna or some other vaccination of similar effectiveness is better. But we don't have enough, and won't have until late 2021 even if we now order massive amounts. And if we wait for that, thousands of deaths will result. From the health viewpoint, therefore, the optimal is to give Pfizer/Moderna to all the higher risk categoiries till it runs out, then give Oxford to everyone else, then reorder Pfizer with 100 million this time, and re-inoculate everyone in a year's time, which also copes with any weakening of the vaccines after a year.
Expensive, but probably better than just dishing out Oxford and expecting things to return to normal.
Based purely on the 60/70 somethings I know, they’d be back to normal without a vaccine. The issue is what level of continued Covid deaths will be tolerated by the political and media class. I suspect they’ll tolerate quite a lot.
There are 3.2 million over 80s. We have vaccinated (first shot) over 500K of them so far.
This will, already, reduce deaths - could be a 5% reduction.
Since over 80s were 54% of deaths in the outbreak overall, and assuming that vaccination take up is high, we could see virtual elimination of deaths in that category by mid February.
This is at the current rate of progress - no new vaccines required.
"But now the war has lasted for nearly four years. Despite the best that has been done by everyone – the gallant fighting of the propaganda forces, the diligence and assiduity of our servants of the state, and the devoted service of our party – the situation has developed not necessarily to Albion's advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest."
The arrival of vaccines is great news. But if we are slow at actually giving the vaccines, it will be a very long time before any sort of normality is resumed.
The current vaccination rate is too slow, but there's precious little point in dwelling on that because of the known difficulties with the BioNTech jab.
Oxford should be riding to the rescue at the turn of the year. If we're not somewhere North of a million a week by the back end of January, that would be the point at which to start clucking.
Boris's triumph is falling apart. That this will be an ongoing, protracted process that will grind on for decades will soon become painfully clear. How long before Boris's admirers realize they were witless dupes, who have been sold a bugger's muddle?
By 31 December 2021 PB remainers will still be banging on about Brexit
Well you don’t seem to be able to leave it alone this morning.
And given the whole 4 year review thing, the debate ain't going anywhere for long. Is it a one-off, or will there be a review pencilled in for every 4 years? If the second, heaven help us all...
Brexit is a process where we will drift off gradually from the EU
Where will this process of drifting apart leave Northern Ireland?
What does the border look like, between an independent Scotland and England, if the former wishes to join the EU?
Same asd it has always been for the last 4 centuries or so, one village football ground aside. The different legal systems clearly identify the land in question, for one thing.
Apart from the barbed wire, and the customs posts?
Why any different to the border at Dover. Trade in goods and agriculture via trusted trader schemes (or so we get assured by Leavers).
The only way an Indyscotland border becomes a problem is if the England/EU becomes one too.
The Agreement makes Scottish Independence more rather than less viable.
The border at Dover has barbed wire and customs posts. An indy Scotland joining the CU would create the same at Berwick and Carlisle.
I'm not sure how the brexit deal makes indy scotland more viable - or indeed easier. We can kid ourselves and say an Ireland type arrangement could work - but Scotland first needs to get over the currency and debt issue first. Followed by instilling some confidence in its market. Followed by replicating infrastructure including an embassy network and so forth. Even after that, we've no idea what the appetite for the EU to repeat all that pain of the last 4 years in terms of protecting a further border with rUK - nevertheless the issue around the precedence it sets for other regions to go indy in the EU.
Complicated - despite what most nats would have us believe
Look forward to all these links to nats saying Indy would be uncomplicated.
However we were told only a couple of weeks ago that 'No deal would be wonderful for Britain' and 'allow us to do exactly what we want', so the benchmark for brainless, dishonest optimism has been set pretty high.
Those poor bankers. No one ever looks out for them.
It's a question of the tax base, not the bankers.
Yes, yes. We heard it all during the financial crisis. Unless we dance to Goldman's tune we will have to scrap the welfare state and all live in impoverished squalour.
I have been a bit confused by some of the interpretations on this thread of the AZN/Oxford vaccine data. Someone kindly linked to the Lancet paper and I have had a look at it. Here is my understanding of the data. Apologies if I'm just repeating what has already been said.
There were 131 symptomatic cases across all arms of the trial and the figure quoted on overall vaccine efficacy of 70.4% relates to these symptomatic cases.
Then there were also 69 asymptomatic cases identified. These were all from COV002, the UK arms of the trial where some had LD/SD and some had SD/SD. Here the LD/SD patients were protected by the vaccine from getting asymptomatic infection, 7 cases in the vaccinated group against 17 in the control group. This represents 58.9% efficacy. But the SD/SD regime was not effective at preventing asymptomatic infection, 22 cases against 23 in the control group. This represents 3.8% efficacy.
Interestingly in the COV002 UK placebo arms of the trial there were 68 symptomatic cases and 40 asymptomatic cases. So quite a high proportion of asymptomatic cases.
It's quite a difficult public policy challenge. Clearly something that prevents 60-70% of infections is a good thing. But it's probably not enough to persuade most people to get back to normal. A 35%ish chance if I'm infected of getting a disease that kills me or may leave lasting side-effects? No thanks. So if I'm offered the Oxford vaccine I'll take it, and then continue to avoid shops, restaurants etc. indefinitely. If that's typical of many, then dishing out the Oxford to millions of us won't really shift the economic dial back to normality.
So vaccinating everyone with Pfizer/Moderna or some other vaccination of similar effectiveness is better. But we don't have enough, and won't have until late 2021 even if we now order massive amounts. And if we wait for that, thousands of deaths will result. From the health viewpoint, therefore, the optimal is to give Pfizer/Moderna to all the higher risk categoiries till it runs out, then give Oxford to everyone else, then reorder Pfizer with 100 million this time, and re-inoculate everyone in a year's time, which also copes with any weakening of the vaccines after a year.
Expensive, but probably better than just dishing out Oxford and expecting things to return to normal.
But Nick. None of the vaccinated people got seriously ill. None required hospitalisation. So the chances of dying of Covid once you have been vaccinated with the AZN vaccine seem to be tiny, as long as the virus doesn't mutate its way out of vaccine protection. Re Long Covid. Yes that's a good point. Data re vaccine protection from that would be good to have.
I have been a bit confused by some of the interpretations on this thread of the AZN/Oxford vaccine data. Someone kindly linked to the Lancet paper and I have had a look at it. Here is my understanding of the data. Apologies if I'm just repeating what has already been said.
There were 131 symptomatic cases across all arms of the trial and the figure quoted on overall vaccine efficacy of 70.4% relates to these symptomatic cases.
Then there were also 69 asymptomatic cases identified. These were all from COV002, the UK arms of the trial where some had LD/SD and some had SD/SD. Here the LD/SD patients were protected by the vaccine from getting asymptomatic infection, 7 cases in the vaccinated group against 17 in the control group. This represents 58.9% efficacy. But the SD/SD regime was not effective at preventing asymptomatic infection, 22 cases against 23 in the control group. This represents 3.8% efficacy.
Interestingly in the COV002 UK placebo arms of the trial there were 68 symptomatic cases and 40 asymptomatic cases. So quite a high proportion of asymptomatic cases.
It's quite a difficult public policy challenge. Clearly something that prevents 60-70% of infections is a good thing. But it's probably not enough to persuade most people to get back to normal. A 35%ish chance if I'm infected of getting a disease that kills me or may leave lasting side-effects? No thanks. So if I'm offered the Oxford vaccine I'll take it, and then continue to avoid shops, restaurants etc. indefinitely. If that's typical of many, then dishing out the Oxford to millions of us won't really shift the economic dial back to normality.
