That's certainly one interpretation of their argument.....
That's the obvious interpretation of the tweet IMO. Quite what relevance a super majority has i don't know. Is there some hitherto buried provision of the Scotland Act that most are unaware of? Just claiming something means something when it doesn't.
The latest installment of "Why we lost the Red Wall".
Yes. Amazing.
They do or say something that almost everyone is probably in favour of - then apologise for it because people who have no idea what it is actually about find it theoretically offensive
Laura Pidcock there, doing her very best to keep the Tories in power for the next 20 years. And, to be fair to the lassie, doing it rather well
The Tories are setting up obvious culture war traps everywhere, and Labour are walking into all of them
She's setting her own traps and walking into them. 'A nomadic way of life' - in the uk?
Boris could offer her a peerage for services to the Conservative party? Having said all of that, I am sure there is something genuine about Laura Pidcock, which if channelled well could actually serve the country. Could she learn from Jess Phillips?
Most of all, learn that Conservative voters love their country, want to help those in need, believe in policies which redistribute 100s of billions from better off to worse off and generally think that Labour voters are their moral equals.
As France has just gone back into lockdown they can be forgiven for having a sense of humour failure. And it appears they can order pizzas with anchovies on, which is more than I can
Just had a home made anchovy, olive and sardine pizza - superb!
As France has just gone back into lockdown they can be forgiven for having a sense of humour failure. And it appears they can order pizzas with anchovies on, which is more than I can
Just had a home made anchovy, olive and sardine pizza - superb!
Sounds excellent, you could have done with a bottle of Primitivo!
Are they going to continue to highlight the number of rare blood clots in the under 60s now they aren't getting AZ?
Europe has been afflicted by a peculiar madness with regard to vaccines. It began no doubt with an underlying scepticism has been fuelled by ordering shambles at the EU level, extraordinary irresponsible commentary from politicians at the highest levels, the extraordinary actions of national health agencies who have repeatedly ignored the EMA and finally a bizarre and irrational lashing out especially at the UK for reasons best known only to themselves. In Spain the personal result for me is that, at 66, I am too old to be offered AZT and around 15 years too young to be offered anything else. Luckily, unlike much of the rest of Europe, infection rates here are still quite low. Either way those aged 66-80 are mostly still a good month away from a first dose while anything approaching , say 70% of the population vaccinated with one dose, is unlikely before September. Ironically most citizens are remarkably stoical about it all. Very strange.
Whatever the EU's madness the press are worse. I can't think of a single journalist who I now respect.
She's back! And should be standing for Hartlepool. And still has that talent for spotting the vote winning issue.
She does have a point though- Saying "dealing with traveller incursions" is a dogwhistle to people who hate travellers. Fine if the leaflet gave a specific measure but its a lazy statement praying on bias.
How many people out there "hate" travellers simply because of who they are? Can't be many.
By the Nats? Yes of course, they believe all the other rubbish the SNP has fed them over the years.
LOL, that from numpties that worship Bozo
I don't worship Boris, I think he's an idiot. But I can see the cult-like behaviour of Nats towards Sturgeon, they are not much different from Kippers towards Farage.
So Tories are different , happy to ignore the lying and stealing etc and that is different from SNP. Selective indeed on who are cults.
So Sturgeon been forced out then?
oh
When did Boris or any of his cronies get forced out then
Effect of school holidays here (I can't think of any other explanation) is remarkable. They break up on Friday 26th; cases start to decline significantly from the following Monday, as the drop off in infections feeds through into the numbers.
Kids are evidently the driver in the near-plateauing of cases for most of March - mixing in schools, passing the Plague round, bringing it home to their families. If that's correct then cases will probably continue to drop right through until the weekend of 17/18 April.
It'll be very interesting indeed to see what happens immediately after that. Should cases merely level off again (rather than starting to climb) then it would be reasonable to blame that on the schools, and therefore to conclude that re-opening the shops and beer gardens has had no measurable effect. If so then what's left of physical retail and the hospitality trade, which have of course been shuttered for months because they were claimed to be such a lethal threat, will be absolutely bloody livid. And rightly so, too.
School holidays, yes. Kids, not necessarily.
A lot of people haven't used up all their leave this year and will have been off work for the whole of this week.
Next week should be interesting. The kids will not be back yet but there will be fewer people off work (new leave year, waiting for unlockdown).
Doesn't matter how many cases as it should not change policy now given that with the vaccination programmes there should not be many hospitalised cases or deaths. Death and hospitalisation happen from many things .We have to learn to forget about covid
No, cases don't matter so much, and to be fair, that is what the government have said.
Incidentally, our local weekly Covid missive talked about how children weren't only spreading it in school but a significant amount of cases were actually acquired in private settings. For example, the council were tracing a large outbreak from a birthday party.
Perhaps this may be happening because the parents decided they were mixing in school anyway, so what difference does it make?
That's certainly one interpretation of their argument.....
I don't expect that to happen because Sturgeon is not that stupid, but were it to occur it would justify Westminster intervention such as took place in Spring 1972 when the Heath Government suspended Stormont. If Holyrood acts in such an irresponsible way, it would merit the same response -ie an effective - albeit temporary - return to the status quo ante pre-Devolution.
If they mean what they say by saying independence can be negotiated and making no reference to the need for a referendum they are indulging in legal fictions. The text gives themselves a tiny get out, which suggests that they want you to believe it while knowing they don't mean it.
If you elect to set aside the assumptions that gave rise to the 2014 referendum, and instead to argue that the Scottish Parliament is the sole representative of the democratically expressed will of the Scottish people, then their approach makes complete sense. The Scottish Parliament is then entitled to vote to secede - moral authority trumping legal authority that has been imposed from Westminster, which under this interpretation has no right to do so - and can begin the process of separation as soon as it has thus voted.
This is the kind of approach that could appeal to the hotter kind of separatist (who may be growing frustrated with Nicola Sturgeon's leadership,) especially if/when the Scottish Parliament votes for another referendum and is turned down flat by the UK Government. How much, or how little, support they will gain from the electorate by apparently trying to out nationalist the SNP remains to be seen. We certainly don't have much evidence as yet to guess at the likely performance of the Alba Party in next month's election; one opinion poll taken a few days after the official launch isn't nearly enough.
