Which of those nasty words do you think he found most disagreeable?
Cheating, I know a few football referees and they are pretty ok with the abuse they receive, but it is the cheating one that annoys them the most.
I really don’t understand why players are not sent off for that kind of conduct. Should be straight red and three match ban (longer for repeat offenders).
Because clubs and fans would flip their shit if referees did that consisently, so they dare not. That they may be pretty ok with it is by the by, they shouldn't have to be ok with it in the first place.
Clubs and players won't stop doing it. Enforcement is not going to rise to stop it. So they must be made to stop. We can see it happening and that doesn't stop it, but people react viscerally to audio - broadcast the shouting, whining and swearing and perhaps something will happen.
It just sets the pattern, and is why you get touchline parents swearing at referees in front of their children. So many football fans, managers, players and commentators think that abusing referees is part and parcel of the game. The FA needs to make it clear that it’s unacceptable, and it would soon stop.
But they've said it isn't acceptable and it doesn't stop. Because they know they won't be backed up. You'd think the first time someone got a red for mouthing off managers would make sure no one repeated it, but I'm very confident the referee would be be pilloried for ruining the game instead.
I disagree. I think straight reds and suspensions would make it clear that when they say it’s unacceptable they mean it. The fact they don’t take any action is a pretty clear indication that they don’t find it unacceptable, regardless of what they say.
I have seen players get yellow carded for abusing the referee several times. That could be used more often.
It should happen a dozen times every game, and could lead to 3-4 red cards. Until it does, nothing will happen.
I’ve always wanted them to absolutely crack down at the start of the season and if it ends up with a lot of red cards, then so be it. They’ll learn eventually. Rugby is not perfect and many football fans hate the comparison but the way Farrell complained to the ref in the England vs wales match is instructive. What would the football team have been like in that situation?
Which of those nasty words do you think he found most disagreeable?
Cheating, I know a few football referees and they are pretty ok with the abuse they receive, but it is the cheating one that annoys them the most.
I really don’t understand why players are not sent off for that kind of conduct. Should be straight red and three match ban (longer for repeat offenders).
Because clubs and fans would flip their shit if referees did that consisently, so they dare not. That they may be pretty ok with it is by the by, they shouldn't have to be ok with it in the first place.
Clubs and players won't stop doing it. Enforcement is not going to rise to stop it. So they must be made to stop. We can see it happening and that doesn't stop it, but people react viscerally to audio - broadcast the shouting, whining and swearing and perhaps something will happen.
It just sets the pattern, and is why you get touchline parents swearing at referees in front of their children. So many football fans, managers, players and commentators think that abusing referees is part and parcel of the game. The FA needs to make it clear that it’s unacceptable, and it would soon stop.
But they've said it isn't acceptable and it doesn't stop. Because they know they won't be backed up. You'd think the first time someone got a red for mouthing off managers would make sure no one repeated it, but I'm very confident the referee would be be pilloried for ruining the game instead.
I disagree. I think straight reds and suspensions would make it clear that when they say it’s unacceptable they mean it. The fact they don’t take any action is a pretty clear indication that they don’t find it unacceptable, regardless of what they say.
I have seen players get yellow carded for abusing the referee several times. That could be used more often.
It should happen a dozen times every game, and could lead to 3-4 red cards. Until it does, nothing will happen.
Instigate a 10 minute sin bin, let the offending player take grief from his team mates who have to defend a man down due to his loud mouth. I speak from experience when I say that is most certainly the outcome in a rugby team.
Why is the British Green Party so moronic? They make me feel like jacking in my career and founding a single issue dedicated environmentalism party.
When May was PM, Labour was led by Corbyn and the Lib Dems were going down their Ignore Democracy rabbit hole, my prevailing feeling was a “plague on your houses”. At that point I’d have loved to be able to vote for a party that campaigned on a single issue of appropriate state intervention to cure the market failure of environmental damage and nudge the private sector in the right direction. But the Green Party are such morons, I didn’t vote at all.
Are the various European Green parties so batty?
You're not specific about what you dislike, but the British Greens are unusual in that they politically very close to Corbyn's agenda but culturally very different from Labour - their conference is distinctly counter-culture, which Corbyn and McDonnell really are not. Caroline Lucas is good at what she does, though, and punches well above her weight.
German Greens are close to power and have become strikingly centrist, to the point that coalition with the Christian Democrats is not an outlandish idea - they are anti-nuclear but then so are the CDU. French Greens have two choices, one left-wing and one centrist.
Received an email out of the blue today from the Time Party. Never heard of them. https://timeparty.uk/ Seem worthy if dull. Anyone cast any light on them?
It is too early to make an informed judgment but my first impression is they are too late to the party.
Their slogan "hour day will come" is quite catchy.
Which of those nasty words do you think he found most disagreeable?
Cheating, I know a few football referees and they are pretty ok with the abuse they receive, but it is the cheating one that annoys them the most.
I really don’t understand why players are not sent off for that kind of conduct. Should be straight red and three match ban (longer for repeat offenders).
Because clubs and fans would flip their shit if referees did that consisently, so they dare not. That they may be pretty ok with it is by the by, they shouldn't have to be ok with it in the first place.
Clubs and players won't stop doing it. Enforcement is not going to rise to stop it. So they must be made to stop. We can see it happening and that doesn't stop it, but people react viscerally to audio - broadcast the shouting, whining and swearing and perhaps something will happen.
It just sets the pattern, and is why you get touchline parents swearing at referees in front of their children. So many football fans, managers, players and commentators think that abusing referees is part and parcel of the game. The FA needs to make it clear that it’s unacceptable, and it would soon stop.
But they've said it isn't acceptable and it doesn't stop. Because they know they won't be backed up. You'd think the first time someone got a red for mouthing off managers would make sure no one repeated it, but I'm very confident the referee would be be pilloried for ruining the game instead.
I disagree. I think straight reds and suspensions would make it clear that when they say it’s unacceptable they mean it. The fact they don’t take any action is a pretty clear indication that they don’t find it unacceptable, regardless of what they say.
I have seen players get yellow carded for abusing the referee several times. That could be used more often.
It should happen a dozen times every game, and could lead to 3-4 red cards. Until it does, nothing will happen.
The referee should have a mic that links direct to the television studio for televised games, like in Rugby and Cricket. Any disrespect should be aired and get a red.
Received an email out of the blue today from the Time Party. Never heard of them. https://timeparty.uk/ Seem worthy if dull. Anyone cast any light on them?
It is too early to make an informed judgment but my first impression is they are too late to the party.
Their slogan "hour day will come" is quite catchy.
Does "Scotch" in "Scotch Corner" refer to the country, the people, the "water" OR the corner?
The country. It's the corner where you turn off if you're going to the Scotch country - i.e. Scotland. I assume it has had its name for ages, hence the archaic use of language. That said, I always thought it slightly odd; if you're heading north up the Great North Road, either of the two main routes from there will take you to Scotland. My Edinburghian granny deemed this obscurely important, for reasons I can't fathom now and don't think I could when she explained it to me.
If you assume there are only two main roads from England into Scotland (a couple more might qualify) Scotch corner is where you decide between them. Straight on for east route, left for west route. Look out for the camels a few miles on. (From a far north west England perspective it it the finest left turn in the entire country. Gallowgate may think differently.)
If you make the mistake of travelling M1/M6 for Scotland then you never get the choice, its the west route or nothing. But on a busy wet Friday you will be lucky if you get there at all. Plus, if you go that way you miss Blyth services and Travelodge in Nottinghamshire, a quaint spot, reminiscent of 15th century Florence.
Received an email out of the blue today from the Time Party. Never heard of them. https://timeparty.uk/ Seem worthy if dull. Anyone cast any light on them?
It is too early to make an informed judgment but my first impression is they are too late to the party.
Their slogan "hour day will come" is quite catchy.
Received an email out of the blue today from the Time Party. Never heard of them. https://timeparty.uk/ Seem worthy if dull. Anyone cast any light on them?
It is too early to make an informed judgment but my first impression is they are too late to the party.
Their slogan "hour day will come" is quite catchy.
Vaguely on topic. I very rarely comment on Scottish politics because it's several levels above my pay grade.
I'm going to be controversial - I don't think the SNP wants a second independence referendum. They may say they do, they may claim it's their entire modus vivendi but they have a lot to lose and to this observer little to gain from such a referendum.
The failure of the first referendum had the counter-intuitive effect of consolidating the SNP's voter core with the "Yes" vote. Indeed, what happened foreshadowed what happened after the 2016 Euro referendum - the binary nature of the referendum polarised viewpoints but whereas on one side there was only one party accommodating that side's supporters, the other had a plethora of choices and as we've seen that creates a dominant force with nearly half the vote on one side and a number of parties squabbling over the other half of the vote on the other.
The SNP dominates Scottish politics because it has a virtual monopoly on the supporters in one side of the argument while the other side has any number of larger and smaller groups fishing in half a pond.
This perpetuates SNP dominance at Holyrood and elsewhere so why change it? Johnson and Westminster are to the SNP what van der Leyen and the EU are to the Conservatives - someone to blame if things go wrong, someone to play the role of the boogeyman (or boogeyperson if you prefer).
All the SNP have to do is pretend they are champing at the bit for a vote safe in the knowledge they won't get one with Johnson and the Conservatives dominating in England. Indeed, the threat to the SNP is Labour doing well enough to break the Conservative majority as it will force the SNP to make a tough choice - let's say Starmer offers them a referendum as the price for supporting a minority Labour Government (by the way, it's not in Starmer's interests to do that nor for Sturgeon to accept it if offered, that's why a minority Labour Government backed by the SNP is going to last).
Parties rely on an unreachable objective to justify the continuing journey - conservatism, socialism, liberalism are all creeds which opine on a utopian society safe in the knowledge it will never happen. The SNP have a different problem - their end game (supposedly) is independence but if that were ever to be achieved, whither (or wither) the SNP?
This has been the case for a while, and you phrase it eloquently. But it cannot last. Salmond versus Sturgeon is a real, and venomous battle, but it is also a proxy for the wider war, between those who believe Scotland can and should push for some form of UDI - through the courts, and failing that a wildcat vote (the Salmondites) - and those, around Sturgeon, who believe this is nuts and a better time for a vote will come, perhaps after 2024, not least because UDI is suicidal
Sturgeon has just about kept these two sides in the same harness for the last few years. After the next elex (especially if she disappoints even slightly - eg fails to get a maj) this war will break out into the open, and when Boris says No the SNP could easily split.
The thought that the current state of affairs is a very cushty number may have occurred to some minds, but it can't really ever be voiced, let alone form party policy, even behind closed doors. It would leak.
Of course not but we aren't bound by that convention, are we?
I'll offer another observation - the last thing the LDs needed was the 2010 election result. It backed them into the worst possible corner - a Conservative or Labour majority is always infinitely better for the third party because it has two targets to aim at - the Government for being the Government and the Opposition for not being the Government.
2010 forced the LDs into a choice - Cameron knew that, Hague knew that and whether Clegg knew it or not, I don't know. In my view, and I can say this as I'm no longer a Party member, the LDs should have found a pretext to walk away from the negotiations on the Monday afternoon. They should have said no deal unless we get STV for all elections and the abolition of student fees knowing that would be wholly unacceptable to the Conservatives.
There'd have been a storm of protest but the party would have been able to say to its voter base it didn't compromise and would at the same time have shown Labour the price it would have to pay in the future for LD support. Opportunistic? Yes of course but that's how politics operates.
One thing bothers me about the reporting of the Everard case and the information the police has put out, namely, the sheer quantity of detail about the arrested man.
In cases like these the police are under a lot of pressure, understandably, to catch the perpetrator. This does not always lead to good investigations or sensible behaviour. See, for instance, the Rachel Nickell case and Colin Stagg. Or Chris Jeffries in the Bristol murder case. So I hope that the police know what they are doing in allowing all this information out. Because if they have got it wrong, they are going to be in a whole world of pain.
I should also clarify that when I was talking about women being more at risk (on the previous thread) I was referring to sexual violence and harassment. Women are more of risk at this and the overwhelming likelihood is that the perpetrators are male. I believe that a woman is more at risk of being murdered by someone she knows than by a complete stranger. But when it does happen it is appalling and plays to every woman's worst fears.
One of the interesting things about the Ripper documentary is that the police simply did not listen to the women who were attacked. Not listening to women is not something that only happened then. Every single woman I know, including myself, has suffered sexual violence, some of it of the very worst kind. And not just when we were young. Throughout our lives. And on top of that misogyny and belittlement and being treated in a way which is just not decent. I don't think men realise the extent of it. There is a tendency for those who do behave decently to assume that others are like them or that those who don't are the minority. And when confronted by it they find it hard to accept and often, without realising what they are doing, seek to minimise it or explain it away.