So vaccinating everyone with Pfizer/Moderna or some other vaccination of similar effectiveness is better. But we don't have enough, and won't have until late 2021 even if we now order massive amounts. And if we wait for that, thousands of deaths will result. From the health viewpoint, therefore, the optimal is to give Pfizer/Moderna to all the higher risk categoiries till it runs out, then give Oxford to everyone else, then reorder Pfizer with 100 million this time, and re-inoculate everyone in a year's time, which also copes with any weakening of the vaccines after a year.
Expensive, but probably better than just dishing out Oxford and expecting things to return to normal.
Could be I have this wrong but I think the 60% efficacy (if replicated on rollout) means I have 40% of the risk of getting Covid than I would have if I did not have the vaccine. So if that original risk was, say, 30%, my vaccinated risk would be 12%.
Labour could oppose the Deal & argue we should go back in. Perfectly viable. After all, 48 per cent wanted to Remain and the polling suggests that this may have moved in Remain's favour since the Referendum. If Labour can get most of that 48 per cent, they will win the next General.
However, this means that Labour have to become more & more the party of affluent, middle class, urban, professionals. Labour would have to take some of the Home Counties & South-Eastern seats that voted Remain -- because they would be saying goodbye to many of the Red Wall seats. It would mean a transformation for Labour, they would have finally broken with some of their historic roots & traditional seats.
Alternatively, Labour can accept the Deal & argue the issue is now settled. This seems less viable to me. It certainly gives them a reasonable chance of recovering some of the Red Wall seats. And in fact, realistically, the Remainers have nowhere else to go in most constituencies. However, whilst Labour voters were split more evenly, Labour MPs and party members were largely pro-EU, so it is quite hard to see this being popular or working long term. It also leaves Labour with a big, big problem in Scotland, because the Remainer voters in Scotland DO have somewhere else to go.
Labour's problems in retaining its coalition of voters are beginning to look insuperable to me. Without recovering some of their former Scottish citadels, I can't see Labour winning a General at all. And I can't see them recovering in Scotland if they back the Deal.
A great predictions piece to kick things off. A few people have already made many of my points: 1. Violence in America. They are not going to transition to the Biden Presidency without a whole load of blood. 2. The Brexit Betrayal. Never mind "remoaners" it will be leavers making the loudest noises. They were sold a magic bullet and as we go through the actual treaty and start implementing the thing it will make Osborne's Omnishambles budget look like a flawless piece of economics 3. The Ulster conundrum. On one hand Norniron has just become hot property, a one foot in each camp territory that should be able to do very very well in this decade. The conundrum is how the DUP handle this divergence. Its economically and socially Good for their electorate. But is clearly no longer a part of the main UK which they have always said is Bad for their electorate... 4. The Scottish Play. Combine the effects of points 2 and 3 and the push for independence will be something that even the truculent form of General HYUFD cannot stop. The SNP will win the 2021 election and win big - hell I might vote for them just to kick this off. At which point the fun begins... 5. I fear for party politics in England. The Brexit Betrayal will lead to people looking for other solutions. The Good News for both batshit elements of Labour and Tory Parties is that they will get an audience. The bad news for everyone else is that it will make our increasingly polarised politics increasingly polarised.
4 Had we gone to No Deal then the SNP would likely have won big, now we have a Deal I think most Scots will shrug their shoulders and move on, the 55% who voted No in particular will not take kindly to Sturgeon still pushing for indyref2 and Unionist tactical voting could well deny her a majority. At which point she will face a May 2017 style humiliation and the SNP will collapse into civil war between the Salmond and Sturgeon factions.
Even if the SNP did win a majority Boris would refuse a legal indyref2 and Unionists would boycott any illegal indyref making it irrelevant
Of that 55% who voted no, a good quarter must be voting Yes in recent polls.
And you are as usual completly forgetting that the deal we have is an atrocious one which will even piss off the fishing communities in the Tory seats as well as many of the professionals in the cushier suburbs. That's two of your favourite Union voter communities. And that's before we see how the export through Dover actually works out. That's the fisherfolk and farming vote at huge risk from your point of view.
Irrespective of your scrabbling, there is the serious point that we have all in Scotland been waiting to see what happens, and even now Brexit is still not happening yet. There are far too many open ends yet.
All recent polls were taken with the presumption of No Deal so are now out of date.
So I think it will be a Deal most Scots can live with including professionals in the suburbs.
As for fishing communities they will welcome the fact they will get more of their own catch, certainly that will be better for them than the contemptible attitude of you and your fellow nationalists in having the audacity to criticise this deal when you would have kept Scotland firmly within the CFP
Your party sold out the Scottish fishermen and has been trying to blame everyone else since. You are utterly shameless.
And that poll is fouir years and more old.
No, the SNP sold out Scottish fishermen by keeping Scotland in the CFP, hence fishing seats like Banff and Buchan the SNP have held for decades went Tory at the 2017 and 2019 general elections.
That poll remains valid now, show me one poll most Scots oppose a Canada style trade deal?
You are showing amazing ignorance, or mendacity, I won't speculate which, in your astonishing belief that the Scottish Governments were ever given power to renegotiate the various agreements with the EU.
See - you are trying to blame everyone else for your party's selling out the fishermen. As they have done yet again, on which the fishermen are very clear.
As for the poll, given how the background has changed and how public sentiment has changed over the last 4 years, it's about as useful as a Which article on the relative merits of an Austin Maxi and a Ford Cortina would be for the average buyer today. ,
You can insult me as much as your little Nat head wants, it does not change the fact the SNP were and are committed to keeping Scotland in the CFP and selling out Scottish fishermen.
As for that poll, I see you still have not found any evidence to contradict it, nor a single poll that shows Scots oppose a Canada style FTA
I didn't insult you - simply drew the clear two inferences from your repeated inaccuracy, to be very polite, on the fact that your party sold out the fishermen, which I pointed out yesterday. In fact, you can't claim ignorance, come to think of it, so ...
And you don't have a poll more recent than 4 years and a bit ago? That to me tells me your argument is utterly worthless.
I showed you a poll showing most Scots are happy with a Canada style FTA, you still have not managed to produce a single poll to refute that
You haven't produced one to even confirm your assertion. It's up to you to provide credible and timely evidence.
I produced a poll showing most Scots are happy with a Canada style FTA, you have not produced a single poll to refute that as there is not one. This is a great Deal for Scotland
The arrival of vaccines is great news. But if we are slow at actually giving the vaccines, it will be a very long time before any sort of normality is resumed.
Looks like the next data point will be Tuesday (29th) for the week ending today.
The England data all went into the second week (14-12th and included the data from the previous partial week), so make a judgement of rate will require the next week of data.
In addition, the GP/care home distribution is still expanding.
For the lowest possible rate - the data is that over 600,000 first jabs were done in the first 12 days. So the rate has to be more than 50,000 a day. Informally, it has been stated that it reached 75,000 per day by 24th Dec.
The arrival of vaccines is great news. But if we are slow at actually giving the vaccines, it will be a very long time before any sort of normality is resumed.
It's so odd, because one thing that the Tories used to really understand, and where they had a good case to make, was how this kind of annoying paperwork - "red tape" - has a deadening effect on economic activity. And yet they are presiding over the biggest explosion in costly paperwork in decades, all in the name of "free trade". It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
It becomes painfully obvious that Brexit was never about free trade, but Xenophobia.
Adding Red tape for immigrants was always the point.
For skilled immigrants, like my wife, the red tape just got a whole load easier.
Treating everyone the same, on their own merits, no matter where in the world they come from, is the exact opposite of xenophobia.