What with reports of police interviews of very senior figures over the SNP's supposedly "ringfenced" £600,000 which is not evident from the accounts
It is so sad to see the state of Scotland in an ever-increasing sleazy governing party
G, you miss the 22 conservative associations that grifted £150K of covid cash as grants?
You yourself have spoken about Police Scotland involvement in the allegations about the SNP and Sturgeon hides behind I cannot remember for anything that needs an answer
With regard to your comment, two wrongs do not make a right
She's back! And should be standing for Hartlepool. And still has that talent for spotting the vote winning issue.
She does have a point though- Saying "dealing with traveller incursions" is a dogwhistle to people who hate travellers. Fine if the leaflet gave a specific measure but its a lazy statement praying on bias.
How many people out there "hate" travellers simply because of who they are? Can't be many.
By the Nats? Yes of course, they believe all the other rubbish the SNP has fed them over the years.
LOL, that from numpties that worship Bozo
I don't worship Boris, I think he's an idiot. But I can see the cult-like behaviour of Nats towards Sturgeon, they are not much different from Kippers towards Farage.
So Tories are different , happy to ignore the lying and stealing etc and that is different from SNP. Selective indeed on who are cults.
So Sturgeon been forced out then?
oh
When did Boris or any of his cronies get forced out then
You said the SNP were different Malc....
Now you are saying they are the same
I am indeed
What caused you to reverse your position in the space of an hour?
The most striking part of recent Covid stats for me is that cases have started to fall again after a period of plateauing after schools opened. This is very likely to be a vaccine effect and means we have more headroom to open up without cases increasing.
Not that a rise in cases shouldn't concern us either with the 60% most vulnerable adults vaccinated, but it does remove a possible weapon in the "don't open up" armory. Given the vaccine effect will grow (lots of first doses given over the last 3 weeks) and the April easing is outdoors only, I can't see a rise in cases being likely until late May. By which point we'll be up at 80%+ of adults vaccinated...
Moreover, deaths and hospitalisations are falling so quickly that they will be practically zero by that point as well.
By the Nats? Yes of course, they believe all the other rubbish the SNP has fed them over the years.
LOL, that from numpties that worship Bozo
I don't worship Boris, I think he's an idiot. But I can see the cult-like behaviour of Nats towards Sturgeon, they are not much different from Kippers towards Farage.
So Tories are different , happy to ignore the lying and stealing etc and that is different from SNP. Selective indeed on who are cults.
So Sturgeon been forced out then?
oh
When did Boris or any of his cronies get forced out then
You said the SNP were different Malc....
Now you are saying they are the same
I am indeed
Malc, as I understand your position, you have gone from SNP > Alba, at least for this fishing derby.
Is your intention to vote for Alba for both constituency & list, OR to vote SNP constituency & Alba list?
Yeah, but if it’s a problem for Nicola, let them go for it. 😆
The unions know they've got her over a barrel, refuse and she's not "backing the NHS". The losers will be English taxpayers, including NHS workers, who will now have to pay more tax to pay for this bullshit.
I'm not clear why English Taxpayers have to pay extra for decisions in the Scottish NHS? Does the mechanism work both ways?
If English NHS pay was forced to go up yes, but that will be more like 2% than 4% or 12%.
And I don't see the Scottish NHS being large enough to cause a major collapse in Englsh NHs workforce by cross-recruitment.
Another halfwitted cretinous numpty who does not understand that Scotland has money , and after England has stolen a good part of it they still have some pocket money left to fund things. English taxpayers will not pay a penny piece of it you dumpling.
Sure. Let’s convert the Darien bailout to a loan and charge you compound interest on it
It was a bribe to the aristos. They should be asked to pay it back.
Carnyx these morons did not learn real history, it was England that was skint and Scotland had a surplus , they bribed the 12 tossers who signed and took all our money and have been doing so ever since.
By the Nats? Yes of course, they believe all the other rubbish the SNP has fed them over the years.
LOL, that from numpties that worship Bozo
I don't worship Boris, I think he's an idiot. But I can see the cult-like behaviour of Nats towards Sturgeon, they are not much different from Kippers towards Farage.
So Tories are different , happy to ignore the lying and stealing etc and that is different from SNP. Selective indeed on who are cults.
So Sturgeon been forced out then?
oh
When did Boris or any of his cronies get forced out then
You said the SNP were different Malc....
Now you are saying they are the same
I am indeed
Malc, as I understand your position, you have gone from SNP > Alba, at least for this fishing derby.
Is your intention to vote for Alba for both constituency & list, OR to vote SNP constituency & Alba list?
Yeah, but if it’s a problem for Nicola, let them go for it. 😆
The unions know they've got her over a barrel, refuse and she's not "backing the NHS". The losers will be English taxpayers, including NHS workers, who will now have to pay more tax to pay for this bullshit.
I'm not clear why English Taxpayers have to pay extra for decisions in the Scottish NHS? Does the mechanism work both ways?
If English NHS pay was forced to go up yes, but that will be more like 2% than 4% or 12%.
And I don't see the Scottish NHS being large enough to cause a major collapse in Englsh NHs workforce by cross-recruitment.
Another halfwitted cretinous numpty who does not understand that Scotland has money , and after England has stolen a good part of it they still have some pocket money left to fund things. English taxpayers will not pay a penny piece of it you dumpling.
Sure. Let’s convert the Darien bailout to a loan and charge you compound interest on it
It was a bribe to the aristos. They should be asked to pay it back.
Carnyx these morons did not learn real history, it was England that was skint and Scotland had a surplus , they bribed the 12 tossers who signed and took all our money and have been doing so ever since.
It looks like Brazil could be the first country to test the "extreme worse case scenario" which was bruited all the way back in Feb 2020 - where a nation's health system completely collapses, under Covid, and the deaths rise exponentially (not just from Covid)
Pray God this is wrong
Edit: Covax should be flooding Brazil with any spare vaccines. This is where horrible mutations will happen, if anywhere
If they mean what they say by saying independence can be negotiated and making no reference to the need for a referendum they are indulging in legal fictions. The text gives themselves a tiny get out, which suggests that they want you to believe it while knowing they don't mean it.
