Categories
Scots missed. The Parliamentary dynamics of Scottish independence – politicalbetting.com
Scots missed. The Parliamentary dynamics of Scottish independence – politicalbetting.com
The Big Bang Theory has run more than a few seasons past its peak, but one of its more striking moments was Sheldon’s and Amy’s game Counterfactuals. One player had to build a question on a premise and then other players had to come up with, then defend, their answer. For example: “In a world where rhinoceroses are domesticated pets, who wins the Second World War?”
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Unlike Alastair's covid piece this time last year, this one will not age well. There is so much speculation and the final paragraph contains a fatal flaw. Stating that the English think Sturgeon has handled the pandemic best (which is no longer true) is not the same as saying she is a popular choice amongst English voters in politics at large. That's a non sequitur.
I fear this piece is wish-casting.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/14/europe/europe-crises-intl-analysis/index.html
The only hope I think here is for Ben Stokes to go into one-day mode. An all-out assault on the spin bowlers in an attempt to carve out fast runs. It's what Rohit and Pant did so brilliantly: attack as the best form of defence on a pitch like this.
The whole thing was just political theatre, the Dems should have known they’d struggle to tie Trump directly to the Capitol tilts, in the eyes of sufficient numbers of Republican Senators.
As you say, they should have just ignored it and left a very split GOP.
Prediction that this will unite Republicans are, IMO, likely to be as accurate as the forecasts that impeachment would bog down Senate business for many weeks.
Let me give you an example.
A while back Nigel Farage got involved in a kerfuffle about a restaurant that wasn't keen on people breastfeeding. And I said I agreed with Nigel: it should be the choice of the restaurant whether it allowed breastfeeding or not, just as certain bars say No to under 21s or require gentlemen to wear ties.
Ultimately, someone's restaurant (or website), someone's rules.
That cuts two ways, of course. I can say 'no' to breastfeeding in my establishment. And I can say 'no' to people who - ohhh... - believe that the earth is flat. Or who don't believe in gay rights. Or whatever.
My establishment. My rules.
I should not, and cannot, be forced to serve someone I don't like. If I don't like their views, and don't want to serve them, that's my prerogative.
This cuts both ways. If someone owns a bar and says they don't want to serve John T Jones because they don't serve people who think homosexuality should be legal, that's fine by me. (As in, I think that's dumb and stupid, and I reserve the right to stand outside your bar with a placard. But it's your bar and your rules. You choose who you serve.)
Free speech is not consequence free speech.
I allow you to say what you like. But the converse of that is that I should be allowed to serve who I like.
Whilst that window is quite narrow, it’s also quite possible to happen.
In reality, I don’t think there would be any problems. Labour would pivot to wanting to appear tough on Scotland (a bit like the French interior minister v Le Pen). Scotland will be a lost cause and it will be all about rUK for them.
Just as there was unity in the EU over Brexit, the rUK will be United in giving Scotland the hardest of independence.
A bipartisan majority voted to convict; just not a supermajority.
And the minority leader admitted the only reason he didn’t was because he delayed impeachment until after Trump left office (though he constitutionally wrong on the idea that you can’t impeach someone when they’ve left office).
This is going to unite Republicans ? Or benefit them electorally ?
https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1360739330239696897
You silly sod.
Something along the lines of ‘Mitch McConnell is an American politician, coward, liar, traitor and hypocrite, who admits he supports consequence free attempts to overthrow the Constitution by his party.’
Though with the way England are batting ....
The bit that is working is that the drug companies (many of them around the world) found a vaccine that works, we got approval quickly and then our brilliant NHS staff are getting needles in arms.
Even if we could ignore the grotesque chaos and London to Bristol line of dead bodies (which any decent person cannot), the notion that Shagger was personally responsible for the development of the vaccine round the world or our regulator signing it off or the NHS which was left on the brink of disaster by his actions and inactions now getting jabs in arms is preposterous.
He has slaughtered tens of thousands who need not have died. He was brought businesses and people to ruin by excluding whole sectors from the support needed. He has actively interfered with the experts trying to keep this under control.
And you think *that* is doing the best job? Madness.
Interesting to speculate how this match would have gone had England won the toss.
I do think parties led by Starmer, Davey and Sturgeon would manage a hung Parliament better than the last hung Parliament.
I’m in favour of the oft-mooted proposal to give the choice to the visiting captain rather than have a toss - that might focus the minds of the home team, to have the groundsmen prepare something more balanced.
This obviously would be much less power than Scottish MPs would have. After all, Parliament can remove a Prime Minister at any moment it chooses.