What rubbish. Irish citizens living in the U.K. are now in a far better position than British citizens. So are other EU citizens but the Irish trump even them because they have the automatic right to live in Britain.
Irish citizens are an exception for well-known historic reasons. It’s certainly not rubbish that my wife and I can now choose to live in my country, having being forced to live abroad for the five years of our marriage to date.
It's rubbish to attribute that to the EU or Brexit.
On the contrary, it’s entirely due to Brexit, and the ending of a two-tier system of immigration which treated EU and non-EU passport holders very differently. The new system is merit-based, rather than nationality-based, and my wife overwhelmingly qualifies for the new system when she didn’t under the old one.
As I understand it Britain had the right to treat non-EU citizens as favourably as it wanted long before Brexit. If so your complaint is with various British governments not with the EU.
True. We could also have changed the benefits system to mitigate "comin' over ere" sentiment. Plus countless other things. In fact there was little of great import other than political extremism of left and right that was in practice prohibited by EU membership. It comes down to brain chemistry in the end imo. Some people, for whatever reason, felt oppressed by Berlin and Brussels as they went about their daily business. I find it odd but don't doubt the sincerity.
There was definitely a reverse Pangloss thing going on, a need to believe the worst regardless of the facts, stoutly aided by the tabloids.
I remember a discussion on here of the assertion that the EU had banned the Union flag on UK food products, with certain parties insisting that it was a thing that had definitely happened. When copious evidence was produced that this was in fact bollocks, as is their wont these parties slunk off. Pretty sure they will still devoutly believe it's a fact, untrammelled by any inconvenient proof.
Yes the Deal is a great Deal for UK manufacturers who get no tariffs on goods sent to the EU and the chance of new trade deals around the world, a great Deal for Leave voters especially those in the Red Wall as it ends free movement and ECJ jurisdiction, a good deal for fishermen too who will get to keep more of their catch.
It is only a bad Deal for the city of London and financial services but then they mainly voted Remain and the Brexit vote was partly to shift power from London more to the rest of the country anyway.
Boris's triumph is falling apart. That this will be an ongoing, protracted process that will grind on for decades will soon become painfully clear. How long before Boris's admirers realize they were witless dupes, who have been sold a bugger's muddle?
Dialogue between the EU and the UK will continue for so long as those entities exist, because that's what happens with international relations between neighbours. But if you're waiting for the unwashed masses to experience a huge wave of Bregret and start banging on the doors of the European Commission begging to be let back in then you'll be doing so for a very, very long time.
The great mass of the people has heard more than enough about Europe and has other, more pressing concerns to trouble it.
Labour could oppose the Deal & argue we should go back in. Perfectly viable. After all, 48 per cent wanted to Remain and the polling suggests that this may have moved in Remain's favour since the Referendum. If Labour can get most of that 48 per cent, they will win the next General.
However, this means that Labour have to become more & more the party of affluent, middle class, urban, professionals. Labour would have to take some of the Home Counties & South-Eastern seats that voted Remain -- because they would be saying goodbye to many of the Red Wall seats. It would mean a transformation for Labour, they would have finally broken with some of their historic roots & traditional seats.
Alternatively, Labour can accept the Deal & argue the issue is now settled. This seems less viable to me. It certainly gives them a reasonable chance of recovering some of the Red Wall seats. And in fact, realistically, the Remainers have nowhere else to go in most constituencies. However, whilst Labour voters were split more evenly, Labour MPs and party members were largely pro-EU, so it is quite hard to see this being popular or working long term. It also leaves Labour with a big, big problem in Scotland, because the Remainer voters in Scotland DO have somewhere else to go.
Labour's problems in retaining its coalition of voters are beginning to look insuperable to me. Without recovering some of their former Scottish citadels, I can't see Labour winning a General at all. And I can't see them recovering in Scotland if they back the Deal.
So, I think SKS has called this wrong.
Most Home Counties diehard Remainers would go LD not Labour, there are far more Labour targets in the Red Wall than the South.
Labour can still form a government with SNP confidence and supply even without winning back its Scottish seats
Those poor bankers. No one ever looks out for them.
It's a question of the tax base, not the bankers.
Yes, yes. We heard it all during the financial crisis. Unless we dance to Goldman's tune we will have to scrap the welfare state and all live in impoverished squalour.
Yes the Deal is a great Deal for UK manufacturers who get no tariffs on goods sent to the EU and the chance of new trade deals around the world, a great Deal for Leave voters especially those in the Red Wall as it ends free movement and ECJ jurisdiction, a good deal for fishermen too who will get to keep more of their catch.
It is only a bad Deal for the city of London and financial services but then they mainly voted Remain anyway and the Brexit vote was partly to shift power from London more to the rest of the country anyway.
There is no sign whatsoever so far that the deal will be great for British manafacturers. What they will have to look forward to in the new year is simply new paperwork and barriers to trade, and slowed down supply chains.
New opportunities in the medium to long-term future might cancel some of this out, but that's a long way off.
By 31 December 2021 PB remainers will still be banging on about Brexit
Well you don’t seem to be able to leave it alone this morning.
And given the whole 4 year review thing, the debate ain't going anywhere for long. Is it a one-off, or will there be a review pencilled in for every 4 years? If the second, heaven help us all...
Brexit is a process where we will drift off gradually from the EU
Where will this process of drifting apart leave Northern Ireland?
What does the border look like, between an independent Scotland and England, if the former wishes to join the EU?
Same asd it has always been for the last 4 centuries or so, one village football ground aside. The different legal systems clearly identify the land in question, for one thing.
Apart from the barbed wire, and the customs posts?
Why any different to the border at Dover. Trade in goods and agriculture via trusted trader schemes (or so we get assured by Leavers).
The only way an Indyscotland border becomes a problem is if the England/EU becomes one too.
The Agreement makes Scottish Independence more rather than less viable.
The border at Dover has barbed wire and customs posts. An indy Scotland joining the CU would create the same at Berwick and Carlisle.
I'm not sure how the brexit deal makes indy scotland more viable - or indeed easier. We can kid ourselves and say an Ireland type arrangement could work - but Scotland first needs to get over the currency and debt issue first. Followed by instilling some confidence in its market. Followed by replicating infrastructure including an embassy network and so forth. Even after that, we've no idea what the appetite for the EU to repeat all that pain of the last 4 years in terms of protecting a further border with rUK - nevertheless the issue around the precedence it sets for other regions to go indy in the EU.
Complicated - despite what most nats would have us believe
Look forward to all these links to nats saying Indy would be uncomplicated.
However we were told only a couple of weeks ago that 'No deal would be wonderful for Britain' and 'allow us to do exactly what we want', so the benchmark for brainless, dishonest optimism has been set pretty high.
Since the initiation of the Erasmus programme in 1987, intra-European student exchanges in higher education are expected to promote a sense of European identity and citizenship among European exchange students.......Altogether, these findings suggest the impact of European exchange programmes on European citizenship and a sense of European identity is relatively limited.
Labour could oppose the Deal & argue we should go back in. Perfectly viable. After all, 48 per cent wanted to Remain and the polling suggests that this may have moved in Remain's favour since the Referendum. If Labour can get most of that 48 per cent, they will win the next General.
However, this means that Labour have to become more & more the party of affluent, middle class, urban, professionals. Labour would have to take some of the Home Counties & South-Eastern seats that voted Remain -- because they would be saying goodbye to many of the Red Wall seats. It would mean a transformation for Labour, they would have finally broken with some of their historic roots & traditional seats.