If it really did come to pass that this attempt to game the Scottish electoral system succeeded, but cost the SNP seats, then wouldn't it formalise a split in the Nationalist movement that would be quite difficult to contain? If they did end up with 60+% of the seats in the Scottish Parliament then they would actually likely quickly lose control of the agenda with Alba massively pushing for prioritising Independence above all else (even if they didn't push for some kind of UDI idea).
Pretending that Independence support was significantly in excess of what it actually was is not likely to bring waverers over to the indy side.
Another halfwit , how is it gaming the system , did you say that when the unionists won 90+ seats. Don't hear anyone on here talking about fact that the TORIES RUN THE COUNTRY WITH A MINORITY VOTE.
If the silly old goat had got off her Rs and taken up the richer country side of the Covax offer back in Sept 20 when Canada did a good deal fewer of her citizens would be dead.
Yeah, but if it’s a problem for Nicola, let them go for it. 😆
The unions know they've got her over a barrel, refuse and she's not "backing the NHS". The losers will be English taxpayers, including NHS workers, who will now have to pay more tax to pay for this bullshit.
I'm not clear why English Taxpayers have to pay extra for decisions in the Scottish NHS? Does the mechanism work both ways?
If English NHS pay was forced to go up yes, but that will be more like 2% than 4% or 12%.
And I don't see the Scottish NHS being large enough to cause a major collapse in Englsh NHs workforce by cross-recruitment.
Another halfwitted cretinous numpty who does not understand that Scotland has money , and after England has stolen a good part of it they still have some pocket money left to fund things. English taxpayers will not pay a penny piece of it you dumpling.
Sure. Let’s convert the Darien bailout to a loan and charge you compound interest on it
It was a bribe to the aristos. They should be asked to pay it back.
Carnyx these morons did not learn real history, it was England that was skint and Scotland had a surplus , they bribed the 12 tossers who signed and took all our money and have been doing so ever since.
Yeah, but if it’s a problem for Nicola, let them go for it. 😆
The unions know they've got her over a barrel, refuse and she's not "backing the NHS". The losers will be English taxpayers, including NHS workers, who will now have to pay more tax to pay for this bullshit.
I'm not clear why English Taxpayers have to pay extra for decisions in the Scottish NHS? Does the mechanism work both ways?
If English NHS pay was forced to go up yes, but that will be more like 2% than 4% or 12%.
And I don't see the Scottish NHS being large enough to cause a major collapse in Englsh NHs workforce by cross-recruitment.
Another halfwitted cretinous numpty who does not understand that Scotland has money , and after England has stolen a good part of it they still have some pocket money left to fund things. English taxpayers will not pay a penny piece of it you dumpling.
Sure. Let’s convert the Darien bailout to a loan and charge you compound interest on it
It was a bribe to the aristos. They should be asked to pay it back.
Carnyx these morons did not learn real history, it was England that was skint and Scotland had a surplus , they bribed the 12 tossers who signed and took all our money and have been doing so ever since.
By the Nats? Yes of course, they believe all the other rubbish the SNP has fed them over the years.
LOL, that from numpties that worship Bozo
I don't worship Boris, I think he's an idiot. But I can see the cult-like behaviour of Nats towards Sturgeon, they are not much different from Kippers towards Farage.
So Tories are different , happy to ignore the lying and stealing etc and that is different from SNP. Selective indeed on who are cults.
So Sturgeon been forced out then?
oh
When did Boris or any of his cronies get forced out then
You said the SNP were different Malc....
Now you are saying they are the same
I am indeed
Malc, as I understand your position, you have gone from SNP > Alba, at least for this fishing derby.
Is your intention to vote for Alba for both constituency & list, OR to vote SNP constituency & Alba list?
Alba are not standing in constituency
Duh! I thought I knew that!
OK, Malc, so do you think you'll be voting SNP in constituency, OR for another party OR abstaining?
(Over here you could write in "Scrooge McDuck" or other personal option.)
That's certainly one interpretation of their argument.....
That's the obvious interpretation of the tweet IMO. Quite what relevance a super majority has i don't know. Is there some hitherto buried provision of the Scotland Act that most are unaware of? Just claiming something means something when it doesn't.
In international law if a majority want to run their own affairs then it is legal , no made up crap by Westminster can hold a country prisoner against their will.
That feels like a colossal error for indy. UDI is wildly unpopular
However, it's clearly what the suggestion that the Scottish Government can sue for separation under its own authority implies, since there is no reason to suppose that the UK Government will agree to enter negotiations. No attempt at secession that is made without the consent of Westminster is legal, and it wouldn't survive contact with the Scottish courts. For it to succeed would therefore require a revolution.
Yeah, but if it’s a problem for Nicola, let them go for it. 😆
The unions know they've got her over a barrel, refuse and she's not "backing the NHS". The losers will be English taxpayers, including NHS workers, who will now have to pay more tax to pay for this bullshit.
I'm not clear why English Taxpayers have to pay extra for decisions in the Scottish NHS? Does the mechanism work both ways?
If English NHS pay was forced to go up yes, but that will be more like 2% than 4% or 12%.
And I don't see the Scottish NHS being large enough to cause a major collapse in Englsh NHs workforce by cross-recruitment.
Another halfwitted cretinous numpty who does not understand that Scotland has money , and after England has stolen a good part of it they still have some pocket money left to fund things. English taxpayers will not pay a penny piece of it you dumpling.
Sure. Let’s convert the Darien bailout to a loan and charge you compound interest on it
It was a bribe to the aristos. They should be asked to pay it back.
Carnyx these morons did not learn real history, it was England that was skint and Scotland had a surplus , they bribed the 12 tossers who signed and took all our money and have been doing so ever since.
Yeah, but if it’s a problem for Nicola, let them go for it. 😆
The unions know they've got her over a barrel, refuse and she's not "backing the NHS". The losers will be English taxpayers, including NHS workers, who will now have to pay more tax to pay for this bullshit.
I'm not clear why English Taxpayers have to pay extra for decisions in the Scottish NHS? Does the mechanism work both ways?
If English NHS pay was forced to go up yes, but that will be more like 2% than 4% or 12%.
And I don't see the Scottish NHS being large enough to cause a major collapse in Englsh NHs workforce by cross-recruitment.
Another halfwitted cretinous numpty who does not understand that Scotland has money , and after England has stolen a good part of it they still have some pocket money left to fund things. English taxpayers will not pay a penny piece of it you dumpling.