The stories I could tell you. Don't imagine for a moment that this is from a while ago. Until 3 years I regularly read the chats and emails which young men sent each other in the City: the level of hatred of and misogyny and contempt for women in those chats was shocking. These were young men, brought up long after the era of those Ripper detectives, but their thoughts about women and behaviour to them were frankly not much better. When senior management was confronted with this there was a lot of embarrassment but not much appetite for action. Indeed, sometimes I was seen as the nuisance for pointing out the harm such chats might do if they ever appeared publicly.
Until we all - and men in particular, including all the decent ones - take some serious action to address this we should not be surprised at the level of violence and harassment and abuse that occurs nor at the concern women feel about it.
< I'd say British was at least as popular a self-description as English amongst the English prior to 1997. (The two were probably used interchangeably, and if you were from Essex, say, those parts of Britain which were not England were so far away that the need to distinguish between the two rarely arose).
English has become a much more popular self-definition over the past 20-odd years. I put that partly down to devolution. It's instructive to look at old pictures of England football matches (80s and before). Very few St. George's Crosses in the crowd; lots of Union Flags.
The forthcoming Census may be informative - there are a growing number of people who see themselves only as British - not English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh.
That's a brave assertion.
At this point I would go back to the 2001 and 2011 results to see what's been happening in that regard so far this century, but I need to go and make dinner or else husband will waste away...
Husband has now been fed.
I went to look at the census data. 2001 had no identity question in England (which apparently caused ructions at the time since it was included in the rest of the country,) but by 2011 this had been rectified.
So, ten years ago, 60% of the English population responded as English only, 20% British only, 9% as English and British, and the remainder various other things. In Wales it's a remarkably similar split: 58% Welsh only, 17% British only and 7% as Welsh and British.
In Scotland, 62% said Scottish only, 18% Scottish and British and just 8% as British only, which concurs with the general opinion on which part of the UK is liable to fall off first.
If anything has happened since then other than the British figures nosediving everywhere then I'll be astonished.
The thought that the current state of affairs is a very cushty number may have occurred to some minds, but it can't really ever be voiced, let alone form party policy, even behind closed doors. It would leak.
Of course not but we aren't bound by that convention, are we?
I'll offer another observation - the last thing the LDs needed was the 2010 election result. It backed them into the worst possible corner - a Conservative or Labour majority is always infinitely better for the third party because it has two targets to aim at - the Government for being the Government and the Opposition for not being the Government.
2010 forced the LDs into a choice - Cameron knew that, Hague knew that and whether Clegg knew it or not, I don't know. In my view, and I can say this as I'm no longer a Party member, the LDs should have found a pretext to walk away from the negotiations on the Monday afternoon. They should have said no deal unless we get STV for all elections and the abolition of student fees knowing that would be wholly unacceptable to the Conservatives.
There'd have been a storm of protest but the party would have been able to say to its voter base it didn't compromise and would at the same time have shown Labour the price it would have to pay in the future for LD support. Opportunistic? Yes of course but that's how politics operates.
The mistake wasn’t going into coalition, or even failing to get more on constitutional reform. The mistake was voting for tuition fees.
That was even more crass as (1) they didn’t need to do it, as Cameron was willing to be flexible on voting (2) they had staked their credibility on them, losing it all in one go and (3) it was abundantly clear at the time and is only becoming clearer with hindsight that the Liberal Democrats were 100% correct to oppose the Browne report - let us not forget, a man who was very fortunate not to be in prison - which has created a totally unsuitable and unsustainable system of HE funding that suits only a few vice chancellors.
Had they opposed or better still blocked tuition fees, they would have lost seats but no way would they have imploded as they did.
Is Salmond versus Sturgeon (or visa versa if you prefer) what happens, when two big fish are swimming together in too small a pond?
Bizarrely yes. Both would have thrived in a wider UK context.
Salmond could easily have been a senior centre right Tory or leading Lib Dem, perhaps even a centrist Tory PM.
Sturgeon would have led Labour better than anyone since Brown.
It is the great fortune of the Nats that they had two such capable and plausible leaders in a row, I don't think Scotch Nationalism would be much more than a fringe issue if Salmond hadn't brought it to the centre of the Scottish stage, followed by Sturgeon who kept it there
But now she weakens and he is too tainted. It is a critical moment for the movement, and this time there is no obvious successor
Vaguely on topic. I very rarely comment on Scottish politics because it's several levels above my pay grade.
I'm going to be controversial - I don't think the SNP wants a second independence referendum. They may say they do, they may claim it's their entire modus vivendi but they have a lot to lose and to this observer little to gain from such a referendum.
The failure of the first referendum had the counter-intuitive effect of consolidating the SNP's voter core with the "Yes" vote. Indeed, what happened foreshadowed what happened after the 2016 Euro referendum - the binary nature of the referendum polarised viewpoints but whereas on one side there was only one party accommodating that side's supporters, the other had a plethora of choices and as we've seen that creates a dominant force with nearly half the vote on one side and a number of parties squabbling over the other half of the vote on the other.
The SNP dominates Scottish politics because it has a virtual monopoly on the supporters in one side of the argument while the other side has any number of larger and smaller groups fishing in half a pond.
This perpetuates SNP dominance at Holyrood and elsewhere so why change it? Johnson and Westminster are to the SNP what van der Leyen and the EU are to the Conservatives - someone to blame if things go wrong, someone to play the role of the boogeyman (or boogeyperson if you prefer).
All the SNP have to do is pretend they are champing at the bit for a vote safe in the knowledge they won't get one with Johnson and the Conservatives dominating in England. Indeed, the threat to the SNP is Labour doing well enough to break the Conservative majority as it will force the SNP to make a tough choice - let's say Starmer offers them a referendum as the price for supporting a minority Labour Government (by the way, it's not in Starmer's interests to do that nor for Sturgeon to accept it if offered, that's why a minority Labour Government backed by the SNP is going to last).
Parties rely on an unreachable objective to justify the continuing journey - conservatism, socialism, liberalism are all creeds which opine on a utopian society safe in the knowledge it will never happen. The SNP have a different problem - their end game (supposedly) is independence but if that were ever to be achieved, whither (or wither) the SNP?
This has been the case for a while, and you phrase it eloquently. But it cannot last. Salmond versus Sturgeon is a real, and venomous battle, but it is also a proxy for the wider war, between those who believe Scotland can and should push for some form of UDI - through the courts, and failing that a wildcat vote (the Salmondites) - and those, around Sturgeon, who believe this is nuts and a better time for a vote will come, perhaps after 2024, not least because UDI is suicidal
Sturgeon has just about kept these two sides in the same harness for the last few years. After the next elex (especially if she disappoints even slightly - eg fails to get a maj) this war will break out into the open, and when Boris says No the SNP could easily split.
Much truth in this from stodge. At the moment Scotland is massively oversupplied in political career opportunity, with everything replicated in Edinburgh and London, its politicians have a great deal of power and very little responsibility, it is hugely subsidised and has a banker of last resort in 11 Downing Street. It is able, for example, to use UK cash to give Scots free tuition fees while charging full rate to English students and it raises almost no political steam in England.
They must be tempted to carry on with the show as it is.
Vaguely on topic. I very rarely comment on Scottish politics because it's several levels above my pay grade.
I'm going to be controversial - I don't think the SNP wants a second independence referendum. They may say they do, they may claim it's their entire modus vivendi but they have a lot to lose and to this observer little to gain from such a referendum.
The failure of the first referendum had the counter-intuitive effect of consolidating the SNP's voter core with the "Yes" vote. Indeed, what happened foreshadowed what happened after the 2016 Euro referendum - the binary nature of the referendum polarised viewpoints but whereas on one side there was only one party accommodating that side's supporters, the other had a plethora of choices and as we've seen that creates a dominant force with nearly half the vote on one side and a number of parties squabbling over the other half of the vote on the other.
The SNP dominates Scottish politics because it has a virtual monopoly on the supporters in one side of the argument while the other side has any number of larger and smaller groups fishing in half a pond.
This perpetuates SNP dominance at Holyrood and elsewhere so why change it? Johnson and Westminster are to the SNP what van der Leyen and the EU are to the Conservatives - someone to blame if things go wrong, someone to play the role of the boogeyman (or boogeyperson if you prefer).
All the SNP have to do is pretend they are champing at the bit for a vote safe in the knowledge they won't get one with Johnson and the Conservatives dominating in England. Indeed, the threat to the SNP is Labour doing well enough to break the Conservative majority as it will force the SNP to make a tough choice - let's say Starmer offers them a referendum as the price for supporting a minority Labour Government (by the way, it's not in Starmer's interests to do that nor for Sturgeon to accept it if offered, that's why a minority Labour Government backed by the SNP is going to last).
Parties rely on an unreachable objective to justify the continuing journey - conservatism, socialism, liberalism are all creeds which opine on a utopian society safe in the knowledge it will never happen. The SNP have a different problem - their end game (supposedly) is independence but if that were ever to be achieved, whither (or wither) the SNP?
I think you're probably on the money. The other aspect to it is it's arguably a lose-lose game for them if they actually get another referendum. If they don't win it then the leader(s) will be for the chop, and a third referendum genuinely will be a generation away, and a lot of the indy vote will move to another indy party out of frustration. On the other hand, if they do win it, once the goal was achieved the party would ultimately break up - perhaps not immediately, but ultimately it would - and which *party* wants to voluntarily break itself up? Some individuals may be preparing and indeed hoping for the day when that happens, but not sure the machinery of any one party is ever intentionally gearing itself up to render itself moot at some point in the future.
There's an argument that says the SNP will be quite happy with being by far largest party but just shy of outright majority for the very reason you say. Get to do pretty much what they want within the context of devolution, probably with an effective majority with the support of the Greens anyway, without the need to truly press the case for indyref2 (despite the fact that for all intents and purposes an SNP+Green majority shouldn't really make any difference to an outright SNP majority).
On the flipside, the schism that's wide open in the indy blogosphere now suggests sheer status quo is not going to keep the SNP in this advantageous hegemony indefinitely. They might get through this election and be very successful (although perhaps not quite as successful as was looking just a few weeks ago), but if something doesn't change then the subsequent Holyrood election is probably going to have a very different feel.
Why is the British Green Party so moronic? They make me feel like jacking in my career and founding a single issue dedicated environmentalism party.
When May was PM, Labour was led by Corbyn and the Lib Dems were going down their Ignore Democracy rabbit hole, my prevailing feeling was a “plague on your houses”. At that point I’d have loved to be able to vote for a party that campaigned on a single issue of appropriate state intervention to cure the market failure of environmental damage and nudge the private sector in the right direction. But the Green Party are such morons, I didn’t vote at all.
Are the various European Green parties so batty?
You're not specific about what you dislike, but the British Greens are unusual in that they politically very close to Corbyn's agenda but culturally very different from Labour - their conference is distinctly counter-culture, which Corbyn and McDonnell really are not. Caroline Lucas is good at what she does, though, and punches well above her weight.
German Greens are close to power and have become strikingly centrist, to the point that coalition with the Christian Democrats is not an outlandish idea - they are anti-nuclear but then so are the CDU. French Greens have two choices, one left-wing and one centrist.
Can you talk me through how the Greens are counter-cultural and Corbyn/McDonnell aren't please?
The thought that the current state of affairs is a very cushty number may have occurred to some minds, but it can't really ever be voiced, let alone form party policy, even behind closed doors. It would leak.
Of course not but we aren't bound by that convention, are we?
I'll offer another observation - the last thing the LDs needed was the 2010 election result. It backed them into the worst possible corner - a Conservative or Labour majority is always infinitely better for the third party because it has two targets to aim at - the Government for being the Government and the Opposition for not being the Government.
2010 forced the LDs into a choice - Cameron knew that, Hague knew that and whether Clegg knew it or not, I don't know. In my view, and I can say this as I'm no longer a Party member, the LDs should have found a pretext to walk away from the negotiations on the Monday afternoon. They should have said no deal unless we get STV for all elections and the abolition of student fees knowing that would be wholly unacceptable to the Conservatives.
There'd have been a storm of protest but the party would have been able to say to its voter base it didn't compromise and would at the same time have shown Labour the price it would have to pay in the future for LD support. Opportunistic? Yes of course but that's how politics operates.
The mistake wasn’t going into coalition, or even failing to get more on constitutional reform. The mistake was voting for tuition fees.
That was even more crass as (1) they didn’t need to do it, as Cameron was willing to be flexible on voting (2) they had staked their credibility on them, losing it all in one go and (3) it was abundantly clear at the time and is only becoming clearer with hindsight that the Liberal Democrats were 100% correct to oppose the Browne report - let us not forget, a man who was very fortunate not to be in prison - which has created a totally unsuitable and unsustainable system of HE funding that suits only a few vice chancellors.
Had they opposed or better still blocked tuition fees, they would have lost seats but no way would they have imploded as they did.
They made the mistake of thinking their voters understood the meaning of coalition and compromise.
SO do any intrepid PBers have prognostications re: this weekend's elections in Baden-Württemberg und Rheinland-Pfalz?