Alternatively, Labour can accept the Deal & argue the issue is now settled. This seems less viable to me. It certainly gives them a reasonable chance of recovering some of the Red Wall seats. And in fact, realistically, the Remainers have nowhere else to go in most constituencies. However, whilst Labour voters were split more evenly, Labour MPs and party members were largely pro-EU, so it is quite hard to see this being popular or working long term. It also leaves Labour with a big, big problem in Scotland, because the Remainer voters in Scotland DO have somewhere else to go.
Labour's problems in retaining its coalition of voters are beginning to look insuperable to me. Without recovering some of their former Scottish citadels, I can't see Labour winning a General at all. And I can't see them recovering in Scotland if they back the Deal.
So, I think SKS has called this wrong.
The problem with that is you are suggesting that Labour stops being Labour. And becomes the LibDems, basically.
That might be logical strategy, but given the historical and cultural aspects of the Labour party... that simply won't happen.
Labour could oppose the Deal & argue we should go back in. Perfectly viable. After all, 48 per cent wanted to Remain and the polling suggests that this may have moved in Remain's favour since the Referendum. If Labour can get most of that 48 per cent, they will win the next General.
However, this means that Labour have to become more & more the party of affluent, middle class, urban, professionals. Labour would have to take some of the Home Counties & South-Eastern seats that voted Remain -- because they would be saying goodbye to many of the Red Wall seats. It would mean a transformation for Labour, they would have finally broken with some of their historic roots & traditional seats.
Alternatively, Labour can accept the Deal & argue the issue is now settled. This seems less viable to me. It certainly gives them a reasonable chance of recovering some of the Red Wall seats. And in fact, realistically, the Remainers have nowhere else to go in most constituencies. However, whilst Labour voters were split more evenly, Labour MPs and party members were largely pro-EU, so it is quite hard to see this being popular or working long term. It also leaves Labour with a big, big problem in Scotland, because the Remainer voters in Scotland DO have somewhere else to go.
Labour's problems in retaining its coalition of voters are beginning to look insuperable to me. Without recovering some of their former Scottish citadels, I can't see Labour winning a General at all. And I can't see them recovering in Scotland if they back the Deal.
So, I think SKS has called this wrong.
Most Home Counties diehard Remainers would go LD not Labour, there are far more Labour targets in the Red Wall than the South.
Labour can still form a government with SNP confidence and supply even without winning back its Scottish seats
But that rather depends on Labour finding enough potential swing voters to help it win back those key marginals who are also prepared to have a Prime Minister held hostage by a bunch of hostile wreckers.
There is no sign whatsoever so far that the deal will be great for British manafacturers. What they will have to look forward to in the new year is simply new paperwork and barriers to trade, and slowed down supply chains.
And what counts as a British manufacturer?
JLR's European supply chains are not helped by this.
It's so odd, because one thing that the Tories used to really understand, and where they had a good case to make, was how this kind of annoying paperwork - "red tape" - has a deadening effect on economic activity. And yet they are presiding over the biggest explosion in costly paperwork in decades, all in the name of "free trade". It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
It becomes painfully obvious that Brexit was never about free trade, but Xenophobia.
Adding Red tape for immigrants was always the point.
For skilled immigrants, like my wife, the red tape just got a whole load easier.
Treating everyone the same, on their own merits, no matter where in the world they come from, is the exact opposite of xenophobia.
What rubbish. Irish citizens living in the U.K. are now in a far better position than British citizens. So are other EU citizens but the Irish trump even them because they have the automatic right to live in Britain.
Irish citizens are an exception for well-known historic reasons. It’s certainly not rubbish that my wife and I can now choose to live in my country, having being forced to live abroad for the five years of our marriage to date.
It's rubbish to attribute that to the EU or Brexit.
On the contrary, it’s entirely due to Brexit, and the ending of a two-tier system of immigration which treated EU and non-EU passport holders very differently. The new system is merit-based, rather than nationality-based, and my wife overwhelmingly qualifies for the new system when she didn’t under the old one.
As I understand it Britain had the right to treat non-EU citizens as favourably as it wanted long before Brexit. If so your complaint is with various British governments not with the EU.
True. We could also have changed the benefits system to mitigate "comin' over ere" sentiment. Plus countless other things. In fact there was little of great import other than political extremism of left and right that was in practice prohibited by EU membership. It comes down to brain chemistry in the end imo. Some people, for whatever reason, felt oppressed by Berlin and Brussels as they went about their daily business. I find it odd but don't doubt the sincerity.
There was definitely a reverse Pangloss thing going on, a need to believe the worst regardless of the facts, stoutly aided by the tabloids.
I remember a discussion on here of the assertion that the EU had banned the Union flag on UK food products, with certain parties insisting that it was a thing that had definitely happened. When copious evidence was produced that this was in fact bollocks, as is their wont these parties slunk off. Pretty sure they will still devoutly believe it's a fact, untrammelled by any inconvenient proof.
Indeed. Much sloppy myth formed over many decades eventually rolling up into a great big eurobogey. It should have been picked & flicked on a regular basis but it never was. Hence June 2016. I know it's too easy to call something that has happened "inevitable" but perhaps it was.
(Thought you'd appreciate some sophisticated imagery on this matter.)
Since the initiation of the Erasmus programme in 1987, intra-European student exchanges in higher education are expected to promote a sense of European identity and citizenship among European exchange students.......Altogether, these findings suggest the impact of European exchange programmes on European citizenship and a sense of European identity is relatively limited.
Labour could oppose the Deal & argue we should go back in. Perfectly viable. After all, 48 per cent wanted to Remain and the polling suggests that this may have moved in Remain's favour since the Referendum. If Labour can get most of that 48 per cent, they will win the next General.
However, this means that Labour have to become more & more the party of affluent, middle class, urban, professionals. Labour would have to take some of the Home Counties & South-Eastern seats that voted Remain -- because they would be saying goodbye to many of the Red Wall seats. It would mean a transformation for Labour, they would have finally broken with some of their historic roots & traditional seats.
Alternatively, Labour can accept the Deal & argue the issue is now settled. This seems less viable to me. It certainly gives them a reasonable chance of recovering some of the Red Wall seats. And in fact, realistically, the Remainers have nowhere else to go in most constituencies. However, whilst Labour voters were split more evenly, Labour MPs and party members were largely pro-EU, so it is quite hard to see this being popular or working long term. It also leaves Labour with a big, big problem in Scotland, because the Remainer voters in Scotland DO have somewhere else to go.
Labour's problems in retaining its coalition of voters are beginning to look insuperable to me. Without recovering some of their former Scottish citadels, I can't see Labour winning a General at all. And I can't see them recovering in Scotland if they back the Deal.
So, I think SKS has called this wrong.
Most Home Counties diehard Remainers would go LD not Labour, there are far more Labour targets in the Red Wall than the South.
Labour can still form a government with SNP confidence and supply even without winning back its Scottish seats
And be forced to have an element preferable to Scotland in every piece of English legislation they pass? That would make for a more unstable government than we saw from 2017 to 2019.
It's so odd, because one thing that the Tories used to really understand, and where they had a good case to make, was how this kind of annoying paperwork - "red tape" - has a deadening effect on economic activity. And yet they are presiding over the biggest explosion in costly paperwork in decades, all in the name of "free trade". It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
It becomes painfully obvious that Brexit was never about free trade, but Xenophobia.
Adding Red tape for immigrants was always the point.
For skilled immigrants, like my wife, the red tape just got a whole load easier.
Treating everyone the same, on their own merits, no matter where in the world they come from, is the exact opposite of xenophobia.
What rubbish. Irish citizens living in the U.K. are now in a far better position than British citizens. So are other EU citizens but the Irish trump even them because they have the automatic right to live in Britain.