Sure. Let’s convert the Darien bailout to a loan and charge you compound interest on it
It was a bribe to the aristos. They should be asked to pay it back.
Carnyx these morons did not learn real history, it was England that was skint and Scotland had a surplus , they bribed the 12 tossers who signed and took all our money and have been doing so ever since.
If they mean what they say by saying independence can be negotiated and making no reference to the need for a referendum they are indulging in legal fictions. The text gives themselves a tiny get out, which suggests that they want you to believe it while knowing they don't mean it.
If you elect to set aside the assumptions that gave rise to the 2014 referendum, and instead to argue that the Scottish Parliament is the sole representative of the democratically expressed will of the Scottish people, then their approach makes complete sense. The Scottish Parliament is then entitled to vote to secede - moral authority trumping legal authority that has been imposed from Westminster, which under this interpretation has no right to do so - and can begin the process of separation as soon as it has thus voted.
This is the kind of approach that could appeal to the hotter kind of separatist (who may be growing frustrated with Nicola Sturgeon's leadership,) especially if/when the Scottish Parliament votes for another referendum and is turned down flat by the UK Government. How much, or how little, support they will gain from the electorate by apparently trying to out nationalist the SNP remains to be seen. We certainly don't have much evidence as yet to guess at the likely performance of the Alba Party in next month's election; one opinion poll taken a few days after the official launch isn't nearly enough.
Nice point. I think we are agreed. It's a legal fiction. Scotland could try it on (like Rhodesia). Hot heads will say they will. They won't. (And if per impossibile they did they would be international pariahs not least with Spain and the EU.)
And as the Scots voted to endorse UK rule as recently as 2014 it is all hot air. This is neither Hong Kong nor the Uighurs nor the Kurds.
By the Nats? Yes of course, they believe all the other rubbish the SNP has fed them over the years.
LOL, that from numpties that worship Bozo
I don't worship Boris, I think he's an idiot. But I can see the cult-like behaviour of Nats towards Sturgeon, they are not much different from Kippers towards Farage.
So Tories are different , happy to ignore the lying and stealing etc and that is different from SNP. Selective indeed on who are cults.
So Sturgeon been forced out then?
oh
When did Boris or any of his cronies get forced out then
You said the SNP were different Malc....
Now you are saying they are the same
I am indeed
Malc, as I understand your position, you have gone from SNP > Alba, at least for this fishing derby.
Is your intention to vote for Alba for both constituency & list, OR to vote SNP constituency & Alba list?
Seashanty , they are List only , I have to decide if I can hold my nose and vote for SNP for constituency. I doubt Sturgeon will be around long , either chucked out jailed or got herself the UN/ European type women's saviour job she is desperate for so may be best to make sure they do well also.
Effect of school holidays here (I can't think of any other explanation) is remarkable. They break up on Friday 26th; cases start to decline significantly from the following Monday, as the drop off in infections feeds through into the numbers.
Kids are evidently the driver in the near-plateauing of cases for most of March - mixing in schools, passing the Plague round, bringing it home to their families. If that's correct then cases will probably continue to drop right through until the weekend of 17/18 April.
It'll be very interesting indeed to see what happens immediately after that. Should cases merely level off again (rather than starting to climb) then it would be reasonable to blame that on the schools, and therefore to conclude that re-opening the shops and beer gardens has had no measurable effect. If so then what's left of physical retail and the hospitality trade, which have of course been shuttered for months because they were claimed to be such a lethal threat, will be absolutely bloody livid. And rightly so, too.
The flaw in the logic of this post is that the majority of schools only broke up yesterday.
So if there is a link, we should see not so much a decline as a Grand Canyon next week.
Although as nobody will be testing over Easter - despite those loathsome scum at the DfE saying we must because they want us to and they know so much better than people with multiple brain cells - cases should fall anyway.
Effect of school holidays here (I can't think of any other explanation) is remarkable. They break up on Friday 26th; cases start to decline significantly from the following Monday, as the drop off in infections feeds through into the numbers.
Kids are evidently the driver in the near-plateauing of cases for most of March - mixing in schools, passing the Plague round, bringing it home to their families. If that's correct then cases will probably continue to drop right through until the weekend of 17/18 April.
It'll be very interesting indeed to see what happens immediately after that. Should cases merely level off again (rather than starting to climb) then it would be reasonable to blame that on the schools, and therefore to conclude that re-opening the shops and beer gardens has had no measurable effect. If so then what's left of physical retail and the hospitality trade, which have of course been shuttered for months because they were claimed to be such a lethal threat, will be absolutely bloody livid. And rightly so, too.
School holidays, yes. Kids, not necessarily.
A lot of people haven't used up all their leave this year and will have been off work for the whole of this week.
Next week should be interesting. The kids will not be back yet but there will be fewer people off work (new leave year, waiting for unlockdown).
Doesn't matter how many cases as it should not change policy now given that with the vaccination programmes there should not be many hospitalised cases or deaths. Death and hospitalisation happen from many things .We have to learn to forget about covid
No, cases don't matter so much, and to be fair, that is what the government have said.
Incidentally, our local weekly Covid missive talked about how children weren't only spreading it in school but a significant amount of cases were actually acquired in private settings. For example, the council were tracing a large outbreak from a birthday party.
Perhaps this may be happening because the parents decided they were mixing in school anyway, so what difference does it make?
Lors of children mixing freely at school - they all have immunity.
Children mixing at a birthday party with adults present, and vulnerable adults get infected by one of the pestilent children.
That feels like a colossal error for indy. UDI is wildly unpopular
However, it's clearly what the suggestion that the Scottish Government can sue for separation under its own authority implies, since there is no reason to suppose that the UK Government will agree to enter negotiations. No attempt at secession that is made without the consent of Westminster is legal, and it wouldn't survive contact with the Scottish courts. For it to succeed would therefore require a revolution.
Yeah it's mad.
It is also an open invitation to Boris to simply say No - on the grounds of unreasonable demands, apart from anything else - and then that splits the indy cause wide open for years, or a "generation" - between the legal gradualists like Sturgeon and the old-men-in-a-hurry like Salmond who apparently want civil strife.
Does he even want that tho? Or is this all a way, for him, to bring her down and damage her party, and exact his final revenge?