(Must say that for some strange reason, every time I see "pfalz" yours truly always thinks "fart" instead of "palatinate".)
Looking at the latest polls - in Baden-Wurttemburg, the numbers haven't moved much in the last 5 years - the Greens and the FDP up a bit, the CDU, SPD and AfD down a little but only by 2-3% in all cases. Kretschmann is very popular and will stay on and I imagine the coalition with the CDU will remain in place,
In Rheinland-Pfalz the SPD won 36-32 last time but the latest INSA poll has them level 30-30 with the CDU. At one point the CDU was well ahead but recently the gap has closed considerably. The Greens are up from 5% to 12% which would be a good result for them. AfD down a little but the FDP just doing enough to get back in to the Landtag.
The CDU leader in Rheinland-Pfalz, Julia Klockner, serves as the Agriculture and Food Minister in the Federal Government and was at one time thought a possible successor to Merkel (along with so many others).
The State has an SPD-Green-FDP Coalition running it and that grouping should keep its majority comfortably.
< I'd say British was at least as popular a self-description as English amongst the English prior to 1997. (The two were probably used interchangeably, and if you were from Essex, say, those parts of Britain which were not England were so far away that the need to distinguish between the two rarely arose).
English has become a much more popular self-definition over the past 20-odd years. I put that partly down to devolution. It's instructive to look at old pictures of England football matches (80s and before). Very few St. George's Crosses in the crowd; lots of Union Flags.
The forthcoming Census may be informative - there are a growing number of people who see themselves only as British - not English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh.
That's a brave assertion.
At this point I would go back to the 2001 and 2011 results to see what's been happening in that regard so far this century, but I need to go and make dinner or else husband will waste away...
Husband has now been fed.
I went to look at the census data. 2001 had no identity question in England (which apparently caused ructions at the time since it was included in the rest of the country,) but by 2011 this had been rectified.
So, ten years ago, 60% of the English population responded as English only, 20% British only, 9% as English and British, and the remainder various other things. In Wales it's a remarkably similar split: 58% Welsh only, 17% British only and 7% as Welsh and British.
In Scotland, 62% said Scottish only, 18% Scottish and British and just 8% as British only, which concurs with the general opinion on which part of the UK is liable to fall off first.
If anything has happened since then other than the British figures nosediving everywhere then I'll be astonished.
I'll be filling out English and British this year.
< I'd say British was at least as popular a self-description as English amongst the English prior to 1997. (The two were probably used interchangeably, and if you were from Essex, say, those parts of Britain which were not England were so far away that the need to distinguish between the two rarely arose).
English has become a much more popular self-definition over the past 20-odd years. I put that partly down to devolution. It's instructive to look at old pictures of England football matches (80s and before). Very few St. George's Crosses in the crowd; lots of Union Flags.
The forthcoming Census may be informative - there are a growing number of people who see themselves only as British - not English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh.
That's a brave assertion.
At this point I would go back to the 2001 and 2011 results to see what's been happening in that regard so far this century, but I need to go and make dinner or else husband will waste away...
Husband has now been fed.
I went to look at the census data. 2001 had no identity question in England (which apparently caused ructions at the time since it was included in the rest of the country,) but by 2011 this had been rectified.
So, ten years ago, 60% of the English population responded as English only, 20% British only, 9% as English and British, and the remainder various other things. In Wales it's a remarkably similar split: 58% Welsh only, 17% British only and 7% as Welsh and British.
In Scotland, 62% said Scottish only, 18% Scottish and British and just 8% as British only, which concurs with the general opinion on which part of the UK is liable to fall off first.
If anything has happened since then other than the British figures nosediving everywhere then I'll be astonished.
I'll be filling out English and British this year.
Is that a change from last time?
I'll be filling in English only. I'm guessing that's the same but I honestly didn't pay enough attention to remember.
The thought that the current state of affairs is a very cushty number may have occurred to some minds, but it can't really ever be voiced, let alone form party policy, even behind closed doors. It would leak.
Of course not but we aren't bound by that convention, are we?
I'll offer another observation - the last thing the LDs needed was the 2010 election result. It backed them into the worst possible corner - a Conservative or Labour majority is always infinitely better for the third party because it has two targets to aim at - the Government for being the Government and the Opposition for not being the Government.
2010 forced the LDs into a choice - Cameron knew that, Hague knew that and whether Clegg knew it or not, I don't know. In my view, and I can say this as I'm no longer a Party member, the LDs should have found a pretext to walk away from the negotiations on the Monday afternoon. They should have said no deal unless we get STV for all elections and the abolition of student fees knowing that would be wholly unacceptable to the Conservatives.
There'd have been a storm of protest but the party would have been able to say to its voter base it didn't compromise and would at the same time have shown Labour the price it would have to pay in the future for LD support. Opportunistic? Yes of course but that's how politics operates.
The mistake wasn’t going into coalition, or even failing to get more on constitutional reform. The mistake was voting for tuition fees.
That was even more crass as (1) they didn’t need to do it, as Cameron was willing to be flexible on voting (2) they had staked their credibility on them, losing it all in one go and (3) it was abundantly clear at the time and is only becoming clearer with hindsight that the Liberal Democrats were 100% correct to oppose the Browne report - let us not forget, a man who was very fortunate not to be in prison - which has created a totally unsuitable and unsustainable system of HE funding that suits only a few vice chancellors.
Had they opposed or better still blocked tuition fees, they would have lost seats but no way would they have imploded as they did.
They made the mistake of thinking their voters understood the meaning of coalition and compromise.
Tuition fees wasn’t a compromise, it was a surrender, and on completely the wrong issue.
Is Salmond versus Sturgeon (or visa versa if you prefer) what happens, when two big fish are swimming together in too small a pond?
Bizarrely yes. Both would have thrived in a wider UK context.
Salmond could easily have been a senior centre right Tory or leading Lib Dem, perhaps even a centrist Tory PM.
Sturgeon would have led Labour better than anyone since Brown.
It is the great fortune of the Nats that they had two such capable and plausible leaders in a row, I don't think Scotch Nationalism would be much more than a fringe issue if Salmond hadn't brought it to the centre of the Scottish stage, followed by Sturgeon who kept it there
But now she weakens and he is too tainted. It is a critical moment for the movement, and this time there is no obvious successor
The baton needs to pass to a new generation, but I think Sturgeon will survive this, albeit damaged. Being refused a legal referendum will suit her for the present too. The best chance of getting the Yes vote back up is being denied a referendum by the English, while a bit of time fades memories of the recent Salmond furore.
I have never met an American who thinks that the Scots are English. Americans are fully aware of Scotland as a country, indeed many of them are or wish to be Scottish.
What I have found is that many Americans aren’t aware that Scotland is part of Britain.
I have never met an American who thinks that the Scots are English. Americans are fully aware of Scotland as a country, indeed many of them are or wish to be Scottish.
What I have found is that many Americans aren’t aware that Scotland is part of Britain.
I have, however, met Americans who think that the English regard Scotland as part of England.
Much truth in this from stodge. At the moment Scotland is massively oversupplied in political career opportunity, with everything replicated in Edinburgh and London, its politicians have a great deal of power and very little responsibility, it is hugely subsidised and has a banker of last resort in 11 Downing Street. It is able, for example, to use UK cash to give Scots free tuition fees while charging full rate to English students and it raises almost no political steam in England.
They must be tempted to carry on with the show as it is.
Thank you for the kind word, my friend.
Oddly enough, the other political post this brings to mind is Mayor of London. All profile and image but very little real power and authority. None of the incumbents, past or present (or I suspect future) has done anything truly significant or radical to change the lives of Londoners because they are constrained by the lack of power in the office. It's a sinecure for the aspiring or the inspiring or the (almost) expiring.
SO do any intrepid PBers have prognostications re: this weekend's elections in Baden-Württemberg und Rheinland-Pfalz?
(Must say that for some strange reason, every time I see "pfalz" yours truly always thinks "fart" instead of "palatinate".)
Looking at the latest polls - in Baden-Wurttemburg, the numbers haven't moved much in the last 5 years - the Greens and the FDP up a bit, the CDU, SPD and AfD down a little but only by 2-3% in all cases. Kretschmann is very popular and will stay on and I imagine the coalition with the CDU will remain in place,
In Rheinland-Pfalz the SPD won 36-32 last time but the latest INSA poll has them level 30-30 with the CDU. At one point the CDU was well ahead but recently the gap has closed considerably. The Greens are up from 5% to 12% which would be a good result for them. AfD down a little but the FDP just doing enough to get back in to the Landtag.
The CDU leader in Rheinland-Pfalz, Julia Klockner, serves as the Agriculture and Food Minister in the Federal Government and was at one time thought a possible successor to Merkel (along with so many others).
The State has an SPD-Green-FDP Coalition running it and that grouping should keep its majority comfortably.
Sort of linked to your comment, In the last 39 years, the BDR has had just three leaders.
An astonishing record of stability particularly when you consider how many dramatic changes there have been in that time - the country, the currency, the capital...
And yet I wonder if it represents stability or ossification.
I have never met an American who thinks that the Scots are English. Americans are fully aware of Scotland as a country, indeed many of them are or wish to be Scottish.
What I have found is that many Americans aren’t aware that Scotland is part of Britain.
I have never met an American who thinks that the Scots are English. Americans are fully aware of Scotland as a country, indeed many of them are or wish to be Scottish.
What I have found is that many Americans aren’t aware that Scotland is part of Britain.
I have, however, met Americans who think that the English regard Scotland as part of England.
The evidence on this site suggests some of them do!!
All I can say about the Met is that they have a terrible reputation amongst all the other police forces.
Some of that will be rivalry/resentment/jealously, sure, the Met gets all the attention and, often, an unfair chunk of the glory too but a lot is substantial too. For example, in this case they don't understand why he was named before he was charged, where all these details are coming from (leaks?), why he was walking around with a firearm if there were mental health issues with him, why his colleagues didn't say anything and nor do they know how he just got a head injury.
They are consistently one of the worse performing forces and their reputation is woeful.
Unfortunately, I suspect worse news is still to come out about them.
Why is the British Green Party so moronic? They make me feel like jacking in my career and founding a single issue dedicated environmentalism party.
When May was PM, Labour was led by Corbyn and the Lib Dems were going down their Ignore Democracy rabbit hole, my prevailing feeling was a “plague on your houses”. At that point I’d have loved to be able to vote for a party that campaigned on a single issue of appropriate state intervention to cure the market failure of environmental damage and nudge the private sector in the right direction. But the Green Party are such morons, I didn’t vote at all.
Are the various European Green parties so batty?
You're not specific about what you dislike, but the British Greens are unusual in that they politically very close to Corbyn's agenda but culturally very different from Labour - their conference is distinctly counter-culture, which Corbyn and McDonnell really are not. Caroline Lucas is good at what she does, though, and punches well above her weight.
German Greens are close to power and have become strikingly centrist, to the point that coalition with the Christian Democrats is not an outlandish idea - they are anti-nuclear but then so are the CDU. French Greens have two choices, one left-wing and one centrist.
Can you talk me through how the Greens are counter-cultural and Corbyn/McDonnell aren't please?
Corbyn and McDonnell are fairly conventional old left.
The Greens have a more millennial vibe of counter culture, perhaps best shown in their refusal to have a single leader, and those having little executive power. The contrast is that the Greens are more anarcho-syndicalist than communist, mistrustful of all power structures.
I assumed this was a random MEP. It appears to be the Commissioner for the Internal Market. I know we’ve all said it lots of times since January but have they gone bonkers? No strategic thinking. None.
< I'd say British was at least as popular a self-description as English amongst the English prior to 1997. (The two were probably used interchangeably, and if you were from Essex, say, those parts of Britain which were not England were so far away that the need to distinguish between the two rarely arose).
English has become a much more popular self-definition over the past 20-odd years. I put that partly down to devolution. It's instructive to look at old pictures of England football matches (80s and before). Very few St. George's Crosses in the crowd; lots of Union Flags.
The forthcoming Census may be informative - there are a growing number of people who see themselves only as British - not English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh.
That's a brave assertion.
At this point I would go back to the 2001 and 2011 results to see what's been happening in that regard so far this century, but I need to go and make dinner or else husband will waste away...
Husband has now been fed.
I went to look at the census data. 2001 had no identity question in England (which apparently caused ructions at the time since it was included in the rest of the country,) but by 2011 this had been rectified.
So, ten years ago, 60% of the English population responded as English only, 20% British only, 9% as English and British, and the remainder various other things. In Wales it's a remarkably similar split: 58% Welsh only, 17% British only and 7% as Welsh and British.
In Scotland, 62% said Scottish only, 18% Scottish and British and just 8% as British only, which concurs with the general opinion on which part of the UK is liable to fall off first.
If anything has happened since then other than the British figures nosediving everywhere then I'll be astonished.
I'll be filling out English and British this year.