But if there’s more to it than that, feel free to enlighten me.
Only February and yet we already have the 2021 Hyperbole Champion.
Faced with secession movements in both Scotland and NI - with undoubtedly the Welsh saying "don't forget us" and some English regions (bloody Yorkshire as the first on the list) complaining too about their lot, the obvious move is a national government.
The only option the UK has to keep things together is to take a blank piece of paper, ask what people want, then craft a new constitution that allows for it. Don't forget that the Tories want to scrap an entire tier of (mainly Tory) local government, which will cause ruptions in English shires as well.
Final point - all of the parties are lost without a cause. The Tories stopped being Conservative and Unionists and became the Brexit Party. Now that is done* they have literally nothing to say on anything else. Labour have lost their connection with the middle ground, and the muscle memory of people instinctively voting labour because we vote Labour will only see them continue to decline. The LibDems haven't recovered from the 2015 election and like the Tories became the antiBrexit party and no longer have anything much to say now its done. So a 2024 election isn't remotely clear even in England as who will vote for what and why is up in the air...
It seems to be making things more shambolic and expensive, not less.
We could have SNP ministers ‘negotiating’ on the UK side.
A good UK government will have learned from the EU, and have a two-stage process - with debt, currency and border the only three subjects for discussion in the first phase.
"Oh the PM isn't responsible". Bullshit. Which is why our death rate is so outrageously high. On pretty much every major decision last year he fucked it. Send them back to care homes to kill the population. Eat out to do nothing for hospitality but help keep the pox circulating. Send schools back, no transmission at all there. a multiplicity of tier systems that collapse under their own contradictions and get immediately dropped. Refusing the circuit break saying that "the scientists advise, we decide. Telling people to go on holiday with that twatty Ester McVey green screen promo video. Saying "Covid doesn't transmit at Christmas, 5 days of festivities" and then "we have reluctantly cancelled this, we always follow the science"
You want me to go on? Oh yes - the border. Wide open, not even so much as the locator forms checked.
That's a shocking idea.
Channel 4 commentator thinks its unlikely that India would enforce the follow on.
Also, having negotiated the break-up of the UK in advance, it should really require the whole of the UK to then vote on it.
All culture war, all the time.
Pujara is not fit to field.
Rumours of a broken finger. Which would rule him out of the rest of the series.
What I actually wrote is that simply because Sturgeon was viewed as having handled it best, which is no longer the case (viz. vaccination), does not mean she is liked or trusted on wider political issues south of the border. She is greatly feared.
The Conservatives under Boris have a HUGE cause, and probably the biggest since WWII. It's re-casting the UK, free from the EU, in an international and global way. A country of freedoms and international trade. It may not quite emulate Singapore in the west, but that's not too far wide of the mark. This aspect of the laissez-faire is much more Boris.
I know you don't like it. I don't much either. But that doesn't mean you have a right to pretend it doesn't exist.
Can anyone seriously think that the Capitol riot would have happened if Trump had not arranged that rally for that date, time and place and addressed it in the way he did.
1. The SNP seems to be on the verge of tearing itself apart with a reducing probability of Nicola still being leader at the time of the next General Election.
2. Anas Sarwar looks to have a good chance of becoming a reasonably impressive leader of the Labour Party in Scotland.
3. Scotland is much less likely to vote for independence with a Labour Government in Westminster.
4. By the time of any referendum we may well still be in very choppy economic waters with the fiscal horrors and realities of independence ever more apparent.
All in all a relatively cheery prospect for opponents of Scottish independence.
The next election will be an exercise in competitive flag waving, as well as complaints about "cancel culture" by people who are never off our screens.
Personally, I would quite like at least one party that takes government debt and deficit seriously, but can't see that happening.
For Labour, it’s rather more.
For the Tories it’s rapidly becoming the bloody lot.
For the SNP, we’re there already.
Zama’s a bitch from that point of view.
I'm convinced Boris is doing the same. Coming out of this pandemic on the back of a stunning vaccination rollout I'm convinced he'll win a landslide.
You don't need massive policy grandstanding. Most people are happy enough with an ebullient figure making them feel better. Tony Blair did it. Boris likewise.
Boris made terrible mistakes early on and Sturgeon was relatively assured. But these days Sturgeon is looking a lot less impressive, whilst Boris has really started to get his act together. We're broadly getting the policies right now and all of it overshadowed by a stunning vaccination rollout, for which Boris will take a lot of the credit, even if many others should share the plaudits.
Mr. Doethur, good start?