What with reports of police interviews of very senior figures over the SNP's supposedly "ringfenced" £600,000 which is not evident from the accounts
It is so sad to see the state of Scotland in an ever-increasing sleazy governing party
G, you miss the 22 conservative associations that grifted £150K of covid cash as grants?
You yourself have spoken about Police Scotland involvement in the allegations about the SNP and Sturgeon hides behind I cannot remember for anything that needs an answer
With regard to your comment, two wrongs do not make a right
If they mean what they say by saying independence can be negotiated and making no reference to the need for a referendum they are indulging in legal fictions. The text gives themselves a tiny get out, which suggests that they want you to believe it while knowing they don't mean it.
If it really did come to pass that this attempt to game the Scottish electoral system succeeded, but cost the SNP seats, then wouldn't it formalise a split in the Nationalist movement that would be quite difficult to contain? If they did end up with 60+% of the seats in the Scottish Parliament then they would actually likely quickly lose control of the agenda with Alba massively pushing for prioritising Independence above all else (even if they didn't push for some kind of UDI idea).
Pretending that Independence support was significantly in excess of what it actually was is not likely to bring waverers over to the indy side.
Another halfwit , how is it gaming the system , did you say that when the unionists won 90+ seats. Don't hear anyone on here talking about fact that the TORIES RUN THE COUNTRY WITH A MINORITY VOTE.
That's certainly one interpretation of their argument.....
I don't expect that to happen because Sturgeon is not that stupid, but were it to occur it would justify Westminster intervention such as took place in Spring 1972 when the Heath Government suspended Stormont. If Holyrood acts in such an irresponsible way, it would merit the same response -ie an effective - albeit temporary - return to the status quo ante pre-Devolution.
You have to remember that Scotland is split 50/50 on Indy regardless of the result on 6 May. There is no "settled will of the Scottish people" and there is no widespread appetite for an approach that does not go down a Section 30 order from Westminster. It would backfire and deepen divisions even more. Sturgeon, I think, recognises this but it is a chink of weakness which Salmond will exploit if he can as he really doesn't care about anything other than getting satisfaction at her expense.
Yeah, but if it’s a problem for Nicola, let them go for it. 😆
The unions know they've got her over a barrel, refuse and she's not "backing the NHS". The losers will be English taxpayers, including NHS workers, who will now have to pay more tax to pay for this bullshit.
I'm not clear why English Taxpayers have to pay extra for decisions in the Scottish NHS? Does the mechanism work both ways?
If English NHS pay was forced to go up yes, but that will be more like 2% than 4% or 12%.
And I don't see the Scottish NHS being large enough to cause a major collapse in Englsh NHs workforce by cross-recruitment.
Another halfwitted cretinous numpty who does not understand that Scotland has money , and after England has stolen a good part of it they still have some pocket money left to fund things. English taxpayers will not pay a penny piece of it you dumpling.
Sure. Let’s convert the Darien bailout to a loan and charge you compound interest on it
It was a bribe to the aristos. They should be asked to pay it back.
Carnyx these morons did not learn real history, it was England that was skint and Scotland had a surplus , they bribed the 12 tossers who signed and took all our money and have been doing so ever since.
The German shoe v sock divide is quite interesting. Also looks as though French & Italian Swiss retain their footwear like their kinfolk over the border, while German Swiss kick off their shoes inside their chalets.
By the Nats? Yes of course, they believe all the other rubbish the SNP has fed them over the years.
LOL, that from numpties that worship Bozo
I don't worship Boris, I think he's an idiot. But I can see the cult-like behaviour of Nats towards Sturgeon, they are not much different from Kippers towards Farage.
So Tories are different , happy to ignore the lying and stealing etc and that is different from SNP. Selective indeed on who are cults.
So Sturgeon been forced out then?
oh
When did Boris or any of his cronies get forced out then
You said the SNP were different Malc....
Now you are saying they are the same
I am indeed
What caused you to reverse your position in the space of an hour?
I have been saying for ages the SNP leadership have turned out as bad as the Tories
Effect of school holidays here (I can't think of any other explanation) is remarkable. They break up on Friday 26th; cases start to decline significantly from the following Monday, as the drop off in infections feeds through into the numbers.
Kids are evidently the driver in the near-plateauing of cases for most of March - mixing in schools, passing the Plague round, bringing it home to their families. If that's correct then cases will probably continue to drop right through until the weekend of 17/18 April.
It'll be very interesting indeed to see what happens immediately after that. Should cases merely level off again (rather than starting to climb) then it would be reasonable to blame that on the schools, and therefore to conclude that re-opening the shops and beer gardens has had no measurable effect. If so then what's left of physical retail and the hospitality trade, which have of course been shuttered for months because they were claimed to be such a lethal threat, will be absolutely bloody livid. And rightly so, too.
School holidays, yes. Kids, not necessarily.
A lot of people haven't used up all their leave this year and will have been off work for the whole of this week.
Next week should be interesting. The kids will not be back yet but there will be fewer people off work (new leave year, waiting for unlockdown).
Doesn't matter how many cases as it should not change policy now given that with the vaccination programmes there should not be many hospitalised cases or deaths. Death and hospitalisation happen from many things .We have to learn to forget about covid
No, cases don't matter so much, and to be fair, that is what the government have said.
Incidentally, our local weekly Covid missive talked about how children weren't only spreading it in school but a significant amount of cases were actually acquired in private settings. For example, the council were tracing a large outbreak from a birthday party.
Perhaps this may be happening because the parents decided they were mixing in school anyway, so what difference does it make?
Lors of children mixing freely at school - they all have immunity.
Children mixing at a birthday party with adults present, and vulnerable adults get infected by one of the pestilent children.
By the Nats? Yes of course, they believe all the other rubbish the SNP has fed them over the years.
LOL, that from numpties that worship Bozo
I don't worship Boris, I think he's an idiot. But I can see the cult-like behaviour of Nats towards Sturgeon, they are not much different from Kippers towards Farage.
So Tories are different , happy to ignore the lying and stealing etc and that is different from SNP. Selective indeed on who are cults.
So Sturgeon been forced out then?
oh
When did Boris or any of his cronies get forced out then
You said the SNP were different Malc....
Now you are saying they are the same
I am indeed
What caused you to reverse your position in the space of an hour?
I have been saying for ages the SNP leadership have turned out as bad as the Tories
But you are going to vote for them in constituency
By the Nats? Yes of course, they believe all the other rubbish the SNP has fed them over the years.