Is that a change from last time?
I'll be filling in English only. I'm guessing that's the same but I honestly didn't pay enough attention to remember.
Nope. I've been filling in the same since adulthood.
My identity doesn't change.
They could have asked Leaver or Remainer on this one though, for shits and giggles 😉
The thought that the current state of affairs is a very cushty number may have occurred to some minds, but it can't really ever be voiced, let alone form party policy, even behind closed doors. It would leak.
Of course not but we aren't bound by that convention, are we?
I'll offer another observation - the last thing the LDs needed was the 2010 election result. It backed them into the worst possible corner - a Conservative or Labour majority is always infinitely better for the third party because it has two targets to aim at - the Government for being the Government and the Opposition for not being the Government.
2010 forced the LDs into a choice - Cameron knew that, Hague knew that and whether Clegg knew it or not, I don't know. In my view, and I can say this as I'm no longer a Party member, the LDs should have found a pretext to walk away from the negotiations on the Monday afternoon. They should have said no deal unless we get STV for all elections and the abolition of student fees knowing that would be wholly unacceptable to the Conservatives.
There'd have been a storm of protest but the party would have been able to say to its voter base it didn't compromise and would at the same time have shown Labour the price it would have to pay in the future for LD support. Opportunistic? Yes of course but that's how politics operates.
The mistake wasn’t going into coalition, or even failing to get more on constitutional reform. The mistake was voting for tuition fees.
That was even more crass as (1) they didn’t need to do it, as Cameron was willing to be flexible on voting (2) they had staked their credibility on them, losing it all in one go and (3) it was abundantly clear at the time and is only becoming clearer with hindsight that the Liberal Democrats were 100% correct to oppose the Browne report - let us not forget, a man who was very fortunate not to be in prison - which has created a totally unsuitable and unsustainable system of HE funding that suits only a few vice chancellors.
Had they opposed or better still blocked tuition fees, they would have lost seats but no way would they have imploded as they did.
They made the mistake of thinking their voters understood the meaning of coalition and compromise.
That's how it struck me. It was a shock to me to realise that so many LD members rejected a coalition when one of their flagship policies has long been PR, which requires coalitions.
On top of that it seems LD members don't like being viewed as Labour's lapdogs but don't want to contemplate sharing power with anyone else.
< I'd say British was at least as popular a self-description as English amongst the English prior to 1997. (The two were probably used interchangeably, and if you were from Essex, say, those parts of Britain which were not England were so far away that the need to distinguish between the two rarely arose).
English has become a much more popular self-definition over the past 20-odd years. I put that partly down to devolution. It's instructive to look at old pictures of England football matches (80s and before). Very few St. George's Crosses in the crowd; lots of Union Flags.
The forthcoming Census may be informative - there are a growing number of people who see themselves only as British - not English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh.
That's a brave assertion.
At this point I would go back to the 2001 and 2011 results to see what's been happening in that regard so far this century, but I need to go and make dinner or else husband will waste away...
Husband has now been fed.
I went to look at the census data. 2001 had no identity question in England (which apparently caused ructions at the time since it was included in the rest of the country,) but by 2011 this had been rectified.
So, ten years ago, 60% of the English population responded as English only, 20% British only, 9% as English and British, and the remainder various other things. In Wales it's a remarkably similar split: 58% Welsh only, 17% British only and 7% as Welsh and British.
In Scotland, 62% said Scottish only, 18% Scottish and British and just 8% as British only, which concurs with the general opinion on which part of the UK is liable to fall off first.
If anything has happened since then other than the British figures nosediving everywhere then I'll be astonished.
I'll be filling out English and British this year.
Did the census tonight!
All three in my house filled out English and British. I must admit I didn’t think too much about it. What else were we supposed to put?
I have never met an American who thinks that the Scots are English. Americans are fully aware of Scotland as a country, indeed many of them are or wish to be Scottish.
What I have found is that many Americans aren’t aware that Scotland is part of Britain.
OK. My experience isn't the same.
OF COURSE we Americans know the difference between the various "British" nations!
I mean, Stewie on "Family Guy" talks with an English accent, while Willy on "The Simpsons" is Scots or Scottish or whatever.
AND Mo is obviously Welsh, right? Believe he has the traditional, authentic Ebbw Vale accent?
All I can say about the Met is that they have a terrible reputation amongst all the other police forces.
Some of that will be rivalry/resentment/jealously, sure, the Met gets all the attention and, often, an unfair chunk of the glory too but a lot is substantial too. For example, in this case they don't understand why he was named before he was charged, where all these details are coming from (leaks?), why he was walking around with a firearm if there were mental health issues with him, why his colleagues didn't say anything and nor do they know how he just got a head injury.
They are consistently one of the worse performing forces and their reputation is woeful.
Unfortunately, I suspect worse news is still to come out about them.
I think that the Police have revealed details in order that other victims can come forward. Obviously not murder ones, but other victims of sexual offences.
There may also be a desire to be open, so not accused of covering up one of their own.
Why is the British Green Party so moronic? They make me feel like jacking in my career and founding a single issue dedicated environmentalism party.
When May was PM, Labour was led by Corbyn and the Lib Dems were going down their Ignore Democracy rabbit hole, my prevailing feeling was a “plague on your houses”. At that point I’d have loved to be able to vote for a party that campaigned on a single issue of appropriate state intervention to cure the market failure of environmental damage and nudge the private sector in the right direction. But the Green Party are such morons, I didn’t vote at all.
Are the various European Green parties so batty?
You're not specific about what you dislike, but the British Greens are unusual in that they politically very close to Corbyn's agenda but culturally very different from Labour - their conference is distinctly counter-culture, which Corbyn and McDonnell really are not. Caroline Lucas is good at what she does, though, and punches well above her weight.
German Greens are close to power and have become strikingly centrist, to the point that coalition with the Christian Democrats is not an outlandish idea - they are anti-nuclear but then so are the CDU. French Greens have two choices, one left-wing and one centrist.
Can you talk me through how the Greens are counter-cultural and Corbyn/McDonnell aren't please?
Corbyn and McDonnell are fairly conventional old left.
The Greens have a more millennial vibe of counter culture, perhaps best shown in their refusal to have a single leader, and those having little executive power. The contrast is that the Greens are more anarcho-syndicalist than communist, mistrustful of all power structures.
Two cheeks of the same arse, if you ask me: they both love unions, identity politics, culture war and want to dismantle militarism/capitalism/imperialism/Western democracy etc. And they both like mung beans.
The fact that one would prefer anarchy and a regression to the stone age, and the other communism and a regression to the Stalinist age, doesn't cut much ice in differentiation for me.
< I'd say British was at least as popular a self-description as English amongst the English prior to 1997. (The two were probably used interchangeably, and if you were from Essex, say, those parts of Britain which were not England were so far away that the need to distinguish between the two rarely arose).
English has become a much more popular self-definition over the past 20-odd years. I put that partly down to devolution. It's instructive to look at old pictures of England football matches (80s and before). Very few St. George's Crosses in the crowd; lots of Union Flags.
The forthcoming Census may be informative - there are a growing number of people who see themselves only as British - not English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh.
That's a brave assertion.
At this point I would go back to the 2001 and 2011 results to see what's been happening in that regard so far this century, but I need to go and make dinner or else husband will waste away...
Husband has now been fed.
I went to look at the census data. 2001 had no identity question in England (which apparently caused ructions at the time since it was included in the rest of the country,) but by 2011 this had been rectified.
So, ten years ago, 60% of the English population responded as English only, 20% British only, 9% as English and British, and the remainder various other things. In Wales it's a remarkably similar split: 58% Welsh only, 17% British only and 7% as Welsh and British.
In Scotland, 62% said Scottish only, 18% Scottish and British and just 8% as British only, which concurs with the general opinion on which part of the UK is liable to fall off first.
If anything has happened since then other than the British figures nosediving everywhere then I'll be astonished.
I'll be filling out English and British this year.
Did the census tonight!
All three in my house filled out English and British. I must admit I didn’t think too much about it. What else were we supposed to put?
When and how did you get the instructions? I’ve had nothing yet.
< I'd say British was at least as popular a self-description as English amongst the English prior to 1997. (The two were probably used interchangeably, and if you were from Essex, say, those parts of Britain which were not England were so far away that the need to distinguish between the two rarely arose).
English has become a much more popular self-definition over the past 20-odd years. I put that partly down to devolution. It's instructive to look at old pictures of England football matches (80s and before). Very few St. George's Crosses in the crowd; lots of Union Flags.
The forthcoming Census may be informative - there are a growing number of people who see themselves only as British - not English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh.
That's a brave assertion.
At this point I would go back to the 2001 and 2011 results to see what's been happening in that regard so far this century, but I need to go and make dinner or else husband will waste away...
Husband has now been fed.
I went to look at the census data. 2001 had no identity question in England (which apparently caused ructions at the time since it was included in the rest of the country,) but by 2011 this had been rectified.
So, ten years ago, 60% of the English population responded as English only, 20% British only, 9% as English and British, and the remainder various other things. In Wales it's a remarkably similar split: 58% Welsh only, 17% British only and 7% as Welsh and British.
In Scotland, 62% said Scottish only, 18% Scottish and British and just 8% as British only, which concurs with the general opinion on which part of the UK is liable to fall off first.
If anything has happened since then other than the British figures nosediving everywhere then I'll be astonished.
I'll be filling out English and British this year.
Did the census tonight!
All three in my house filled out English and British. I must admit I didn’t think too much about it. What else were we supposed to put?
Well, I agree with you but according to the stats upthread we'd seem to be in the minority!
< I'd say British was at least as popular a self-description as English amongst the English prior to 1997. (The two were probably used interchangeably, and if you were from Essex, say, those parts of Britain which were not England were so far away that the need to distinguish between the two rarely arose).
English has become a much more popular self-definition over the past 20-odd years. I put that partly down to devolution. It's instructive to look at old pictures of England football matches (80s and before). Very few St. George's Crosses in the crowd; lots of Union Flags.
The forthcoming Census may be informative - there are a growing number of people who see themselves only as British - not English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh.
That's a brave assertion.
At this point I would go back to the 2001 and 2011 results to see what's been happening in that regard so far this century, but I need to go and make dinner or else husband will waste away...
Husband has now been fed.
I went to look at the census data. 2001 had no identity question in England (which apparently caused ructions at the time since it was included in the rest of the country,) but by 2011 this had been rectified.
So, ten years ago, 60% of the English population responded as English only, 20% British only, 9% as English and British, and the remainder various other things. In Wales it's a remarkably similar split: 58% Welsh only, 17% British only and 7% as Welsh and British.
In Scotland, 62% said Scottish only, 18% Scottish and British and just 8% as British only, which concurs with the general opinion on which part of the UK is liable to fall off first.
If anything has happened since then other than the British figures nosediving everywhere then I'll be astonished.
I'll be filling out English and British this year.
Did the census tonight!
All three in my house filled out English and British. I must admit I didn’t think too much about it. What else were we supposed to put?
When and how did you get the instructions? I’ve had nothing yet.
My household received it in the post a couple of days ago.
All I can say about the Met is that they have a terrible reputation amongst all the other police forces.
Some of that will be rivalry/resentment/jealously, sure, the Met gets all the attention and, often, an unfair chunk of the glory too but a lot is substantial too. For example, in this case they don't understand why he was named before he was charged, where all these details are coming from (leaks?), why he was walking around with a firearm if there were mental health issues with him, why his colleagues didn't say anything and nor do they know how he just got a head injury.
They are consistently one of the worse performing forces and their reputation is woeful.
Unfortunately, I suspect worse news is still to come out about them.
< I'd say British was at least as popular a self-description as English amongst the English prior to 1997. (The two were probably used interchangeably, and if you were from Essex, say, those parts of Britain which were not England were so far away that the need to distinguish between the two rarely arose).
English has become a much more popular self-definition over the past 20-odd years. I put that partly down to devolution. It's instructive to look at old pictures of England football matches (80s and before). Very few St. George's Crosses in the crowd; lots of Union Flags.
The forthcoming Census may be informative - there are a growing number of people who see themselves only as British - not English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh.
That's a brave assertion.
At this point I would go back to the 2001 and 2011 results to see what's been happening in that regard so far this century, but I need to go and make dinner or else husband will waste away...
Husband has now been fed.
I went to look at the census data. 2001 had no identity question in England (which apparently caused ructions at the time since it was included in the rest of the country,) but by 2011 this had been rectified.
So, ten years ago, 60% of the English population responded as English only, 20% British only, 9% as English and British, and the remainder various other things. In Wales it's a remarkably similar split: 58% Welsh only, 17% British only and 7% as Welsh and British.
In Scotland, 62% said Scottish only, 18% Scottish and British and just 8% as British only, which concurs with the general opinion on which part of the UK is liable to fall off first.
If anything has happened since then other than the British figures nosediving everywhere then I'll be astonished.
