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What does Salmond want and what will he achieve? – politicalbetting.com
What does Salmond want and what will he achieve? – politicalbetting.com
Not all politics is personal but it’s very hard to explain Alex Salmond’s return to the front line of Scottish politics in any other terms. He feels very wronged. Wronged by the actions of his former party and his former deputy and successor, whose behaviour towards him may or may not have been inappropriate depending on which report or inquiry you read; and wronged by the Scottish government and legal system. How to right that wrong? Take the system on. It’s what he’s done since he first became SNP leader at the age of 35, more than three decades ago.
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Is that a usually the case?
Also - bring that Indy is probably split 50/50 at the moment, will people really sit on their hands if it looks like a massive pro Indy majority has been gerrymandered?
I can’t see that ending well.
Mr. 86, been afk hence slow reply:
the Brawn says hello when it comes to revolutionary designs.
Yes, and I've pointed that out here in the past.
It raises a question of how far the administration and form of elections should be devolved in a federal system, when that devolved authority risks being abused.
That is already a major question in the US, given the latest voter suppression attempts by Republican states such as Georgia, and it is right for the federal government to attempt to respond with legislation to limit the unfettered exercise of devolved powers to game the system. The principle should apply to Scotland too. Now that Salmond has blown the whistle on what was already happening in Scotland in any case, there's a good case for the UK government to step in with UK wide legislation to limit attempts by nationalists to game the system to achieve secession.
All that is required is to require representation within any regional lists to be determined by the same party vote used in the constituency ballot, with just a single vote cast. ie. If you vote for an SNP constituency candidate, you are deemed to have voted also for the SNP in the list as well. No more splitting of the votes for a pliant Scottish Green Party or now Alba, in the name of securing extra seats for secession.
I love the dryness of that comment, @david_herdson
I do agree with you on a general basis.
Without wishing to be mawkish, while I expend too much time on the place and am resolved to reduce that (time to get some sun), PB has really helped both distract and keep my spirits up. Yes, it's silly, but it's easier to be honest about feeling down with anonymous internet people in between chatter about politics and cricket.
Pleasant day, and days, to all.
“A new dawn has broken has it not? No? Ok then. Where’s that CV?”
https://twitter.com/GitaGopinath/status/1375557532224225282?s=19
Now that would be the ultimate ‘karma’s a bitch’ moment.
If there are enough Malcs out there who think the SNP has grown too comfortable with devolution and want to rattle the cage bars a bit, then Salmond will be back in the game and the sock puppet Greens will be toast.
China 10%
USA 50%
India 10%
EU 25%
U.K. 25%
Figures worked out very roughly.
And I’d point out it’s not how many you produce, it’s how many you’ve bought and administered that counts. No point in producing 2 billion vaccines for other people while your own refuse jabs.
Also, fisher folk in the North East, by majority, regard themselves as betrayed by the Tories and Brexit as both the SNP and Salmond predicted they would be.
Also we need to be learning for the future. There was talk of millions of AZ doses being delivered last autumn which never materialised but it must have been thought that the capacity existed. Is this a problem with UK manufacturing?
To pay out it would require serious SNP/Alba fireworks that undermine the Indy project and shovel votes back to one or more of the unionist parties. In six weeks. It’s all rather unlikely.
50/1 seems about right tbh.
The difference is we and the Americans are not whingeing about it, unlike the EU.
I’m intrigued though that the USA have produced that many vaccines yet as I understand it are some way behind us in terms of actual jabs in arms. Is that because of the shambles that is their healthcare process (it doesn’t deserve to be called a system)?
There are 73 constituencies before we go into this D’Hondt bullshit. Where are they going to not win 45 constituency seats? 55 would be more like it.
And even the lower figure will certainly make them the largest party.
Because if it was UK production then it must have been thought that we had the capacity back then and so any failure in delivery must have been due to a problem in manufacturing.
Also, even now we are still not managing to produce to our capacity (despite previous talk about having ironed out the difficulties).
The Marburg plant in Germany is about to come online for the Biontech jag and that appears to have been a much later addition than ours.
Important to learn what has gone right and wrong as when the unexpected happens we will have to develop capacity from scratch rather than relying on what's sitting around already.
We can disregard the German situation, where there is a decent chance of a Green becoming Chancellor in September. The German Greens are a very different animal.
Fundamentally, one would've thought that representation is eminently achievable for Salmond's outfit. Alba doesn't need to plunder the Green vote wholesale. If it steals only a third of the Green list vote then the Greens are out; add a small fraction of disgruntled Nat fundamentalists (and the SNP bagged over 40% of the list vote last time, which was almost entirely "wasted" except in the South) and Alba is in.
Given that we can assume that the SNP will at worst get reasonably close to an outright majority from the constituency vote, it's going to take a very precise combination of Green and Alba support for the two to cancel each other out and enable a theoretical Unionist majority. Possible, but unlikely.