Irish citizens are an exception for well-known historic reasons. It’s certainly not rubbish that my wife and I can now choose to live in my country, having being forced to live abroad for the five years of our marriage to date.
It's rubbish to attribute that to the EU or Brexit.
On the contrary, it’s entirely due to Brexit, and the ending of a two-tier system of immigration which treated EU and non-EU passport holders very differently. The new system is merit-based, rather than nationality-based, and my wife overwhelmingly qualifies for the new system when she didn’t under the old one.
As I understand it Britain had the right to treat non-EU citizens as favourably as it wanted long before Brexit. If so your complaint is with various British governments not with the EU.
True. We could also have changed the benefits system to mitigate "comin' over ere" sentiment. Plus countless other things. In fact there was little of great import other than political extremism of left and right that was in practice prohibited by EU membership. It comes down to brain chemistry in the end imo. Some people, for whatever reason, felt oppressed by Berlin and Brussels as they went about their daily business. I find it odd but don't doubt the sincerity.
There was definitely a reverse Pangloss thing going on, a need to believe the worst regardless of the facts, stoutly aided by the tabloids.
I remember a discussion on here of the assertion that the EU had banned the Union flag on UK food products, with certain parties insisting that it was a thing that had definitely happened. When copious evidence was produced that this was in fact bollocks, as is their wont these parties slunk off. Pretty sure they will still devoutly believe it's a fact, untrammelled by any inconvenient proof.
Indeed. Much sloppy myth formed over many decades eventually rolling up into a great big eurobogey. It should have been picked and flicked on a regular basis but never was. Hence June 2016. I know it's too easy to call something that has happened "inevitable" but perhaps it was.
(Thought you'd appreciate some sophisticated imagery on this matter.)
It's so odd, because one thing that the Tories used to really understand, and where they had a good case to make, was how this kind of annoying paperwork - "red tape" - has a deadening effect on economic activity. And yet they are presiding over the biggest explosion in costly paperwork in decades, all in the name of "free trade". It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
It becomes painfully obvious that Brexit was never about free trade, but Xenophobia.
Adding Red tape for immigrants was always the point.
For skilled immigrants, like my wife, the red tape just got a whole load easier.
Treating everyone the same, on their own merits, no matter where in the world they come from, is the exact opposite of xenophobia.
What rubbish. Irish citizens living in the U.K. are now in a far better position than British citizens. So are other EU citizens but the Irish trump even them because they have the automatic right to live in Britain.
Irish citizens are an exception for well-known historic reasons. It’s certainly not rubbish that my wife and I can now choose to live in my country, having being forced to live abroad for the five years of our marriage to date.
It's rubbish to attribute that to the EU or Brexit.
On the contrary, it’s entirely due to Brexit, and the ending of a two-tier system of immigration which treated EU and non-EU passport holders very differently. The new system is merit-based, rather than nationality-based, and my wife overwhelmingly qualifies for the new system when she didn’t under the old one.
As I understand it Britain had the right to treat non-EU citizens as favourably as it wanted long before Brexit. If so your complaint is with various British governments not with the EU.
True. We could also have changed the benefits system to mitigate "comin' over ere" sentiment. Plus countless other things. In fact there was little of great import other than political extremism of left and right that was in practice prohibited by EU membership. It comes down to brain chemistry in the end imo. Some people, for whatever reason, felt oppressed by Berlin and Brussels as they went about their daily business. I find it odd but don't doubt the sincerity.
There was definitely a reverse Pangloss thing going on, a need to believe the worst regardless of the facts, stoutly aided by the tabloids.
I remember a discussion on here of the assertion that the EU had banned the Union flag on UK food products, with certain parties insisting that it was a thing that had definitely happened. When copious evidence was produced that this was in fact bollocks, as is their wont these parties slunk off. Pretty sure they will still devoutly believe it's a fact, untrammelled by any inconvenient proof.
Indeed. Much sloppy myth formed over many decades eventually rolling up into a great big eurobogey. It should have been picked & flicked on a regular basis but it never was. Hence June 2016. I know it's too easy to call something that has happened "inevitable" but perhaps it was.
(Thought you'd appreciate some sophisticated imagery on this matter.)
We're seeing one such myth evolve in real time her on PB - that the SNP were responsible for Heath's sellout of the fishermen.
Those poor bankers. No one ever looks out for them.
It's a question of the tax base, not the bankers.
Yes, yes. We heard it all during the financial crisis. Unless we dance to Goldman's tune we will have to scrap the welfare state and all live in impoverished squalour.
No, it's nothing like that at all.
What is it like? Do tell. Somehow the financiers that manage to get away with rigging the rules to get Greece into the Eurozone, institute rolling blackouts in California for price gouging, and laundering money for Mexican cartels aren't going to find a way round limits here?
A great predictions piece to kick things off. A few people have already made many of my points: 1. Violence in America. They are not going to transition to the Biden Presidency without a whole load of blood. 2. The Brexit Betrayal. Never mind "remoaners" it will be leavers making the loudest noises. They were sold a magic bullet and as we go through the actual treaty and start implementing the thing it will make Osborne's Omnishambles budget look like a flawless piece of economics 3. The Ulster conundrum. On one hand Norniron has just become hot property, a one foot in each camp territory that should be able to do very very well in this decade. The conundrum is how the DUP handle this divergence. Its economically and socially Good for their electorate. But is clearly no longer a part of the main UK which they have always said is Bad for their electorate... 4. The Scottish Play. Combine the effects of points 2 and 3 and the push for independence will be something that even the truculent form of General HYUFD cannot stop. The SNP will win the 2021 election and win big - hell I might vote for them just to kick this off. At which point the fun begins... 5. I fear for party politics in England. The Brexit Betrayal will lead to people looking for other solutions. The Good News for both batshit elements of Labour and Tory Parties is that they will get an audience. The bad news for everyone else is that it will make our increasingly polarised politics increasingly polarised.
4 Had we gone to No Deal then the SNP would likely have won big, now we have a Deal I think most Scots will shrug their shoulders and move on, the 55% who voted No in particular will not take kindly to Sturgeon still pushing for indyref2 and Unionist tactical voting could well deny her a majority. At which point she will face a May 2017 style humiliation and the SNP will collapse into civil war between the Salmond and Sturgeon factions.
Even if the SNP did win a majority Boris would refuse a legal indyref2 and Unionists would boycott any illegal indyref making it irrelevant
Of that 55% who voted no, a good quarter must be voting Yes in recent polls.
And you are as usual completly forgetting that the deal we have is an atrocious one which will even piss off the fishing communities in the Tory seats as well as many of the professionals in the cushier suburbs. That's two of your favourite Union voter communities. And that's before we see how the export through Dover actually works out. That's the fisherfolk and farming vote at huge risk from your point of view.
Irrespective of your scrabbling, there is the serious point that we have all in Scotland been waiting to see what happens, and even now Brexit is still not happening yet. There are far too many open ends yet.
All recent polls were taken with the presumption of No Deal so are now out of date.
So I think it will be a Deal most Scots can live with including professionals in the suburbs.
As for fishing communities they will welcome the fact they will get more of their own catch, certainly that will be better for them than the contemptible attitude of you and your fellow nationalists in having the audacity to criticise this deal when you would have kept Scotland firmly within the CFP
Your party sold out the Scottish fishermen and has been trying to blame everyone else since. You are utterly shameless.
And that poll is fouir years and more old.
No, the SNP sold out Scottish fishermen by keeping Scotland in the CFP, hence fishing seats like Banff and Buchan the SNP have held for decades went Tory at the 2017 and 2019 general elections.