I'll be filling out English and British this year.
Is that a change from last time?
I'll be filling in English only. I'm guessing that's the same but I honestly didn't pay enough attention to remember.
Nope. I've been filling in the same since adulthood.
My identity doesn't change.
They could have asked Leaver or Remainer on this one though, for shits and giggles 😉
There is the other box if you really want to...
There is also a Twitter campaign to write in European, or British-European.
The mistake wasn’t going into coalition, or even failing to get more on constitutional reform. The mistake was voting for tuition fees.
That was even more crass as (1) they didn’t need to do it, as Cameron was willing to be flexible on voting (2) they had staked their credibility on them, losing it all in one go and (3) it was abundantly clear at the time and is only becoming clearer with hindsight that the Liberal Democrats were 100% correct to oppose the Browne report - let us not forget, a man who was very fortunate not to be in prison - which has created a totally unsuitable and unsustainable system of HE funding that suits only a few vice chancellors.
Had they opposed or better still blocked tuition fees, they would have lost seats but no way would they have imploded as they did.
As I'm no longer a Party member, all I can say is how right you are and the damage Nick Clegg did has brought the party to its current low ebb.
I will say free tuition fees wasn't a discussed party policy as such - it was the enthusiasm of some candidates in student seats to get student votes (which worked). Public pledges became party policy and that's not how it should be though that has happened in other parties too.
I can only imagine Clegg was nobbled by those telling him how disastrous the public finances are and how the country couldn't afford to cut benefits and keep free tuition fees for (largely) middle class students. As you say, the irony has been had the Party stuck to its guns, it would have been so much better off.
I can only imagine Clegg thought he could play "the greater good" card but it looked and sounded like a betrayal - as you say, it was never going to be a deal-breaker for the Coalition as I suspect Labour would have backed some form of "graduate tax" and between them and the Conservatives would have outvoted the LDs. The students would still have been angry but the loss of faith wouldn't have happened.
The LDs knew in 2013 the Conservatives were campaigning hard in their seats but did nothing because the local networks had atrophied with councillor losses and defections.
The more I think about it, the more I'm reminded of the end of "Wargames" - the best scenario for the Liberal Democrats in a Coalition was not to go into a Coalition.
< I'd say British was at least as popular a self-description as English amongst the English prior to 1997. (The two were probably used interchangeably, and if you were from Essex, say, those parts of Britain which were not England were so far away that the need to distinguish between the two rarely arose).
English has become a much more popular self-definition over the past 20-odd years. I put that partly down to devolution. It's instructive to look at old pictures of England football matches (80s and before). Very few St. George's Crosses in the crowd; lots of Union Flags.
The forthcoming Census may be informative - there are a growing number of people who see themselves only as British - not English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh.
That's a brave assertion.
At this point I would go back to the 2001 and 2011 results to see what's been happening in that regard so far this century, but I need to go and make dinner or else husband will waste away...
Husband has now been fed.
I went to look at the census data. 2001 had no identity question in England (which apparently caused ructions at the time since it was included in the rest of the country,) but by 2011 this had been rectified.
So, ten years ago, 60% of the English population responded as English only, 20% British only, 9% as English and British, and the remainder various other things. In Wales it's a remarkably similar split: 58% Welsh only, 17% British only and 7% as Welsh and British.
In Scotland, 62% said Scottish only, 18% Scottish and British and just 8% as British only, which concurs with the general opinion on which part of the UK is liable to fall off first.
If anything has happened since then other than the British figures nosediving everywhere then I'll be astonished.
I'll be filling out English and British this year.
Did the census tonight!
All three in my house filled out English and British. I must admit I didn’t think too much about it. What else were we supposed to put?
When and how did you get the instructions? I’ve had nothing yet.
Got a letter through the post last week threatening a £1,000 fine if I didn’t fill it in!
< I'd say British was at least as popular a self-description as English amongst the English prior to 1997. (The two were probably used interchangeably, and if you were from Essex, say, those parts of Britain which were not England were so far away that the need to distinguish between the two rarely arose).
English has become a much more popular self-definition over the past 20-odd years. I put that partly down to devolution. It's instructive to look at old pictures of England football matches (80s and before). Very few St. George's Crosses in the crowd; lots of Union Flags.
The forthcoming Census may be informative - there are a growing number of people who see themselves only as British - not English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh.
That's a brave assertion.
At this point I would go back to the 2001 and 2011 results to see what's been happening in that regard so far this century, but I need to go and make dinner or else husband will waste away...
Husband has now been fed.
I went to look at the census data. 2001 had no identity question in England (which apparently caused ructions at the time since it was included in the rest of the country,) but by 2011 this had been rectified.
So, ten years ago, 60% of the English population responded as English only, 20% British only, 9% as English and British, and the remainder various other things. In Wales it's a remarkably similar split: 58% Welsh only, 17% British only and 7% as Welsh and British.
In Scotland, 62% said Scottish only, 18% Scottish and British and just 8% as British only, which concurs with the general opinion on which part of the UK is liable to fall off first.
If anything has happened since then other than the British figures nosediving everywhere then I'll be astonished.
I'll be filling out English and British this year.
Did the census tonight!
All three in my house filled out English and British. I must admit I didn’t think too much about it. What else were we supposed to put?
Well, I agree with you but according to the stats upthread we'd seem to be in the minority!
Really? I can’t read the earlier pages because of the fabled iPhone loading errors. Can you summarise?
Why is the British Green Party so moronic? They make me feel like jacking in my career and founding a single issue dedicated environmentalism party.
When May was PM, Labour was led by Corbyn and the Lib Dems were going down their Ignore Democracy rabbit hole, my prevailing feeling was a “plague on your houses”. At that point I’d have loved to be able to vote for a party that campaigned on a single issue of appropriate state intervention to cure the market failure of environmental damage and nudge the private sector in the right direction. But the Green Party are such morons, I didn’t vote at all.
Are the various European Green parties so batty?
You're not specific about what you dislike, but the British Greens are unusual in that they politically very close to Corbyn's agenda but culturally very different from Labour - their conference is distinctly counter-culture, which Corbyn and McDonnell really are not. Caroline Lucas is good at what she does, though, and punches well above her weight.
German Greens are close to power and have become strikingly centrist, to the point that coalition with the Christian Democrats is not an outlandish idea - they are anti-nuclear but then so are the CDU. French Greens have two choices, one left-wing and one centrist.
Can you talk me through how the Greens are counter-cultural and Corbyn/McDonnell aren't please?
Corbyn and McDonnell are fairly conventional old left.
The Greens have a more millennial vibe of counter culture, perhaps best shown in their refusal to have a single leader, and those having little executive power. The contrast is that the Greens are more anarcho-syndicalist than communist, mistrustful of all power structures.
Two cheeks of the same arse, if you ask me: they both love unions, identity politics, culture war and want to dismantle militarism/capitalism/imperialism/Western democracy etc. And they both like mung beans.
The fact that one would prefer anarchy and a regression to the stone age, and the other communism and a regression to the Stalinist age, doesn't cut much ice in differentiation for me.
Yes, but that is the difference. Of course people are most aware of sectarianism closer to themselves, so Thatcherites and Heathites, but just Two cheeks of the same arse to a Labour or SNP voter.
Much truth in this from stodge. At the moment Scotland is massively oversupplied in political career opportunity, with everything replicated in Edinburgh and London, its politicians have a great deal of power and very little responsibility, it is hugely subsidised and has a banker of last resort in 11 Downing Street. It is able, for example, to use UK cash to give Scots free tuition fees while charging full rate to English students and it raises almost no political steam in England.
They must be tempted to carry on with the show as it is.
Thank you for the kind word, my friend.
Oddly enough, the other political post this brings to mind is Mayor of London. All profile and image but very little real power and authority. None of the incumbents, past or present (or I suspect future) has done anything truly significant or radical to change the lives of Londoners because they are constrained by the lack of power in the office. It's a sinecure for the aspiring or the inspiring or the (almost) expiring.
It has had the post holders it deserves.
Unfortunately for Sadiq Khan, his key responsibility (beyond TfL) is as the de facto Police and Crime Commissioner for the Met. Given recent nasty developments that could soon become very interesting indeed.
< I'd say British was at least as popular a self-description as English amongst the English prior to 1997. (The two were probably used interchangeably, and if you were from Essex, say, those parts of Britain which were not England were so far away that the need to distinguish between the two rarely arose).
English has become a much more popular self-definition over the past 20-odd years. I put that partly down to devolution. It's instructive to look at old pictures of England football matches (80s and before). Very few St. George's Crosses in the crowd; lots of Union Flags.
The forthcoming Census may be informative - there are a growing number of people who see themselves only as British - not English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh.
That's a brave assertion.
At this point I would go back to the 2001 and 2011 results to see what's been happening in that regard so far this century, but I need to go and make dinner or else husband will waste away...
Husband has now been fed.
I went to look at the census data. 2001 had no identity question in England (which apparently caused ructions at the time since it was included in the rest of the country,) but by 2011 this had been rectified.
So, ten years ago, 60% of the English population responded as English only, 20% British only, 9% as English and British, and the remainder various other things. In Wales it's a remarkably similar split: 58% Welsh only, 17% British only and 7% as Welsh and British.
In Scotland, 62% said Scottish only, 18% Scottish and British and just 8% as British only, which concurs with the general opinion on which part of the UK is liable to fall off first.
If anything has happened since then other than the British figures nosediving everywhere then I'll be astonished.
I'll be filling out English and British this year.
Did the census tonight!
All three in my house filled out English and British. I must admit I didn’t think too much about it. What else were we supposed to put?
When and how did you get the instructions? I’ve had nothing yet.
My household received it in the post a couple of days ago.
Hmmm. I hope it turns up soon. I have better things to do than waste my time explaining to census collectors that I can’t fill it in because I haven’t had the fecking form.
< I'd say British was at least as popular a self-description as English amongst the English prior to 1997. (The two were probably used interchangeably, and if you were from Essex, say, those parts of Britain which were not England were so far away that the need to distinguish between the two rarely arose).
English has become a much more popular self-definition over the past 20-odd years. I put that partly down to devolution. It's instructive to look at old pictures of England football matches (80s and before). Very few St. George's Crosses in the crowd; lots of Union Flags.
The forthcoming Census may be informative - there are a growing number of people who see themselves only as British - not English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh.
That's a brave assertion.
At this point I would go back to the 2001 and 2011 results to see what's been happening in that regard so far this century, but I need to go and make dinner or else husband will waste away...
Husband has now been fed.
I went to look at the census data. 2001 had no identity question in England (which apparently caused ructions at the time since it was included in the rest of the country,) but by 2011 this had been rectified.
So, ten years ago, 60% of the English population responded as English only, 20% British only, 9% as English and British, and the remainder various other things. In Wales it's a remarkably similar split: 58% Welsh only, 17% British only and 7% as Welsh and British.
In Scotland, 62% said Scottish only, 18% Scottish and British and just 8% as British only, which concurs with the general opinion on which part of the UK is liable to fall off first.
If anything has happened since then other than the British figures nosediving everywhere then I'll be astonished.
I'll be filling out English and British this year.
Is that a change from last time?
I'll be filling in English only. I'm guessing that's the same but I honestly didn't pay enough attention to remember.
Nope. I've been filling in the same since adulthood.
My identity doesn't change.
They could have asked Leaver or Remainer on this one though, for shits and giggles 😉
There is the other box if you really want to...
There is also a Twitter campaign to write in European, or British-European.
All I can say about the Met is that they have a terrible reputation amongst all the other police forces.
Some of that will be rivalry/resentment/jealously, sure, the Met gets all the attention and, often, an unfair chunk of the glory too but a lot is substantial too. For example, in this case they don't understand why he was named before he was charged, where all these details are coming from (leaks?), why he was walking around with a firearm if there were mental health issues with him, why his colleagues didn't say anything and nor do they know how he just got a head injury.
They are consistently one of the worse performing forces and their reputation is woeful.
Unfortunately, I suspect worse news is still to come out about them.
If I were at Astra Zeneca I'd be getting seriously hacked off by this point. So much so I'd put something dodgy in the odd batch destined for the EU, some new ingredient which causes, I dunno, bloodclots? Or something like that
The mistake wasn’t going into coalition, or even failing to get more on constitutional reform. The mistake was voting for tuition fees.
That was even more crass as (1) they didn’t need to do it, as Cameron was willing to be flexible on voting (2) they had staked their credibility on them, losing it all in one go and (3) it was abundantly clear at the time and is only becoming clearer with hindsight that the Liberal Democrats were 100% correct to oppose the Browne report - let us not forget, a man who was very fortunate not to be in prison - which has created a totally unsuitable and unsustainable system of HE funding that suits only a few vice chancellors.
Had they opposed or better still blocked tuition fees, they would have lost seats but no way would they have imploded as they did.
As I'm no longer a Party member, all I can say is how right you are and the damage Nick Clegg did has brought the party to its current low ebb.