I'm sticking with the Farage Theory, at least unless or until there's substantial polling evidence much closer to the election to suggest that Alba is a damp squib and/or that the Green vote may be holding firm. My instinct is that Salmond will probably be able to gather enough support to get in.
Personally aside from not thinking much of the potential Alba candidates announced so far, I’m not overly attracted to the idea of an artificial Indy supermajority. In a prospective referendum we have to persuade current don’t knows to Yes; starting off with the perception that they’re being railroaded into having to answer the question wouldn’t be a great beginning. Also what is the practical difference of this super majority to other outcomes? Is BJ going to see eg 60 SNP msps & 20 Alba msps as more persuasive than an SNP majority? I doubt it.
A major problem Alba’s supporters appear to have had with the SNP is their tardiness over Indy, yet aside from mumbling about UDI and going to the courts I haven’t seen a single coherent description of what this fast track to freedom might be. Afaics the only route is to ramp up the reality of Scots having major decisions imposed upon us, aided if necessary by a consultative referendum organised by ourselves. If there’s a non-deranged Plan B I’m all ears.
No overall change I would say this week then, a modest Tory lead remains which is impressive for a Government over a decade old.
“ Henry, most recently manager of Major League Soccer club Montreal Impact, is demanding more "accountability". "From tomorrow (Saturday) morning, I will be removing myself from social media until the people in power are able to regulate their platforms with the same vigour and ferocity that they currently do when you infringe copyright," he wrote. Accounts showing illegal Premier League football streams are often disrupted within seconds of being published, yet social media firms have been unable to stop the likes of Patrick van Aanholt, Kemar Roofe and Rhian Brewster and Willian being subjected to racist trolling.
Henry added: "Until this changes, I will be disabling my accounts across all social platforms. I’m hoping this happens soon." Countless players have continued to be abused in recent weeks since the Premier League, Football League and FA joined forces during emergency talks to call out inaction“
https://twitter.com/telefootball/status/1375761630605238275?s=21
(You try making a pun on ‘Hurt’!)
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1375748876561436677
Get your marching trousers on.
And your flags...
https://twitter.com/arthistorynews/status/1375765570340159492
https://twitter.com/gordonguthrie/status/1375765184720084995
Plenty of marches in favour of the Union raring to go after a year of abstinence in my bit. Will you be gracing them with your presence?
Scotland is, of course, now hopelessly polarized along the separatist-unionist axis. We know what happens in situations like that from Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein first entered Parliament in 1983 at a time when their paramilitary counterparts where shooting people and exploding bombs left, right and centre. What Salmond has done - and bear in mind that he has been exonerated in court of all the more serious, criminal allegations - is unsavoury but nonetheless absolute peanuts by comparison. Why should we expect his more ardent supporters to abandon him over it?
not sure if this has been mentioned yet but yesterday the German Constitutional Court blocked German ratification of the 750 billion Euro EU bailout plan. They are hearing arguments against German ratification and have blocked the plan until those hearings are completed.
https://www.ft.com/content/74841ea6-4fbf-4c7a-b015-66ba191ffc9b
So what do the EU do if Germany is not allowed to take part in the bailout? Where does the money come from and are they actually allowed to go ahead without German approval?
I am just out of shot on the left...
The issue is really how does the SNP use Alba to get a super majority of seats without making it too blooming obvious.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9408485/EDEN-CONFIDENTIAL-Prince-Charless-stepson-left-devastated-death-girlfriend.html
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Biden-s-Asia-policy/Biden-suggests-to-UK-PM-a-plan-to-rival-China-s-Belt-and-Road
Fudges have always been found before, but perhaps we're finally reaching the limit of what the court will allow to pass? We shall see.
No flu-like symptoms, but a couple of days after the vaccination his arm hurt like hell and he could barely raise it. This lasted for 2-3 days.
(If the next post is from Leon, I shall be bloody annoyed.)
Edit - I can live with them being Sandy and Mark.
And then there's the issue of heavily indebted and economically crippled Club Med states having to raise material sums to contribute towards the pot themselves, before they can get anything back out of it?
Surely the whole point of raising the debt collectively was to mask the fact that it was all. effectively, still going onto the balance sheets of the member states, as shareholders in the collective? Hose down struggling Portugal, for example, with money borrowed through the apparently solvent EU, rather than Lisbon having to go to the well yet again itself?
Might just as well ask Germany and the rest of the creditors to give the money directly to the debtor state governments as gifts and cut out the middle woman.
China, Iran expected to sign 25-year accord
http://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=306189
As it happens the last march I went on in Glasgow was the anti Iraq war one which Blair was supposed to address at the end, unfortunately the fecker crapped out at the prospect of 100k Glasgow raspberries.