That poll remains valid now, show me one poll most Scots oppose a Canada style trade deal?
You are showing amazing ignorance, or mendacity, I won't speculate which, in your astonishing belief that the Scottish Governments were ever given power to renegotiate the various agreements with the EU.
See - you are trying to blame everyone else for your party's selling out the fishermen. As they have done yet again, on which the fishermen are very clear.
As for the poll, given how the background has changed and how public sentiment has changed over the last 4 years, it's about as useful as a Which article on the relative merits of an Austin Maxi and a Ford Cortina would be for the average buyer today. ,
You can insult me as much as your little Nat head wants, it does not change the fact the SNP were and are committed to keeping Scotland in the CFP and selling out Scottish fishermen.
As for that poll, I see you still have not found any evidence to contradict it, nor a single poll that shows Scots oppose a Canada style FTA
I didn't insult you - simply drew the clear two inferences from your repeated inaccuracy, to be very polite, on the fact that your party sold out the fishermen, which I pointed out yesterday. In fact, you can't claim ignorance, come to think of it, so ...
And you don't have a poll more recent than 4 years and a bit ago? That to me tells me your argument is utterly worthless.
I showed you a poll showing most Scots are happy with a Canada style FTA, you still have not managed to produce a single poll to refute that
You haven't produced one to even confirm your assertion. It's up to you to provide credible and timely evidence.
I produced a poll showing most Scots are happy with a Canada style FTA, you have not produced a single poll to refute that as there is not one. This is a great Deal for Scotland
Your poll is useless. You need to produce one that took place within the last few days (in fairness, that's going to be true for almost every political issue now).
Labour could oppose the Deal & argue we should go back in. Perfectly viable. After all, 48 per cent wanted to Remain and the polling suggests that this may have moved in Remain's favour since the Referendum. If Labour can get most of that 48 per cent, they will win the next General.
However, this means that Labour have to become more & more the party of affluent, middle class, urban, professionals. Labour would have to take some of the Home Counties & South-Eastern seats that voted Remain -- because they would be saying goodbye to many of the Red Wall seats. It would mean a transformation for Labour, they would have finally broken with some of their historic roots & traditional seats.
Alternatively, Labour can accept the Deal & argue the issue is now settled. This seems less viable to me. It certainly gives them a reasonable chance of recovering some of the Red Wall seats. And in fact, realistically, the Remainers have nowhere else to go in most constituencies. However, whilst Labour voters were split more evenly, Labour MPs and party members were largely pro-EU, so it is quite hard to see this being popular or working long term. It also leaves Labour with a big, big problem in Scotland, because the Remainer voters in Scotland DO have somewhere else to go.
Labour's problems in retaining its coalition of voters are beginning to look insuperable to me. Without recovering some of their former Scottish citadels, I can't see Labour winning a General at all. And I can't see them recovering in Scotland if they back the Deal.
So, I think SKS has called this wrong.
The problem with that is you are suggesting that Labour stops being Labour. And becomes the LibDems, basically.
That might be logical strategy, but given the historical and cultural aspects of the Labour party... that simply won't happen.
I think it is interesting to ask what SKS should do. He has made the easier choice in the short term & decided to back the bill.
Longer term ... I dunno. Labour have a curious alliance of voters who are moving further & further apart.
I am far from being a PR-maniac, but I think Labour must be close to being better off with PR. Without their Scottish seats, it is hard to see FPTP working in Labour's favour anymore.
By contrast, FPTP works very nicely for the SNP and the Tories at the moment.
No, reports on this suggest that it's a matter of avoiding paying several times the rate we do now for something that the UK could quite easily organise itself on a bilateral basis with states of its choosing at a fraction of the cost.
Or maybe it was just a negotiation and the EU overplayed its hand on Erasmus by charging too much. I know Remainiacs can't ever consider the possibility of the EU ever placing a foot wrong, but there we are.
The EU has been cunning on the fisheries deal, it seems, by maximising species in its quota for which the only market is the European Union. Even if the UK repatriated that quota, it wouldn't be able to sell it, while also losing its most important market for other species.
There is a reason why fishermen are unhappy. It's not a particularly good deal for them, overall.
And you conclude that from the Institute of Government's Fishing release?
That fishermen are unhappy with the deal? This is a bland statement from the Scottish Fishermen's Federation but it doesn't seem to be happy ?
I'm not surprised that the industry isn't happy it didn't get everything it wanted. But that was never going to happen, was it?
I agree with that. Expectations were unrealistic. I was expecting the EU to give up about a third of its quota - a meaningful amount for the UK while keeping things mostly the same for the EU. It worked out like that.
For 5.5 years, not the 14 they had originally asked for. In the end both sides compromised, and after the transition period the negotiations are like for other costal states.
The EU has set up the arrangement so there are significant costs to repatriating further quota. Hard to say what will happen in five years, I think. Also the cost/benefit applies differently within the fishing community. Only part of it benefits from additional quota; everyone suffers from extra barriers and cost to business, but to different degrees. If you are catching fresh seafood, Brexit has the potential to be very damaging to your business with no quotas but possible border delays.
It will be interesting to see whether the UK diverges further or partially converges with the EU. It is an unbalanced deal that acts much more in the EU than UK interest, which might lead to the UK wanting to end it; on the other hand it promises potential improvement, at a cost. Business in general is not particularly happy with the what it is finding out about the deal. It will apply pressure on UK government to improve it.
I am guessing there will be both divergence and reconvergence.
Yes the Deal is a great Deal for UK manufacturers who get no tariffs on goods sent to the EU and the chance of new trade deals around the world, a great Deal for Leave voters especially those in the Red Wall as it ends free movement and ECJ jurisdiction, a good deal for fishermen too who will get to keep more of their catch.
It is only a bad Deal for the city of London and financial services but then they mainly voted Remain anyway and the Brexit vote was partly to shift power from London more to the rest of the country anyway.
There is no sign whatsoever so far that the deal will be great for British manafacturers. What they will have to look forward to in the new year is simply new paperwork and barriers to trade, and slowed down supply chains.
New opportunities in the medium to long-term future might cancel some of this out, but that's a long way off.
If theyre that worried about supply chains they should on shore more.
Labour could oppose the Deal & argue we should go back in. Perfectly viable. After all, 48 per cent wanted to Remain and the polling suggests that this may have moved in Remain's favour since the Referendum. If Labour can get most of that 48 per cent, they will win the next General.
However, this means that Labour have to become more & more the party of affluent, middle class, urban, professionals. Labour would have to take some of the Home Counties & South-Eastern seats that voted Remain -- because they would be saying goodbye to many of the Red Wall seats. It would mean a transformation for Labour, they would have finally broken with some of their historic roots & traditional seats.
Alternatively, Labour can accept the Deal & argue the issue is now settled. This seems less viable to me. It certainly gives them a reasonable chance of recovering some of the Red Wall seats. And in fact, realistically, the Remainers have nowhere else to go in most constituencies. However, whilst Labour voters were split more evenly, Labour MPs and party members were largely pro-EU, so it is quite hard to see this being popular or working long term. It also leaves Labour with a big, big problem in Scotland, because the Remainer voters in Scotland DO have somewhere else to go.
Labour's problems in retaining its coalition of voters are beginning to look insuperable to me. Without recovering some of their former Scottish citadels, I can't see Labour winning a General at all. And I can't see them recovering in Scotland if they back the Deal.
So, I think SKS has called this wrong.
The problem with that is you are suggesting that Labour stops being Labour. And becomes the LibDems, basically.
That might be logical strategy, but given the historical and cultural aspects of the Labour party... that simply won't happen.