LOL, that from numpties that worship Bozo
I don't worship Boris, I think he's an idiot. But I can see the cult-like behaviour of Nats towards Sturgeon, they are not much different from Kippers towards Farage.
So Tories are different , happy to ignore the lying and stealing etc and that is different from SNP. Selective indeed on who are cults.
So Sturgeon been forced out then?
oh
When did Boris or any of his cronies get forced out then
You said the SNP were different Malc....
Now you are saying they are the same
I am indeed
What caused you to reverse your position in the space of an hour?
I have been saying for ages the SNP leadership have turned out as bad as the Tories
I think that’s a bit harsh. The Tories have many terrible faults but they don’t currently stand accused of rigging legal proceedings to damage their political enemies.
It's mostly the post Roman Empire 'Barbarian West' v the rest. Blame: Theodoric, Charlesmagne, Clovis, Alaric, Lombards and the Byzantine reinvasion of Ravenna.
The German shoe v sock divide is quite interesting. Also looks as though French & Italian Swiss retain their footwear like their kinfolk over the border, while German Swiss kick off their shoes inside their chalets.
In America does anyone take their shoes off? I don't remember it
It might be, I suppose. something to do with wealth. In richer countries, they care less (or cared less) about damaging floor surfaces (whether carpets or woodwork). But then the affluent Swiss and Austrians take shoes off. Perhaps the cultural influence of Islam on the wider east?
That's certainly one interpretation of their argument.....
That's the obvious interpretation of the tweet IMO. Quite what relevance a super majority has i don't know. Is there some hitherto buried provision of the Scotland Act that most are unaware of? Just claiming something means something when it doesn't.
In international law if a majority want to run their own affairs then it is legal , no made up crap by Westminster can hold a country prisoner against their will.
Connection with the price of fish?
Do you know what a super majority is? What is the relevance to Scotland's situation (or indeed to your response about a majority)?
By the Nats? Yes of course, they believe all the other rubbish the SNP has fed them over the years.
LOL, that from numpties that worship Bozo
I don't worship Boris, I think he's an idiot. But I can see the cult-like behaviour of Nats towards Sturgeon, they are not much different from Kippers towards Farage.
So Tories are different , happy to ignore the lying and stealing etc and that is different from SNP. Selective indeed on who are cults.
So Sturgeon been forced out then?
oh
When did Boris or any of his cronies get forced out then
You said the SNP were different Malc....
Now you are saying they are the same
I am indeed
What caused you to reverse your position in the space of an hour?
I have been saying for ages the SNP leadership have turned out as bad as the Tories
But you are going to vote for them in constituency
What was that about hypocrisy
Worth pointing out that Alba will probably prove to be a turkey. Salmond simply repels too many people. It's one of the reasons he is so angry with Sturgeon, but which also, ironically, circumscribes his ability to get even. He risks being humiliated in May which will only increase his rage (unless something occurs to him between now and then, of course...)
By the Nats? Yes of course, they believe all the other rubbish the SNP has fed them over the years.
LOL, that from numpties that worship Bozo
I don't worship Boris, I think he's an idiot. But I can see the cult-like behaviour of Nats towards Sturgeon, they are not much different from Kippers towards Farage.
So Tories are different , happy to ignore the lying and stealing etc and that is different from SNP. Selective indeed on who are cults.
So Sturgeon been forced out then?
oh
When did Boris or any of his cronies get forced out then
You said the SNP were different Malc....
Now you are saying they are the same
I am indeed
What caused you to reverse your position in the space of an hour?
I have been saying for ages the SNP leadership have turned out as bad as the Tories
But you are going to vote for them in constituency
What was that about hypocrisy
Worth pointing out that Alba will probably prove to be a turkey. Salmond simply repels too many people. It's one of the reasons he is so angry with Sturgeon, but which also, ironically, circumscribes his ability to get even. He risks being humiliated in May which will only increase his rage (unless something occurs to him between now and then, of course...)
By the Nats? Yes of course, they believe all the other rubbish the SNP has fed them over the years.
LOL, that from numpties that worship Bozo
I don't worship Boris, I think he's an idiot. But I can see the cult-like behaviour of Nats towards Sturgeon, they are not much different from Kippers towards Farage.
So Tories are different , happy to ignore the lying and stealing etc and that is different from SNP. Selective indeed on who are cults.
So Sturgeon been forced out then?
oh
When did Boris or any of his cronies get forced out then
You said the SNP were different Malc....
Now you are saying they are the same
I am indeed
What caused you to reverse your position in the space of an hour?
I have been saying for ages the SNP leadership have turned out as bad as the Tories
But you are going to vote for them in constituency
What was that about hypocrisy
Worth pointing out that Alba will probably prove to be a turkey. Salmond simply repels too many people. It's one of the reasons he is so angry with Sturgeon, but which also, ironically, circumscribes his ability to get even. He risks being humiliated in May which will only increase his rage (unless something occurs to him between now and then, of course...)
But he has enough heft, politically, to damage Sturgeon and maybe bring her down. Perhaps that is all he cares about.
Given that he clearly believes she conspired to ruin his life you can see why he feels that way.
The German shoe v sock divide is quite interesting. Also looks as though French & Italian Swiss retain their footwear like their kinfolk over the border, while German Swiss kick off their shoes inside their chalets.
In America does anyone take their shoes off? I don't remember it
It might be, I suppose. something to do with wealth. In richer countries, they care less (or cared less) about damaging floor surfaces (whether carpets or woodwork). But then the affluent Swiss and Austrians take shoes off. Perhaps the cultural influence of Islam on the wider east?
But then why is Norway green?
Fascinating but bewildering
Weather perhaps.
The green areas have harsh winters causing footwear to be muddy or snowy and so removed indoors.
Yes indeed, this was proven by genetic testing in 1994. Primitivo (so named because it is first to ripen) was imported to the US by a Long Island horticulturalist in the 1820s. Both grapes are, it is believed, originally derived from Crljenak Kaštelanski from Croatia. Red Zinfandel provided strong cheap plonk for the Californian gold rush diggers, but during prohibition it became almost forgotten. In the 1970s a producer's fermentation went wrong, and he was about to dispose of the wine when he tasted it and thought that the sweet pink wine he found himself with might sell, and hence White Zinfandel (mostly sickly plonk) was born, and proved as popular in the US during the 1970s as did Mateus Rose in Europe. Red Zinfandel has only been made seriously in any quantity since the 1990s, and its popularity has, ironically, fed back to Italy and prompted a Primitivo revival this century. There are some good examples from Puglia and Sicily. It's strong stuff.