Hannibal scored multiple epic victories over Roman armies and then marauded around Italy for a decade without suffering a single defeat.
His being on the losing side was due to the fact that, unlike Alexander or Caesar, he wasn't also supreme political leader and he wasn't sent sufficient reinforcements. That, coupled with Rome's invincible combination of pathological patriotism and rock solid constitutional foundation.
This is why the Second Punic War is so worthy of study. It has fantastic battles, logistical challenges, and political lessons. Whether interested in only military matters or how to make a state robust, there's a lot to learn.
I think that WW2 wouldn't have happened. If ever there was a boy who needed an affectionate pet, it was young Adolf. I imagine that he would have had an obscure and quiet provincial life as a post office official, notable only for winning prizes for his Tyrolean Mountain Rhinos at Crufts.
*Truss
Ashwin rapidly replacing Stuart Broad and Shane Watson as the most over-optimistic reviewer in world cricket.
There's something deeper though. WWII brought people together. Really bound the nation as one, breaking all social bonds. Officers and ranks fought, and sometimes died, side by side. People worked alongside one another in the common effort, huddling in air raid shelters. The Royal Army Education Corps worked tirelessly to sew socialism into the hearts and minds of people.
I don't think this pandemic has unified in the same way. If anything people are more fractured and isolated than at any time in their lives. And yet the Conservatives have led the world (pretty much) in lighting a beacon to lead us out of it. We have vaccinated 15 million people already and we're well on course to returning to a semblance of normality by the summer, certainly the autumn.
Whatever the true mechanics of this, people will undoubtedly associate Brexit with the stunning UK vaccine rollout. Contrast that with the scandal in the EU (CNN's word this morning) and I can't see anything other than a crushing Boris Johnson victory next time around.
It's not my kind of politics. It's not my kind of country and I may well emigrate. But I think the writing's on the wall.
He was stomping around Italy for more than twice as long as World War Two lasted, and the best anyone managed was a score draw against him. That's incredible from a logistical, strategic, and tactical perspective.
I only know a bit about Rommel, and he does sound an impressive leader, but the scale of difference is immense.
There are strengths and weaknesses and the UK is doing much better now but still not perfect. Apart from on vaccinations, which is simply stellar.
Moving Patel out would look racist. Or something. But frankly, the real reason is because no-one is brave enough to tell her she's gone..... Are you?
So aside from them not actually doing anything at all on "recasting the UK free from the EU" that is still Brexit. They have no domestic agenda other than denial of their own policy impacts. As with world trade, "levelling up" has no cash behind it and hasn't even promised to replace the EU cash the regions used to get.
I know you don't like it. I don't much either. But that doesn't mean you have a right to pretend things exist that don't. The rest of us can see stark naked Johnson's johnson no matter how much you pretend he is wearing a splendid new outfit.
A much bigger worry for Sturgeon just now is that she'd promised to reopen early school years in a week, with only weak caveating, which people didn't really hear. Yet the fall in cases in Scotland has pretty much stalled in the last few days.
So now she gets a choice between either upsetting parents who are desperate for a break from their wee darlings, or risking starting another wave that would quickly take Scotland to the top of the case rate table.
Make it Gavin Williamson, the nuttiest of the nutters, however...
Accordingly, it wouldn`t surprise me if we went all the way to 2024 with no reshuffle, or at least only very few changes.
It was at this juncture that one was able to guess the identity of the author without scrolling down to the end.
The real world consequence of this counterfactual is that it may well be much harder for the Conservatives to scare voters about the dangers of SNP influence at the next election than they presently seem to imagine.
If it does come down to the Government trying to use Scotland as a weapon against Labour, then sophisticated arguments about theoretical power balances in Parliament are unlikely to enter the conversation. The line will, once again, be about puppeteering of a weak Labour leader by the First Minister - and the subtext will be all about the Scottish Government helping itself to as much of the contents of the Treasury as it can haul off.
Besides, when we're talking about the voters being keen or otherwise on Nicola Sturgeon, we need to understand which voters exactly. It doesn't matter if she's regarded as the best thing since sliced bread in London. London scarcely matters anymore in the context of a General Election (and most of the South isn't in play either.) The marginal defences of both Labour and the Tories are disproportionately concentrated in the Red Wall and amongst its rubble. If "chippy English nationalism" really is in play here - and FWIW recent survey evidence would appear to suggest that the Tory membership at least contains very few "English nationalists" - then it might play rather better in Burnley than in Brent.
https://twitter.com/covid19nz/status/1360847726284402688?s=19