I think it is interesting to ask what SKS should do. He has made the easier choice in the short term & decided to back the bill.
Longer term ... I dunno. Labour have a curious alliance of voters who are moving further & further apart.
I am far from being a PR-maniac, but I think Labour must be close to being better off with PR. Without their Scottish seats, it is hard to see FPTP working in Labour's favour anymore.
By contrast, FPTP works very nicely for the SNP and the Tories at the moment.
Labour could oppose the Deal & argue we should go back in. Perfectly viable. After all, 48 per cent wanted to Remain and the polling suggests that this may have moved in Remain's favour since the Referendum. If Labour can get most of that 48 per cent, they will win the next General.
However, this means that Labour have to become more & more the party of affluent, middle class, urban, professionals. Labour would have to take some of the Home Counties & South-Eastern seats that voted Remain -- because they would be saying goodbye to many of the Red Wall seats. It would mean a transformation for Labour, they would have finally broken with some of their historic roots & traditional seats.
Alternatively, Labour can accept the Deal & argue the issue is now settled. This seems less viable to me. It certainly gives them a reasonable chance of recovering some of the Red Wall seats. And in fact, realistically, the Remainers have nowhere else to go in most constituencies. However, whilst Labour voters were split more evenly, Labour MPs and party members were largely pro-EU, so it is quite hard to see this being popular or working long term. It also leaves Labour with a big, big problem in Scotland, because the Remainer voters in Scotland DO have somewhere else to go.
Labour's problems in retaining its coalition of voters are beginning to look insuperable to me. Without recovering some of their former Scottish citadels, I can't see Labour winning a General at all. And I can't see them recovering in Scotland if they back the Deal.
So, I think SKS has called this wrong.
Most Home Counties diehard Remainers would go LD not Labour, there are far more Labour targets in the Red Wall than the South.
Labour can still form a government with SNP confidence and supply even without winning back its Scottish seats
And be forced to have an element preferable to Scotland in every piece of English legislation they pass? That would make for a more unstable government than we saw from 2017 to 2019.
You're forgetting about EVEL (which was the SNP policy anyway, unless there is a Barnett consequential or some moral issue, like banning sacrifice of the firstborn). If it was English legislation they would abstain. If it was UKk wide legislation that would be different.
Those poor bankers. No one ever looks out for them.
It's a question of the tax base, not the bankers.
Yes, yes. We heard it all during the financial crisis. Unless we dance to Goldman's tune we will have to scrap the welfare state and all live in impoverished squalour.
No, it's nothing like that at all.
What is it like? Do tell. Somehow the financiers that manage to get away with rigging the rules to get Greece into the Eurozone, institute rolling blackouts in California for price gouging, and laundering money for Mexican cartels aren't going to find a way round limits here?
There's no law of nature that says that these evil people have to congregate in London to perform their nefarious schemes.
Those poor bankers. No one ever looks out for them.
It's a question of the tax base, not the bankers.
Yes, yes. We heard it all during the financial crisis. Unless we dance to Goldman's tune we will have to scrap the welfare state and all live in impoverished squalour.
Your use of "Goldman" there ( as opposed to, say, "JP Morgan", "Citibank", "HSBC" or "Credit Suisse") is a bit if a "tell" , isn't it?
Those poor bankers. No one ever looks out for them.
It's a question of the tax base, not the bankers.
Yes, yes. We heard it all during the financial crisis. Unless we dance to Goldman's tune we will have to scrap the welfare state and all live in impoverished squalour.
Your use of "Goldman" there ( as opposed to, say, "JP Morgan", "Citibank", "HSBC" or "Credit Suisse") is a bit if a "tell" , isn't it?
We seem to be stuck at the stage where remainers are furiously agreeing with each other that the deal actually means we'll be back in the EU in a few years.
Think I'm going to take a break and be back when everyone finally accepts brexit is done, the dea is done and there's no going back. Hopefully that will be the case by the new year.
See you then guys, have a good new year.
5 likes (so far), yet I have not seen a single post saying we will be back in the EU in a few years! And I am an addicted reader.....most curious why you and others are getting this impression.
Plenty of posts saying its worse than before, or not as good as sold, which are fairly predictable takes on all this if one started from a remain position. Nothing to get worked up about, just as nothing surprising most leavers are happy with it at the moment.
If there is a big shift in opinion to come, on "good or bad deal?" I doubt it will occur in 2021.
Some Scottish predictions. The SNP will win almost all the FPTP seats in May, enough for an overall majority, and around 50% of the vote. The Scottish electorate are impressed with SNP government performance, especially concerning COVID, and will support them. Not everyone in North East Scotland is a fisherman. Some electors grow seed potatoes. The SNP will win very few regional seats. The media will concentrate extensively on the Salmond argument in the weeks leading up to the election. The top places on the regional lists will be allocated to wokes. (The ordinary membership no longer have a significant say in who is on the list.) Many SNP activists will vote for their constituency MSP, but will abstain on the list, or vote for another party. The ISP and SSP may pick up the odd seat. The Greens will increase their numbers. Nicola Sturgeon will ask Boris Johnson for a referendum. Boris will refuse. Nicola will be hesitant to press the matter. There will not be a referendum. There will be a power struggle within the SNP, which Nicola will lose, having lost the support of the media. Fairliered will be very sad, as he has been fighting for Independence for nearly 50 years, and he’s getting on a bit. HYUFD will be arrested at Gretna under the SNP Hate Crime Bill.
It would be silly to pretend that the deal will be welcomed by ticker tape parades (metaphorical) here in Scotland. However, it would also be silly of indy supporters to pretend that Brexit will ever again be as bountiful a source of grievance for them as it has been in the period between referendum outcome and negotiation outcome. It has not been neutralised but it's certainly been neutered.
Without the EU in the picture, and with the prospect of a new indyref some way off, the ball is in the court of the UK Government to show it has a compelling vision worth sticking around for.
Yes the Deal is a great Deal for UK manufacturers who get no tariffs on goods sent to the EU and the chance of new trade deals around the world, a great Deal for Leave voters especially those in the Red Wall as it ends free movement and ECJ jurisdiction, a good deal for fishermen too who will get to keep more of their catch.
It is only a bad Deal for the city of London and financial services but then they mainly voted Remain anyway and the Brexit vote was partly to shift power from London more to the rest of the country anyway.
There is no sign whatsoever so far that the deal will be great for British manafacturers. What they will have to look forward to in the new year is simply new paperwork and barriers to trade, and slowed down supply chains.
New opportunities in the medium to long-term future might cancel some of this out, but that's a long way off.
I have never understood how losing one customer gains a replacement.
Some Scottish predictions. The SNP will win almost all the FPTP seats in May, enough for an overall majority, and around 50% of the vote. The Scottish electorate are impressed with SNP government performance, especially concerning COVID, and will support them. Not everyone in North East Scotland is a fisherman. Some electors grow seed potatoes. The SNP will win very few regional seats. The media will concentrate extensively on the Salmond argument in the weeks leading up to the election. The top places on the regional lists will be allocated to wokes. (The ordinary membership no longer have a significant say in who is on the list.) Many SNP activists will vote for their constituency MSP, but will abstain on the list, or vote for another party. The ISP and SSP may pick up the odd seat. The Greens will increase their numbers. Nicola Sturgeon will ask Boris Johnson for a referendum. Boris will refuse. Nicola will be hesitant to press the matter. There will not be a referendum. There will be a power struggle within the SNP, which Nicola will lose, having lost the support of the media. Fairliered will be very sad, as he has been fighting for Independence for nearly 50 years, and he’s getting on a bit. HYUFD will be arrested at Gretna under the SNP Hate Crime Bill.