Hypothetical: if Alba take enough votes off the SNP, and cause enough pain to Sturgeon, to deprive the Nats of a majority - even if Alba don't prosper - does that mean Sturgeon has to go?
I think it does. She is too tarnished, now.
So, Salmond quite likely gets what he wants, whatever. Either Alba do brilliantly, and he becomes a kingmaker (asking for Sturgeon's head) or they languish, but he still gets to take painful lumps out of Sturgeon and the Nats: also a result (for him).
What I don't understand is why Sturgeon still goads him, alluding to his "guilt".
Perhaps she just can't help it, she hates him so much
Keir/Kier Starmer would make a pleasant neighbour. He’d bring his wheelie bin in the very day it’s emptied. He’d smile and say hello if we crossed paths on our morning rounds. I doubt he’d annoy me with gangster rap at 3am or throw used jonnies in my garden, as previous neighbours have done.
But he’s not leader of the neighbourhood watch material. And not that I assume to speak for her, but I don’t imagine my wife getting weak at the knees if she saw him jogging up the hill either. In short, he’s stuffed. Next!
Further cases of a rare blood clotting syndrome including seven deaths have been reported among recipients of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab in the UK.
About 1 in 600,000 recipients had these rare clotting events, and fewer than 1 in 2,500,000 died. Not at all clear how many, or few (if any) of these cases were actually to do with the vaccine, or would've happened anyway. Well worth the minuscule theoretical risk of having it as far as I'm concerned.
The German shoe v sock divide is quite interesting. Also looks as though French & Italian Swiss retain their footwear like their kinfolk over the border, while German Swiss kick off their shoes inside their chalets.
In America does anyone take their shoes off? I don't remember it
It might be, I suppose. something to do with wealth. In richer countries, they care less (or cared less) about damaging floor surfaces (whether carpets or woodwork). But then the affluent Swiss and Austrians take shoes off. Perhaps the cultural influence of Islam on the wider east?
But then why is Norway green?
Fascinating but bewildering
Weather perhaps.
The green areas have harsh winters causing footwear to be muddy or snowy and so removed indoors.
Is this map accurate ? I always take my shoes off visiting anyone
I was thinking about this. I think I do if there’s shoes at the door and my hosts have no shoes on, or if I have crap on them. One or other thing is usually true, so I almost always take my shoes off.
Effect of school holidays here (I can't think of any other explanation) is remarkable. They break up on Friday 26th; cases start to decline significantly from the following Monday, as the drop off in infections feeds through into the numbers.
Kids are evidently the driver in the near-plateauing of cases for most of March - mixing in schools, passing the Plague round, bringing it home to their families. If that's correct then cases will probably continue to drop right through until the weekend of 17/18 April.
It'll be very interesting indeed to see what happens immediately after that. Should cases merely level off again (rather than starting to climb) then it would be reasonable to blame that on the schools, and therefore to conclude that re-opening the shops and beer gardens has had no measurable effect. If so then what's left of physical retail and the hospitality trade, which have of course been shuttered for months because they were claimed to be such a lethal threat, will be absolutely bloody livid. And rightly so, too.
The flaw in the logic of this post is that the majority of schools only broke up yesterday.
So if there is a link, we should see not so much a decline as a Grand Canyon next week.
Although as nobody will be testing over Easter - despite those loathsome scum at the DfE saying we must because they want us to and they know so much better than people with multiple brain cells - cases should fall anyway.
I was wonder about this as our kids were still traipsing in on Thursday too. It may be that lots of testing and resulting isolation might actually work...
Bill & Melinda Gates have donated more than France.
Not 'donated' but 'invested'. US 'foundations' aren't really the same as UK charitable foundations. His personal wealth has doubled since 2010 by investing in vaccine producers and related companies.
Some mistaken people think that after he left Microsoft he gave away most of his $$$ to good causes. Ha ha.
Watch the Corbett Report on Gates. About 4 x 30 min episodes on Youtube.
Is this map accurate ? I always take my shoes off visiting anyone
I was thinking about this. I think I do if there’s shoes at the door and my hosts have no shoes on, or if I have crap on them. One or other thing is usually true, so I almost always take my shoes off.
Also I hate wearing shoes indoors.
A few years ago I briefly had a Serbian girlfriend. She was absolutely perplexed by the fact the British did not take their shoes off indoors. Could not understand it
Is this map accurate ? I always take my shoes off visiting anyone
I was thinking about this. I think I do if there’s shoes at the door and my hosts have no shoes on, or if I have crap on them. One or other thing is usually true, so I almost always take my shoes off.
Also I hate wearing shoes indoors.
A few years ago I briefly had a Serbian girlfriend. She was absolutely perplexed by the fact the British did not take their shoes off indoors. Could not understand it
Can't be doing with shoes indoors. It's like wearing socks during sex
Is this map accurate ? I always take my shoes off visiting anyone
I was thinking about this. I think I do if there’s shoes at the door and my hosts have no shoes on, or if I have crap on them. One or other thing is usually true, so I almost always take my shoes off.
Also I hate wearing shoes indoors.
A few years ago I briefly had a Serbian girlfriend. She was absolutely perplexed by the fact the British did not take their shoes off indoors. Could not understand it
She was right. It’s a bizarre blind spot of manners in the British that they think it’s ok to wear their shoes in their own houses, let alone other people’s.
The only Serbian girl I have known well, used to reserve the top section of her freezer for ganja to keep it very fresh, which I used to think was very sophisticated.
Is this map accurate ? I always take my shoes off visiting anyone
I was thinking about this. I think I do if there’s shoes at the door and my hosts have no shoes on, or if I have crap on them. One or other thing is usually true, so I almost always take my shoes off.
Also I hate wearing shoes indoors.
A few years ago I briefly had a Serbian girlfriend. She was absolutely perplexed by the fact the British did not take their shoes off indoors. Could not understand it
Can't be doing with shoes indoors. It's like wearing socks during sex
Perhaps it is sexual. Shoes and boots say "I am a man", socks and slippers say "I might be gay". Shoes and boots make noise, but you don't care. It's your house!