I will say free tuition fees wasn't a discussed party policy as such - it was the enthusiasm of some candidates in student seats to get student votes (which worked). Public pledges became party policy and that's not how it should be though that has happened in other parties too.
I can only imagine Clegg was nobbled by those telling him how disastrous the public finances are and how the country couldn't afford to cut benefits and keep free tuition fees for (largely) middle class students. As you say, the irony has been had the Party stuck to its guns, it would have been so much better off.
I can only imagine Clegg thought he could play "the greater good" card but it looked and sounded like a betrayal - as you say, it was never going to be a deal-breaker for the Coalition as I suspect Labour would have backed some form of "graduate tax" and between them and the Conservatives would have outvoted the LDs. The students would still have been angry but the loss of faith wouldn't have happened.
The LDs knew in 2013 the Conservatives were campaigning hard in their seats but did nothing because the local networks had atrophied with councillor losses and defections.
The more I think about it, the more I'm reminded of the end of "Wargames" - the best scenario for the Liberal Democrats in a Coalition was not to go into a Coalition.
That's possibly true but what on earth is the point of a third party that doesn't want to go into Coalitions?
< I'd say British was at least as popular a self-description as English amongst the English prior to 1997. (The two were probably used interchangeably, and if you were from Essex, say, those parts of Britain which were not England were so far away that the need to distinguish between the two rarely arose).
English has become a much more popular self-definition over the past 20-odd years. I put that partly down to devolution. It's instructive to look at old pictures of England football matches (80s and before). Very few St. George's Crosses in the crowd; lots of Union Flags.
The forthcoming Census may be informative - there are a growing number of people who see themselves only as British - not English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh.
That's a brave assertion.
At this point I would go back to the 2001 and 2011 results to see what's been happening in that regard so far this century, but I need to go and make dinner or else husband will waste away...
Husband has now been fed.
I went to look at the census data. 2001 had no identity question in England (which apparently caused ructions at the time since it was included in the rest of the country,) but by 2011 this had been rectified.
So, ten years ago, 60% of the English population responded as English only, 20% British only, 9% as English and British, and the remainder various other things. In Wales it's a remarkably similar split: 58% Welsh only, 17% British only and 7% as Welsh and British.
In Scotland, 62% said Scottish only, 18% Scottish and British and just 8% as British only, which concurs with the general opinion on which part of the UK is liable to fall off first.
If anything has happened since then other than the British figures nosediving everywhere then I'll be astonished.
I'll be filling out English and British this year.
Did the census tonight!
All three in my house filled out English and British. I must admit I didn’t think too much about it. What else were we supposed to put?
Well, I agree with you but according to the stats upthread we'd seem to be in the minority!
Really? I can’t read the earlier pages because of the fabled iPhone loading errors. Can you summarise?
I think we're only 9% of respondents, or something.
To be fair, I'm not sure that's right but I haven't checked myself.
< I'd say British was at least as popular a self-description as English amongst the English prior to 1997. (The two were probably used interchangeably, and if you were from Essex, say, those parts of Britain which were not England were so far away that the need to distinguish between the two rarely arose).
English has become a much more popular self-definition over the past 20-odd years. I put that partly down to devolution. It's instructive to look at old pictures of England football matches (80s and before). Very few St. George's Crosses in the crowd; lots of Union Flags.
The forthcoming Census may be informative - there are a growing number of people who see themselves only as British - not English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh.
That's a brave assertion.
At this point I would go back to the 2001 and 2011 results to see what's been happening in that regard so far this century, but I need to go and make dinner or else husband will waste away...
Husband has now been fed.
I went to look at the census data. 2001 had no identity question in England (which apparently caused ructions at the time since it was included in the rest of the country,) but by 2011 this had been rectified.
So, ten years ago, 60% of the English population responded as English only, 20% British only, 9% as English and British, and the remainder various other things. In Wales it's a remarkably similar split: 58% Welsh only, 17% British only and 7% as Welsh and British.
In Scotland, 62% said Scottish only, 18% Scottish and British and just 8% as British only, which concurs with the general opinion on which part of the UK is liable to fall off first.
If anything has happened since then other than the British figures nosediving everywhere then I'll be astonished.
I'll be filling out English and British this year.
Did the census tonight!
All three in my house filled out English and British. I must admit I didn’t think too much about it. What else were we supposed to put?
When and how did you get the instructions? I’ve had nothing yet.
My household received it in the post a couple of days ago.
Hmmm. I hope it turns up soon. I have better things to do than waste my time explaining to census collectors that I can’t fill it in because I haven’t had the fecking form.
Much truth in this from stodge. At the moment Scotland is massively oversupplied in political career opportunity, with everything replicated in Edinburgh and London, its politicians have a great deal of power and very little responsibility, it is hugely subsidised and has a banker of last resort in 11 Downing Street. It is able, for example, to use UK cash to give Scots free tuition fees while charging full rate to English students and it raises almost no political steam in England.
They must be tempted to carry on with the show as it is.
Thank you for the kind word, my friend.
Oddly enough, the other political post this brings to mind is Mayor of London. All profile and image but very little real power and authority. None of the incumbents, past or present (or I suspect future) has done anything truly significant or radical to change the lives of Londoners because they are constrained by the lack of power in the office. It's a sinecure for the aspiring or the inspiring or the (almost) expiring.
It has had the post holders it deserves.
Unfortunately for Sadiq Khan, his key responsibility (beyond TfL) is as the de facto Police and Crime Commissioner for the Met. Given recent nasty developments that could soon become very interesting indeed.
< I'd say British was at least as popular a self-description as English amongst the English prior to 1997. (The two were probably used interchangeably, and if you were from Essex, say, those parts of Britain which were not England were so far away that the need to distinguish between the two rarely arose).
English has become a much more popular self-definition over the past 20-odd years. I put that partly down to devolution. It's instructive to look at old pictures of England football matches (80s and before). Very few St. George's Crosses in the crowd; lots of Union Flags.
The forthcoming Census may be informative - there are a growing number of people who see themselves only as British - not English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh.
That's a brave assertion.
At this point I would go back to the 2001 and 2011 results to see what's been happening in that regard so far this century, but I need to go and make dinner or else husband will waste away...
Husband has now been fed.
I went to look at the census data. 2001 had no identity question in England (which apparently caused ructions at the time since it was included in the rest of the country,) but by 2011 this had been rectified.
So, ten years ago, 60% of the English population responded as English only, 20% British only, 9% as English and British, and the remainder various other things. In Wales it's a remarkably similar split: 58% Welsh only, 17% British only and 7% as Welsh and British.
In Scotland, 62% said Scottish only, 18% Scottish and British and just 8% as British only, which concurs with the general opinion on which part of the UK is liable to fall off first.
If anything has happened since then other than the British figures nosediving everywhere then I'll be astonished.
I'll be filling out English and British this year.
Did the census tonight!
All three in my house filled out English and British. I must admit I didn’t think too much about it. What else were we supposed to put?
Well, I agree with you but according to the stats upthread we'd seem to be in the minority!
Really? I can’t read the earlier pages because of the fabled iPhone loading errors. Can you summarise?
I think we're only 9% of respondents, or something.
To be fair, I'm not sure that's right but I haven't checked myself.
All I can say about the Met is that they have a terrible reputation amongst all the other police forces.
Some of that will be rivalry/resentment/jealously, sure, the Met gets all the attention and, often, an unfair chunk of the glory too but a lot is substantial too. For example, in this case they don't understand why he was named before he was charged, where all these details are coming from (leaks?), why he was walking around with a firearm if there were mental health issues with him, why his colleagues didn't say anything and nor do they know how he just got a head injury.
They are consistently one of the worse performing forces and their reputation is woeful.
Unfortunately, I suspect worse news is still to come out about them.
You'll enjoy my next header then!
The standard joke used to be 'You can always tell a Met man....but not very much.'
I expect there are some better ones out there, or at least more modern.
Sounds good but not sure where it fits in. Trial keeps people out of hospital, so who is sick enough to to need it? I guess it will now be tried on those in hospital.
The thought that the current state of affairs is a very cushty number may have occurred to some minds, but it can't really ever be voiced, let alone form party policy, even behind closed doors. It would leak.
Of course not but we aren't bound by that convention, are we?
I'll offer another observation - the last thing the LDs needed was the 2010 election result. It backed them into the worst possible corner - a Conservative or Labour majority is always infinitely better for the third party because it has two targets to aim at - the Government for being the Government and the Opposition for not being the Government.
2010 forced the LDs into a choice - Cameron knew that, Hague knew that and whether Clegg knew it or not, I don't know. In my view, and I can say this as I'm no longer a Party member, the LDs should have found a pretext to walk away from the negotiations on the Monday afternoon. They should have said no deal unless we get STV for all elections and the abolition of student fees knowing that would be wholly unacceptable to the Conservatives.
There'd have been a storm of protest but the party would have been able to say to its voter base it didn't compromise and would at the same time have shown Labour the price it would have to pay in the future for LD support. Opportunistic? Yes of course but that's how politics operates.
The mistake wasn’t going into coalition, or even failing to get more on constitutional reform. The mistake was voting for tuition fees.
That was even more crass as (1) they didn’t need to do it, as Cameron was willing to be flexible on voting (2) they had staked their credibility on them, losing it all in one go and (3) it was abundantly clear at the time and is only becoming clearer with hindsight that the Liberal Democrats were 100% correct to oppose the Browne report - let us not forget, a man who was very fortunate not to be in prison - which has created a totally unsuitable and unsustainable system of HE funding that suits only a few vice chancellors.
Had they opposed or better still blocked tuition fees, they would have lost seats but no way would they have imploded as they did.
There was a school of thought, of which no less than Mike Smithson was an advocate, that increasing tuition fees was going to be a vote winner for the LibDems.
The reasoning being that students don't vote and that the university workers would be so grateful for having their jobs financially secured that they would vote LibDem.
The mistake wasn’t going into coalition, or even failing to get more on constitutional reform. The mistake was voting for tuition fees.
That was even more crass as (1) they didn’t need to do it, as Cameron was willing to be flexible on voting (2) they had staked their credibility on them, losing it all in one go and (3) it was abundantly clear at the time and is only becoming clearer with hindsight that the Liberal Democrats were 100% correct to oppose the Browne report - let us not forget, a man who was very fortunate not to be in prison - which has created a totally unsuitable and unsustainable system of HE funding that suits only a few vice chancellors.
Had they opposed or better still blocked tuition fees, they would have lost seats but no way would they have imploded as they did.
As I'm no longer a Party member, all I can say is how right you are and the damage Nick Clegg did has brought the party to its current low ebb.
I will say free tuition fees wasn't a discussed party policy as such - it was the enthusiasm of some candidates in student seats to get student votes (which worked). Public pledges became party policy and that's not how it should be though that has happened in other parties too.
I can only imagine Clegg was nobbled by those telling him how disastrous the public finances are and how the country couldn't afford to cut benefits and keep free tuition fees for (largely) middle class students. As you say, the irony has been had the Party stuck to its guns, it would have been so much better off.
I can only imagine Clegg thought he could play "the greater good" card but it looked and sounded like a betrayal - as you say, it was never going to be a deal-breaker for the Coalition as I suspect Labour would have backed some form of "graduate tax" and between them and the Conservatives would have outvoted the LDs. The students would still have been angry but the loss of faith wouldn't have happened.
The LDs knew in 2013 the Conservatives were campaigning hard in their seats but did nothing because the local networks had atrophied with councillor losses and defections.
The more I think about it, the more I'm reminded of the end of "Wargames" - the best scenario for the Liberal Democrats in a Coalition was not to go into a Coalition.
I don't think it's all Clegg, not by a long shot. I just don't see any Lib Dems arguing for, y'know, liberalism? It's like they've forgotten how.
I keep meaning to write a thread header on this. But I need to be arsed first.
Re: census. I’m predicting a bumper year for No Religion.
Why? Anecdata.
I remember raising an eyebrow last time around when Mrs Anabobazina entered Church of England despite being an atheist.
She dabbed No Religion this time.
This is one I'm always torn on.
I'm as atheist as Richard Dawkins and I think that matters.
But I also think it is none of the government's business to even be asking this question.
So in the past I've always put Jedi. Not sure whether I'll put atheist or Jedi again.
There's plenty of questions on there that might be considered by many as none of the goverment's business, but legally we must respond. However, I think that one is voluntary, so there's no need to put comedy answers unless we really want to.
The mistake wasn’t going into coalition, or even failing to get more on constitutional reform. The mistake was voting for tuition fees.
That was even more crass as (1) they didn’t need to do it, as Cameron was willing to be flexible on voting (2) they had staked their credibility on them, losing it all in one go and (3) it was abundantly clear at the time and is only becoming clearer with hindsight that the Liberal Democrats were 100% correct to oppose the Browne report - let us not forget, a man who was very fortunate not to be in prison - which has created a totally unsuitable and unsustainable system of HE funding that suits only a few vice chancellors.