Comments
Complicated - despite what most nats would have us believe
Brexit has allowed a reset in the immigration requirements, such that I look forward to relocating back to the U.K. with my wife in the near future.
Brexit has made winning the Indy ref easier.
The practical fallout of both is still in the future (just)
Plenty of scope for argument and legal interpretation. The claim that with one bound we will be free, as claimed by the PM, is simply untrue.
So vaccinating everyone with Pfizer/Moderna or some other vaccination of similar effectiveness is better. But we don't have enough, and won't have until late 2021 even if we now order massive amounts. And if we wait for that, thousands of deaths will result. From the health viewpoint, therefore, the optimal is to give Pfizer/Moderna to all the higher risk categoiries till it runs out, then give Oxford to everyone else, then reorder Pfizer with 100 million this time, and re-inoculate everyone in a year's time, which also copes with any weakening of the vaccines after a year.
Expensive, but probably better than just dishing out Oxford and expecting things to return to normal.
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1343189556041043971?s=20
However we were told only a couple of weeks ago that 'No deal would be wonderful for Britain' and 'allow us to do exactly what we want', so the benchmark for brainless, dishonest optimism has been set pretty high.
That would be even with the CDU/CSU still the largest party in the Bundestag
Of course the Norns will be continuing with their plans for fishy academe
Oh, wait...
https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1343193388875722752
The arrival of vaccines is great news. But if we are slow at actually giving the vaccines, it will be a very long time before any sort of normality is resumed.
This will, already, reduce deaths - could be a 5% reduction.
Since over 80s were 54% of deaths in the outbreak overall, and assuming that vaccination take up is high, we could see virtual elimination of deaths in that category by mid February.
This is at the current rate of progress - no new vaccines required.
Not BJ of course.
Oxford should be riding to the rescue at the turn of the year. If we're not somewhere North of a million a week by the back end of January, that would be the point at which to start clucking.
https://www.these-islands.co.uk/publications/i363/focus_groups_report.aspx
The bit that stands out for me is some members of the group believing that because Scotland had "the Scottish pound" they had their own currency.
Reading that - the perception seems to be the SNP have been masters at spinning about some of the real practilities and challenges of indy.
However, this means that Labour have to become more & more the party of affluent, middle class, urban, professionals. Labour would have to take some of the Home Counties & South-Eastern seats that voted Remain -- because they would be saying goodbye to many of the Red Wall seats. It would mean a transformation for Labour, they would have finally broken with some of their historic roots & traditional seats.
Alternatively, Labour can accept the Deal & argue the issue is now settled. This seems less viable to me. It certainly gives them a reasonable chance of recovering some of the Red Wall seats. And in fact, realistically, the Remainers have nowhere else to go in most constituencies. However, whilst Labour voters were split more evenly, Labour MPs and party members were largely pro-EU, so it is quite hard to see this being popular or working long term. It also leaves Labour with a big, big problem in Scotland, because the Remainer voters in Scotland DO have somewhere else to go.
Labour's problems in retaining its coalition of voters are beginning to look insuperable to me. Without recovering some of their former Scottish citadels, I can't see Labour winning a General at all. And I can't see them recovering in Scotland if they back the Deal.
So, I think SKS has called this wrong.
They are revelling in it...
Reporting will be weekly - https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare
Looks like the next data point will be Tuesday (29th) for the week ending today.
The England data all went into the second week (14-12th and included the data from the previous partial week), so make a judgement of rate will require the next week of data.
In addition, the GP/care home distribution is still expanding.
For the lowest possible rate - the data is that over 600,000 first jabs were done in the first 12 days. So the rate has to be more than 50,000 a day. Informally, it has been stated that it reached 75,000 per day by 24th Dec.
About 70% of the jabs are going to the over 80s.
I remember a discussion on here of the assertion that the EU had banned the Union flag on UK food products, with certain parties insisting that it was a thing that had definitely happened. When copious evidence was produced that this was in fact bollocks, as is their wont these parties slunk off. Pretty sure they will still devoutly believe it's a fact, untrammelled by any inconvenient proof.
It is only a bad Deal for the city of London and financial services but then they mainly voted Remain and the Brexit vote was partly to shift power from London more to the rest of the country anyway.
The great mass of the people has heard more than enough about Europe and has other, more pressing concerns to trouble it.
Labour can still form a government with SNP confidence and supply even without winning back its Scottish seats
New opportunities in the medium to long-term future might cancel some of this out, but that's a long way off.
It'll be the notoriously pro indy Scottish media that'll have been doing the spinning about the 'practilitities' of indy no doubt.
Since the initiation of the Erasmus programme in 1987, intra-European student exchanges in higher education are expected to promote a sense of European identity and citizenship among European exchange students.......Altogether, these findings suggest the impact of European exchange programmes on European citizenship and a sense of European identity is relatively limited.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13511610.2018.1495064#
That might be logical strategy, but given the historical and cultural aspects of the Labour party... that simply won't happen.
The only problem is that Labour will then be forced to cut off the branch on which they are sitting on.
JLR's European supply chains are not helped by this.
(Thought you'd appreciate some sophisticated imagery on this matter.)
https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1343201291959468034?s=20
Longer term ... I dunno. Labour have a curious alliance of voters who are moving further & further apart.
I am far from being a PR-maniac, but I think Labour must be close to being better off with PR. Without their Scottish seats, it is hard to see FPTP working in Labour's favour anymore.
By contrast, FPTP works very nicely for the SNP and the Tories at the moment.
It will be interesting to see whether the UK diverges further or partially converges with the EU. It is an unbalanced deal that acts much more in the EU than UK interest, which might lead to the UK wanting to end it; on the other hand it promises potential improvement, at a cost. Business in general is not particularly happy with the what it is finding out about the deal. It will apply pressure on UK government to improve it.
I am guessing there will be both divergence and reconvergence.
https://twitter.com/ShippersUnbound/status/1343200961322430464
BoZo's "political victory" is so complete that the headbangers can still derail it any moment...
Slooooow hand clap
https://twitter.com/Frances_Coppola/status/1343203771229343744?s=20
Plenty of posts saying its worse than before, or not as good as sold, which are fairly predictable takes on all this if one started from a remain position. Nothing to get worked up about, just as nothing surprising most leavers are happy with it at the moment.
If there is a big shift in opinion to come, on "good or bad deal?" I doubt it will occur in 2021.
The SNP will win almost all the FPTP seats in May, enough for an overall majority, and around 50% of the vote. The Scottish electorate are impressed with SNP government performance, especially concerning COVID, and will support them. Not everyone in North East Scotland is a fisherman. Some electors grow seed potatoes.
The SNP will win very few regional seats. The media will concentrate extensively on the Salmond argument in the weeks leading up to the election. The top places on the regional lists will be allocated to wokes. (The ordinary membership no longer have a significant say in who is on the list.) Many SNP activists will vote for their constituency MSP, but will abstain on the list, or vote for another party. The ISP and SSP may pick up the odd seat. The Greens will increase their numbers.
Nicola Sturgeon will ask Boris Johnson for a referendum. Boris will refuse. Nicola will be hesitant to press the matter. There will not be a referendum. There will be a power struggle within the SNP, which Nicola will lose, having lost the support of the media.
Fairliered will be very sad, as he has been fighting for Independence for nearly 50 years, and he’s getting on a bit.
HYUFD will be arrested at Gretna under the SNP Hate Crime Bill.
Without the EU in the picture, and with the prospect of a new indyref some way off, the ball is in the court of the UK Government to show it has a compelling vision worth sticking around for.