Enoch Powell once said: "a gentleman should never be photographed with his boots off"
There is, then, an element of machismo about it, and I wonder if that is an aspect of the divide. The Green shoe-wearing countries are more successful, imperialistic and macho, Britain, Spain, France, Italy, Holland, Greece. The pathetic red shoe-taking-off weirdoes are all effete conquered nations (often conquered by Islam) - Bosnia, Serbia, Poland, East Germany
Comments
Most of all, learn that Conservative voters love their country, want to help those in need, believe in policies which redistribute 100s of billions from better off to worse off and generally think that Labour voters are their moral equals.
https://news.sky.com/story/suffolk-83-suspected-stolen-dogs-recovered-in-police-raid-12252822
Incidentally, our local weekly Covid missive talked about how children weren't only spreading it in school but a significant amount of cases were actually acquired in private settings. For example, the council were tracing a large outbreak from a birthday party.
Perhaps this may be happening because the parents decided they were mixing in school anyway, so what difference does it make?
This is the kind of approach that could appeal to the hotter kind of separatist (who may be growing frustrated with Nicola Sturgeon's leadership,) especially if/when the Scottish Parliament votes for another referendum and is turned down flat by the UK Government. How much, or how little, support they will gain from the electorate by apparently trying to out nationalist the SNP remains to be seen. We certainly don't have much evidence as yet to guess at the likely performance of the Alba Party in next month's election; one opinion poll taken a few days after the official launch isn't nearly enough.
With regard to your comment, two wrongs do not make a right
Suspect I will be practicing cycling in the wind.
https://twitter.com/MikeDeeeeeee/status/1378053860284059654?s=20
Not that a rise in cases shouldn't concern us either with the 60% most vulnerable adults vaccinated, but it does remove a possible weapon in the "don't open up" armory. Given the vaccine effect will grow (lots of first doses given over the last 3 weeks) and the April easing is outdoors only, I can't see a rise in cases being likely until late May. By which point we'll be up at 80%+ of adults vaccinated...
Moreover, deaths and hospitalisations are falling so quickly that they will be practically zero by that point as well.
I am struggling to see a way this could go wrong.
Is your intention to vote for Alba for both constituency & list, OR to vote SNP constituency & Alba list?
In per-capita terms, not remotely.
https://www.gavi.org/sites/default/files/covid/covax/COVAX-AMC-Donors-Table.pdf
Pray God this is wrong
Edit: Covax should be flooding Brazil with any spare vaccines. This is where horrible mutations will happen, if anywhere
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien_scheme
OK, Malc, so do you think you'll be voting SNP in constituency, OR for another party OR abstaining?
(Over here you could write in "Scrooge McDuck" or other personal option.)
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1378064872647372806?s=20
And as the Scots voted to endorse UK rule as recently as 2014 it is all hot air. This is neither Hong Kong nor the Uighurs nor the Kurds.
So if there is a link, we should see not so much a decline as a Grand Canyon next week.
Although as nobody will be testing over Easter - despite those loathsome scum at the DfE saying we must because they want us to and they know so much better than people with multiple brain cells - cases should fall anyway.
Children mixing at a birthday party with adults present, and vulnerable adults get infected by one of the pestilent children.
It is a different scenario, innit?
It is also an open invitation to Boris to simply say No - on the grounds of unreasonable demands, apart from anything else - and then that splits the indy cause wide open for years, or a "generation" - between the legal gradualists like Sturgeon and the old-men-in-a-hurry like Salmond who apparently want civil strife.
Does he even want that tho? Or is this all a way, for him, to bring her down and damage her party, and exact his final revenge?
It can be read that second way, quite easily.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/scottish-election-2021-nicola-sturgeon-describes-alex-salmond-as-a-gambler-and-says-she-wants-a-simple-majority-3186423
What was that about hypocrisy
https://twitter.com/STVNews/status/1378021965672353794?s=20
It might be, I suppose. something to do with wealth. In richer countries, they care less (or cared less) about damaging floor surfaces (whether carpets or woodwork). But then the affluent Swiss and Austrians take shoes off. Perhaps the cultural influence of Islam on the wider east?
But then why is Norway green?
Fascinating but bewildering
In absolute terms......
Do you know what a super majority is? What is the relevance to Scotland's situation (or indeed to your response about a majority)?
Given that he clearly believes she conspired to ruin his life you can see why he feels that way.
The green areas have harsh winters causing footwear to be muddy or snowy and so removed indoors.
BBC News - Covid: 30 blood clot cases found in AstraZeneca recipients in the UK
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56616119
open up the picture so you can see the last reply
I think it does. She is too tarnished, now.
So, Salmond quite likely gets what he wants, whatever. Either Alba do brilliantly, and he becomes a kingmaker (asking for Sturgeon's head) or they languish, but he still gets to take painful lumps out of Sturgeon and the Nats: also a result (for him).
What I don't understand is why Sturgeon still goads him, alluding to his "guilt".
Perhaps she just can't help it, she hates him so much
But he’s not leader of the neighbourhood watch material. And not that I assume to speak for her, but I don’t imagine my wife getting weak at the knees if she saw him jogging up the hill either. In short, he’s stuffed. Next!
Also I hate wearing shoes indoors.
Some mistaken people think that after he left Microsoft he gave away most of his $$$ to good causes. Ha ha.
Watch the Corbett Report on Gates. About 4 x 30 min episodes on Youtube.
https://twitter.com/goalprojection/status/1378071938002776064
https://twitter.com/goalprojection/status/1378071938002776064
The only Serbian girl I have known well, used to reserve the top section of her freezer for ganja to keep it very fresh, which I used to think was very sophisticated.
https://twitter.com/tomhfh/status/1378045954868264961?s=20
Enoch Powell once said: "a gentleman should never be photographed with his boots off"
There is, then, an element of machismo about it, and I wonder if that is an aspect of the divide. The Green shoe-wearing countries are more successful, imperialistic and macho, Britain, Spain, France, Italy, Holland, Greece. The pathetic red shoe-taking-off weirdoes are all effete conquered nations (often conquered by Islam) - Bosnia, Serbia, Poland, East Germany