Had they opposed or better still blocked tuition fees, they would have lost seats but no way would they have imploded as they did.
As I'm no longer a Party member, all I can say is how right you are and the damage Nick Clegg did has brought the party to its current low ebb.
I will say free tuition fees wasn't a discussed party policy as such - it was the enthusiasm of some candidates in student seats to get student votes (which worked). Public pledges became party policy and that's not how it should be though that has happened in other parties too.
I can only imagine Clegg was nobbled by those telling him how disastrous the public finances are and how the country couldn't afford to cut benefits and keep free tuition fees for (largely) middle class students. As you say, the irony has been had the Party stuck to its guns, it would have been so much better off.
I can only imagine Clegg thought he could play "the greater good" card but it looked and sounded like a betrayal - as you say, it was never going to be a deal-breaker for the Coalition as I suspect Labour would have backed some form of "graduate tax" and between them and the Conservatives would have outvoted the LDs. The students would still have been angry but the loss of faith wouldn't have happened.
The LDs knew in 2013 the Conservatives were campaigning hard in their seats but did nothing because the local networks had atrophied with councillor losses and defections.
The more I think about it, the more I'm reminded of the end of "Wargames" - the best scenario for the Liberal Democrats in a Coalition was not to go into a Coalition.
Apparently when William Hague returned home after selling the coalition deal he told Ffion 'I think I have just destroyed the Liberal Democrat Party'. So maybe he knew the end of Wargames in advance.
Why is the British Green Party so moronic? They make me feel like jacking in my career and founding a single issue dedicated environmentalism party.
When May was PM, Labour was led by Corbyn and the Lib Dems were going down their Ignore Democracy rabbit hole, my prevailing feeling was a “plague on your houses”. At that point I’d have loved to be able to vote for a party that campaigned on a single issue of appropriate state intervention to cure the market failure of environmental damage and nudge the private sector in the right direction. But the Green Party are such morons, I didn’t vote at all.
Are the various European Green parties so batty?
You're not specific about what you dislike, but the British Greens are unusual in that they politically very close to Corbyn's agenda but culturally very different from Labour - their conference is distinctly counter-culture, which Corbyn and McDonnell really are not. Caroline Lucas is good at what she does, though, and punches well above her weight.
German Greens are close to power and have become strikingly centrist, to the point that coalition with the Christian Democrats is not an outlandish idea - they are anti-nuclear but then so are the CDU. French Greens have two choices, one left-wing and one centrist.
That's possibly true but what on earth is the point of a third party that doesn't want to go into Coalitions?
There were other options, beyond formal Coalition, which were available in 2010. The problem was, at the time, with Greece and the Eurozone seemingly on the brink, the one thing everyone wanted was stability. The Coalition, as it was formed, provided that stability with a Commons majority roughly the same as Boris Johnson enjoys now.
The clamour for stability meant other options weren't considered, Confidence & Supply was one which would have offered support for Cameron but not signing up to every Conservative policy. As happens in other Parliaments with blocs of parties, legislation is agreed between the parties before it is introduced to the Parliament floor.
Cameron would have been forced into only that legislation which would have commanded a majority.
The problem for the LDs was the fear as soon as the polls looked good, Cameron would cut and run and get his majority (which is in effect what happened in 2015). The opportunity would have been a second inconclusive election but this time with the possibility of either a Labour-LD majority or a Con-LD majority. The problem was the LD leadership was incapable (it seemed to this observer at the time) of acting selfishly - it was entirely "the national interest" which was laudable in the short term but disastrous in the long term.
By so overtly siding with the Conservatives, a big slice of the LD vote (the anti-Conservative part) was lost and that was unfortunately the vote in those seats with LD MPs - the party signed its own death warrant based on the belief that because Jim Wallace had done well as the junior partner in coalition in Scotland, the same would happen in Westminster.
Re: census. I’m predicting a bumper year for No Religion.
Why? Anecdata.
I remember raising an eyebrow last time around when Mrs Anabobazina entered Church of England despite being an atheist.
She dabbed No Religion this time.
It would not be a major surprise, the UK is one of the least religious nations on earth.
Already 31% say they are irreligious according to a 2020 Pew survey compared to a global average of 15% who say they are irreligious. That makes the UK the 14th most irreligious nation on earth and a large proportion of those who are religious in the UK are immigrants
< I'd say British was at least as popular a self-description as English amongst the English prior to 1997. (The two were probably used interchangeably, and if you were from Essex, say, those parts of Britain which were not England were so far away that the need to distinguish between the two rarely arose).
English has become a much more popular self-definition over the past 20-odd years. I put that partly down to devolution. It's instructive to look at old pictures of England football matches (80s and before). Very few St. George's Crosses in the crowd; lots of Union Flags.
The forthcoming Census may be informative - there are a growing number of people who see themselves only as British - not English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh.
That's a brave assertion.
At this point I would go back to the 2001 and 2011 results to see what's been happening in that regard so far this century, but I need to go and make dinner or else husband will waste away...
Husband has now been fed.
I went to look at the census data. 2001 had no identity question in England (which apparently caused ructions at the time since it was included in the rest of the country,) but by 2011 this had been rectified.
So, ten years ago, 60% of the English population responded as English only, 20% British only, 9% as English and British, and the remainder various other things. In Wales it's a remarkably similar split: 58% Welsh only, 17% British only and 7% as Welsh and British.
In Scotland, 62% said Scottish only, 18% Scottish and British and just 8% as British only, which concurs with the general opinion on which part of the UK is liable to fall off first.
If anything has happened since then other than the British figures nosediving everywhere then I'll be astonished.
I'll be filling out English and British this year.
Did the census tonight!
All three in my house filled out English and British. I must admit I didn’t think too much about it. What else were we supposed to put?
When and how did you get the instructions? I’ve had nothing yet.
My household received it in the post a couple of days ago.
Hmmm. I hope it turns up soon. I have better things to do than waste my time explaining to census collectors that I can’t fill it in because I haven’t had the fecking form.
We should none of us be filling it in anyway, as its meant to provide a snapshot of the country on 21 March. I was expecting my submission to be rejected on grounds of being a bit previous.
ROME (Reuters) - Italian health authorities have ordered the withdrawal of a batch of AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine following the deaths of two men in Sicily who had recently been inoculated, a source close to the matter said on Thursday.
I have heard about this but I don't think it's been discussed down thread, unless I've missed something...?
Anyway, if this is as good as the trials suggest and it can be produced in decent quantities then that really is Covid crushed. Consider:
*88% of Covid deaths have happened in JCVI cohorts 1-4, the overwhelming majority of whom have had their first vaccinations plus long enough for this to trigger immune response. Nearly all of the remaining deaths are in cohorts 5-9, the vast bulk of whom should be done and have some protection in about four or five weeks' time *Something like 80% of hospitalisations and 85% of deaths are prevented in the most vulnerable groups just by vaccination *Then, imagine if 85% of the remaining patients who do end up in hospital can be saved by therapies? The net result of all this is that hospitalisations should be cut by at least 80%, and considerably more than that if the therapies can be administered to some patients before they get sick enough to require hospital admission, and deaths can be cut perhaps to 2% of what they would've been in patients who are infected *Finally, we need to consider the additional reduction in deaths and hospitalisations that should occur because of the reduction in transmissibility within a vaccinated population
If the vaccines and the treatments are really effective - and obviously there is now a very large amount of evidence in favour of the vaccines - then there's really no excuse to delay the dumping of restrictions much beyond the Government's stated timetable. Unless there's a disastrous new mutation - and, based on how the virus has behaved so far, there's precious little evidence to suggest that such a thing is likely at this juncture - then we can wave goodbye to the pandemic and all the wretched rules this Summer.
ROME (Reuters) - Italian health authorities have ordered the withdrawal of a batch of AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine following the deaths of two men in Sicily who had recently been inoculated, a source close to the matter said on Thursday.
Tragic, but unless they think the UK has vaccinated 10m people with it and is covering up a lot of ill reactions, it really seems like an over abundance of caution.
ROME (Reuters) - Italian health authorities have ordered the withdrawal of a batch of AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine following the deaths of two men in Sicily who had recently been inoculated, a source close to the matter said on Thursday.
Tragic, but unless they think the UK has vaccinated 10m people with it and is covering up a lot of ill reactions, it really seems like an over abundance of caution.
< I'd say British was at least as popular a self-description as English amongst the English prior to 1997. (The two were probably used interchangeably, and if you were from Essex, say, those parts of Britain which were not England were so far away that the need to distinguish between the two rarely arose).
English has become a much more popular self-definition over the past 20-odd years. I put that partly down to devolution. It's instructive to look at old pictures of England football matches (80s and before). Very few St. George's Crosses in the crowd; lots of Union Flags.
The forthcoming Census may be informative - there are a growing number of people who see themselves only as British - not English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh.
That's a brave assertion.
At this point I would go back to the 2001 and 2011 results to see what's been happening in that regard so far this century, but I need to go and make dinner or else husband will waste away...
Husband has now been fed.
I went to look at the census data. 2001 had no identity question in England (which apparently caused ructions at the time since it was included in the rest of the country,) but by 2011 this had been rectified.
So, ten years ago, 60% of the English population responded as English only, 20% British only, 9% as English and British, and the remainder various other things. In Wales it's a remarkably similar split: 58% Welsh only, 17% British only and 7% as Welsh and British.
In Scotland, 62% said Scottish only, 18% Scottish and British and just 8% as British only, which concurs with the general opinion on which part of the UK is liable to fall off first.
If anything has happened since then other than the British figures nosediving everywhere then I'll be astonished.
I'll be filling out English and British this year.
Is that a change from last time?
I'll be filling in English only. I'm guessing that's the same but I honestly didn't pay enough attention to remember.
Nope. I've been filling in the same since adulthood.
My identity doesn't change.
They could have asked Leaver or Remainer on this one though, for shits and giggles 😉
There is the other box if you really want to...
There is also a Twitter campaign to write in European, or British-European.
British European merged with BOAC to form British Airways in 1974.
< I'd say British was at least as popular a self-description as English amongst the English prior to 1997. (The two were probably used interchangeably, and if you were from Essex, say, those parts of Britain which were not England were so far away that the need to distinguish between the two rarely arose).
English has become a much more popular self-definition over the past 20-odd years. I put that partly down to devolution. It's instructive to look at old pictures of England football matches (80s and before). Very few St. George's Crosses in the crowd; lots of Union Flags.
The forthcoming Census may be informative - there are a growing number of people who see themselves only as British - not English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh.
That's a brave assertion.
At this point I would go back to the 2001 and 2011 results to see what's been happening in that regard so far this century, but I need to go and make dinner or else husband will waste away...
Husband has now been fed.
I went to look at the census data. 2001 had no identity question in England (which apparently caused ructions at the time since it was included in the rest of the country,) but by 2011 this had been rectified.
So, ten years ago, 60% of the English population responded as English only, 20% British only, 9% as English and British, and the remainder various other things. In Wales it's a remarkably similar split: 58% Welsh only, 17% British only and 7% as Welsh and British.
In Scotland, 62% said Scottish only, 18% Scottish and British and just 8% as British only, which concurs with the general opinion on which part of the UK is liable to fall off first.
If anything has happened since then other than the British figures nosediving everywhere then I'll be astonished.
I'll be filling out English and British this year.
Did the census tonight!
All three in my house filled out English and British. I must admit I didn’t think too much about it. What else were we supposed to put?
When and how did you get the instructions? I’ve had nothing yet.
My household received it in the post a couple of days ago.
Hmmm. I hope it turns up soon. I have better things to do than waste my time explaining to census collectors that I can’t fill it in because I haven’t had the fecking form.
We should none of us be filling it in anyway, as its meant to provide a snapshot of the country on 21 March. I was expecting my submission to be rejected on grounds of being a bit previous.
It is quite clear you are allowed to fill it in sooner than 21 March, if you are able to give an accurate answer as to what the situation will be on 21 March (eg will you have any visitors staying overnight on 21 March?), and update it if that answer changes.
One thing Covid-19 has ensured is a lot of people will have much more fixed plans than usual.
Comments
German Greens are close to power and have become strikingly centrist, to the point that coalition with the Christian Democrats is not an outlandish idea - they are anti-nuclear but then so are the CDU. French Greens have two choices, one left-wing and one centrist.
(Must say that for some strange reason, every time I see "pfalz" yours truly always thinks "fart" instead of "palatinate".)
If you make the mistake of travelling M1/M6 for Scotland then you never get the choice, its the west route or nothing. But on a busy wet Friday you will be lucky if you get there at all. Plus, if you go that way you miss Blyth services and Travelodge in Nottinghamshire, a quaint spot, reminiscent of 15th century Florence.
Sturgeon has just about kept these two sides in the same harness for the last few years. After the next elex (especially if she disappoints even slightly - eg fails to get a maj) this war will break out into the open, and when Boris says No the SNP could easily split.
I'll offer another observation - the last thing the LDs needed was the 2010 election result. It backed them into the worst possible corner - a Conservative or Labour majority is always infinitely better for the third party because it has two targets to aim at - the Government for being the Government and the Opposition for not being the Government.
2010 forced the LDs into a choice - Cameron knew that, Hague knew that and whether Clegg knew it or not, I don't know. In my view, and I can say this as I'm no longer a Party member, the LDs should have found a pretext to walk away from the negotiations on the Monday afternoon. They should have said no deal unless we get STV for all elections and the abolition of student fees knowing that would be wholly unacceptable to the Conservatives.
There'd have been a storm of protest but the party would have been able to say to its voter base it didn't compromise and would at the same time have shown Labour the price it would have to pay in the future for LD support. Opportunistic? Yes of course but that's how politics operates.
In cases like these the police are under a lot of pressure, understandably, to catch the perpetrator. This does not always lead to good investigations or sensible behaviour. See, for instance, the Rachel Nickell case and Colin Stagg. Or Chris Jeffries in the Bristol murder case. So I hope that the police know what they are doing in allowing all this information out. Because if they have got it wrong, they are going to be in a whole world of pain.
I should also clarify that when I was talking about women being more at risk (on the previous thread) I was referring to sexual violence and harassment. Women are more of risk at this and the overwhelming likelihood is that the perpetrators are male. I believe that a woman is more at risk of being murdered by someone she knows than by a complete stranger. But when it does happen it is appalling and plays to every woman's worst fears.
One of the interesting things about the Ripper documentary is that the police simply did not listen to the women who were attacked. Not listening to women is not something that only happened then. Every single woman I know, including myself, has suffered sexual violence, some of it of the very worst kind. And not just when we were young. Throughout our lives. And on top of that misogyny and belittlement and being treated in a way which is just not decent. I don't think men realise the extent of it. There is a tendency for those who do behave decently to assume that others are like them or that those who don't are the minority. And when confronted by it they find it hard to accept and often, without realising what they are doing, seek to minimise it or explain it away.
The stories I could tell you. Don't imagine for a moment that this is from a while ago. Until 3 years I regularly read the chats and emails which young men sent each other in the City: the level of hatred of and misogyny and contempt for women in those chats was shocking. These were young men, brought up long after the era of those Ripper detectives, but their thoughts about women and behaviour to them were frankly not much better. When senior management was confronted with this there was a lot of embarrassment but not much appetite for action. Indeed, sometimes I was seen as the nuisance for pointing out the harm such chats might do if they ever appeared publicly.
Until we all - and men in particular, including all the decent ones - take some serious action to address this we should not be surprised at the level of violence and harassment and abuse that occurs nor at the concern women feel about it.
Listen to us.
I went to look at the census data. 2001 had no identity question in England (which apparently caused ructions at the time since it was included in the rest of the country,) but by 2011 this had been rectified.
So, ten years ago, 60% of the English population responded as English only, 20% British only, 9% as English and British, and the remainder various other things. In Wales it's a remarkably similar split: 58% Welsh only, 17% British only and 7% as Welsh and British.
In Scotland, 62% said Scottish only, 18% Scottish and British and just 8% as British only, which concurs with the general opinion on which part of the UK is liable to fall off first.
If anything has happened since then other than the British figures nosediving everywhere then I'll be astonished.
That was even more crass as (1) they didn’t need to do it, as Cameron was willing to be flexible on voting (2) they had staked their credibility on them, losing it all in one go and (3) it was abundantly clear at the time and is only becoming clearer with hindsight that the Liberal Democrats were 100% correct to oppose the Browne report - let us not forget, a man who was very fortunate not to be in prison - which has created a totally unsuitable and unsustainable system of HE funding that suits only a few vice chancellors.
Had they opposed or better still blocked tuition fees, they would have lost seats but no way would they have imploded as they did.
Salmond could easily have been a senior centre right Tory or leading Lib Dem, perhaps even a centrist Tory PM.
Sturgeon would have led Labour better than anyone since Brown.
It is the great fortune of the Nats that they had two such capable and plausible leaders in a row, I don't think Scotch Nationalism would be much more than a fringe issue if Salmond hadn't brought it to the centre of the Scottish stage, followed by Sturgeon who kept it there
But now she weakens and he is too tainted. It is a critical moment for the movement, and this time there is no obvious successor
They must be tempted to carry on with the show as it is.
There's an argument that says the SNP will be quite happy with being by far largest party but just shy of outright majority for the very reason you say. Get to do pretty much what they want within the context of devolution, probably with an effective majority with the support of the Greens anyway, without the need to truly press the case for indyref2 (despite the fact that for all intents and purposes an SNP+Green majority shouldn't really make any difference to an outright SNP majority).
On the flipside, the schism that's wide open in the indy blogosphere now suggests sheer status quo is not going to keep the SNP in this advantageous hegemony indefinitely. They might get through this election and be very successful (although perhaps not quite as successful as was looking just a few weeks ago), but if something doesn't change then the subsequent Holyrood election is probably going to have a very different feel.
In Rheinland-Pfalz the SPD won 36-32 last time but the latest INSA poll has them level 30-30 with the CDU. At one point the CDU was well ahead but recently the gap has closed considerably. The Greens are up from 5% to 12% which would be a good result for them. AfD down a little but the FDP just doing enough to get back in to the Landtag.
The CDU leader in Rheinland-Pfalz, Julia Klockner, serves as the Agriculture and Food Minister in the Federal Government and was at one time thought a possible successor to Merkel (along with so many others).
The State has an SPD-Green-FDP Coalition running it and that grouping should keep its majority comfortably.
I'll be filling in English only. I'm guessing that's the same but I honestly didn't pay enough attention to remember.
I have never met an American who thinks that the Scots are English. Americans are fully aware of Scotland as a country, indeed many of them are or wish to be Scottish.
What I have found is that many Americans aren’t aware that Scotland is part of Britain.
https://twitter.com/ThierryBreton/status/1370112987403534344
Oddly enough, the other political post this brings to mind is Mayor of London. All profile and image but very little real power and authority. None of the incumbents, past or present (or I suspect future) has done anything truly significant or radical to change the lives of Londoners because they are constrained by the lack of power in the office. It's a sinecure for the aspiring or the inspiring or the (almost) expiring.
It has had the post holders it deserves.
An astonishing record of stability particularly when you consider how many dramatic changes there have been in that time - the country, the currency, the capital...
And yet I wonder if it represents stability or ossification.
Some of that will be rivalry/resentment/jealously, sure, the Met gets all the attention and, often, an unfair chunk of the glory too but a lot is substantial too. For example, in this case they don't understand why he was named before he was charged, where all these details are coming from (leaks?), why he was walking around with a firearm if there were mental health issues with him, why his colleagues didn't say anything and nor do they know how he just got a head injury.
They are consistently one of the worse performing forces and their reputation is woeful.
Unfortunately, I suspect worse news is still to come out about them.
The Greens have a more millennial vibe of counter culture, perhaps best shown in their refusal to have a single leader, and those having little executive power. The contrast is that the Greens are more anarcho-syndicalist than communist, mistrustful of all power structures.
My identity doesn't change.
They could have asked Leaver or Remainer on this one though, for shits and giggles 😉
On top of that it seems LD members don't like being viewed as Labour's lapdogs but don't want to contemplate sharing power with anyone else.
Need to straighten out their thinking.
All three in my house filled out English and British. I must admit I didn’t think too much about it. What else were we supposed to put?
Who cut the Police?
I mean, Stewie on "Family Guy" talks with an English accent, while Willy on "The Simpsons" is Scots or Scottish or whatever.
AND Mo is obviously Welsh, right? Believe he has the traditional, authentic Ebbw Vale accent?
There may also be a desire to be open, so not accused of covering up one of their own.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/864491/london-police-budget-size/#:~:text=As can be seen in,to 3.66billion British pounds.
*Well, not recently
Why? Anecdata.
I remember raising an eyebrow last time around when Mrs Anabobazina entered Church of England despite being an atheist.
She dabbed No Religion this time.
The fact that one would prefer anarchy and a regression to the stone age, and the other communism and a regression to the Stalinist age, doesn't cut much ice in differentiation for me.
There is also a Twitter campaign to write in European, or British-European.
I will say free tuition fees wasn't a discussed party policy as such - it was the enthusiasm of some candidates in student seats to get student votes (which worked). Public pledges became party policy and that's not how it should be though that has happened in other parties too.
I can only imagine Clegg was nobbled by those telling him how disastrous the public finances are and how the country couldn't afford to cut benefits and keep free tuition fees for (largely) middle class students. As you say, the irony has been had the Party stuck to its guns, it would have been so much better off.
I can only imagine Clegg thought he could play "the greater good" card but it looked and sounded like a betrayal - as you say, it was never going to be a deal-breaker for the Coalition as I suspect Labour would have backed some form of "graduate tax" and between them and the Conservatives would have outvoted the LDs. The students would still have been angry but the loss of faith wouldn't have happened.
The LDs knew in 2013 the Conservatives were campaigning hard in their seats but did nothing because the local networks had atrophied with councillor losses and defections.
The more I think about it, the more I'm reminded of the end of "Wargames" - the best scenario for the Liberal Democrats in a Coalition was not to go into a Coalition.
To be fair, I'm not sure that's right but I haven't checked myself.
It does seem rather low.
The trials were stopped today due to overwhelming evidence of efficacy: it reduces death and hospitalisations by 85%.
https://www.ft.com/content/49bdda63-46d1-4ce5-b25c-030bd6f2e8f5
Some more really good news.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-strikes-target-iranian-oil-bound-for-syria-11615492789
I expect there are some better ones out there, or at least more modern.
I'm as atheist as Richard Dawkins and I think that matters.
But I also think it is none of the government's business to even be asking this question.
So in the past I've always put Jedi. Not sure whether I'll put atheist or Jedi again.
The reasoning being that students don't vote and that the university workers would be so grateful for having their jobs financially secured that they would vote LibDem.
I keep meaning to write a thread header on this. But I need to be arsed first.
LOL
The clamour for stability meant other options weren't considered, Confidence & Supply was one which would have offered support for Cameron but not signing up to every Conservative policy. As happens in other Parliaments with blocs of parties, legislation is agreed between the parties before it is introduced to the Parliament floor.
Cameron would have been forced into only that legislation which would have commanded a majority.
The problem for the LDs was the fear as soon as the polls looked good, Cameron would cut and run and get his majority (which is in effect what happened in 2015). The opportunity would have been a second inconclusive election but this time with the possibility of either a Labour-LD majority or a Con-LD majority. The problem was the LD leadership was incapable (it seemed to this observer at the time) of acting selfishly - it was entirely "the national interest" which was laudable in the short term but disastrous in the long term.
By so overtly siding with the Conservatives, a big slice of the LD vote (the anti-Conservative part) was lost and that was unfortunately the vote in those seats with LD MPs - the party signed its own death warrant based on the belief that because Jim Wallace had done well as the junior partner in coalition in Scotland, the same would happen in Westminster.
Already 31% say they are irreligious according to a 2020 Pew survey compared to a global average of 15% who say they are irreligious. That makes the UK the 14th most irreligious nation on earth and a large proportion of those who are religious in the UK are immigrants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations
ROME (Reuters) - Italian health authorities have ordered the withdrawal of a batch of AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine following the deaths of two men in Sicily who had recently been inoculated, a source close to the matter said on Thursday.
Anyway, if this is as good as the trials suggest and it can be produced in decent quantities then that really is Covid crushed. Consider:
*88% of Covid deaths have happened in JCVI cohorts 1-4, the overwhelming majority of whom have had their first vaccinations plus long enough for this to trigger immune response. Nearly all of the remaining deaths are in cohorts 5-9, the vast bulk of whom should be done and have some protection in about four or five weeks' time
*Something like 80% of hospitalisations and 85% of deaths are prevented in the most vulnerable groups just by vaccination
*Then, imagine if 85% of the remaining patients who do end up in hospital can be saved by therapies? The net result of all this is that hospitalisations should be cut by at least 80%, and considerably more than that if the therapies can be administered to some patients before they get sick enough to require hospital admission, and deaths can be cut perhaps to 2% of what they would've been in patients who are infected
*Finally, we need to consider the additional reduction in deaths and hospitalisations that should occur because of the reduction in transmissibility within a vaccinated population
If the vaccines and the treatments are really effective - and obviously there is now a very large amount of evidence in favour of the vaccines - then there's really no excuse to delay the dumping of restrictions much beyond the Government's stated timetable. Unless there's a disastrous new mutation - and, based on how the virus has behaved so far, there's precious little evidence to suggest that such a thing is likely at this juncture - then we can wave goodbye to the pandemic and all the wretched rules this Summer.
One thing Covid-19 has ensured is a lot of people will have much more fixed plans than usual.