This is interesting. @DominicRaab - asked if government was planning on holding a debate & vote on its decision to cut overseas aid spending to 0.5% of national income from 0.7% - signals HMG is not but says backbench MPs are free to debate and vote on "anything they wish" https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1385178739940724738
Again another very popular policy
That really is mean-spirited. Sorry, but it is. Especially when national income seems to be declining a little.
See I think that too and then you discover we are still spending aid in China. I mean, FFS. It really undermines the idea that the money is being well spent. The Indian space program is another issue. Why is it our moral duty to give medical aid to Indian nationals when their own government thinks space is more important?
And then there is the mixed evidence of whether aid actually does any good. Aid seems to me to be how we feel good about ourselves rather than what it does for the recipients.
I can't see how the lie holds beyond the immediate
The one lesson BoZo learned from Brexit is that it doesn't have to.
The campaign lies he told didn't survive beyond the end of the count.
Tomorrow's headline is the event horizon.
Out of interest, what lies did he tell?
No customs border in the Irish Sea? Protection for army veterans against vexatious prosecutions? Both manifesto pledges. Lioar even went to the DUP conference to state his NI pledge.
Thats just two. How about "I did not shag that musician Carrie"...?
You are you indulging in misogyny and abuse to Carrie again
I just do not understand why you feel a need to be this way
I was asked to state what lies he told. That he didn't have an affair whilst Carrie is pregnant is one. How on earth is that abuse to Carrie - she is the victim here and has my sympathy.
I think you missed a comma in the original, and the comment was therefore misparsed. For clarity, Carrie Symonds is not a musician.
This is interesting. @DominicRaab - asked if government was planning on holding a debate & vote on its decision to cut overseas aid spending to 0.5% of national income from 0.7% - signals HMG is not but says backbench MPs are free to debate and vote on "anything they wish" https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1385178739940724738
Again another very popular policy
That really is mean-spirited. Sorry, but it is. Especially when national income seems to be declining a little.
See I think that too and then you discover we are still spending aid in China. I mean, FFS. It really undermines the idea that the money is being well spent. The Indian space program is another issue. Why is it our moral duty to give medical aid to Indian nationals when their own government thinks space is more important?
And then there is the mixed evidence of whether aid actually does any good. Aid seems to me to be how we feel good about ourselves rather than what it does for the recipients.
The fact its about ourselves rather than the recipients is demonstrated by the fixed percentage.
The fixed percentage means that if a crisis occurs are we to say "sorry, we've already accounted for our budget, you're on your own now" - or draw down funds from other projects that are supposedly critical today?
If it were based upon actual need it would be a variable percentage not a fixed one.
That's a really bad poll for the Tories. Either it is an outlier or the trends we have been seeing in the national polling have been significantly reversed in Wales. It seems not that long ago we were speculating that the Tories might get more votes in Wales than Labour.
Abol seem to be taking their list vote but as I have said consistently Andrew RT Davies is poor much like Douglas Ross in Scotland and if these polls reflect the vote RT will have to be sacked
I have long since said that labour with plaid help are likely to form the next Senedd
However, it does not change my attitude to Drakeford or labour in Wales which has seen increased poverty and failed health and education under their 22 years in power
Sadly we will just have to continue to see continuing failure in all these areas
That's a really bad poll for the Tories. Either it is an outlier or the trends we have been seeing in the national polling have been significantly reversed in Wales. It seems not that long ago we were speculating that the Tories might get more votes in Wales than Labour.
What would it mean in terms of seats?
I've no idea. There are many people on here who know a lot more about Wales than I do (a very low bar btw).
Look, we Tories won a majority of 80 in the UK in the Commons in 2019 and under our constitution what a UK government with a majority in the Commons wants goes until the next general election.
It does not matter what happens at Holyrood next month
Snipped right there. We English are in power. It doesn't matter what you Scotch want to do, we rule you.
This is literally why independence is sadly inevitable. Dripping English arrogance and ignorance and disregard for basic principles of democracy.
Wrong, England does not always get its own way. In 1950, 1964 and February 1974 England voted Tory but got a UK Labour government thanks to Scottish and Welsh Labour MPs.
On current polling the only way Starmer becomes UK PM in 2024 is with the support of Scottish SNP MPs and Welsh Labour MPs, England will almost certainly have a Tory majority still.
So it is not the case England always gets its own way in the UK (England does not even have its own Parliament unlike every other Home Nation), it is the case however that the UK government with a majority in the Commons always gets its own way.
Until 2024 that UK government with a majority in the Commons is a Tory one and it will decide until then and has made clear 2014 was a once in a generation vote when 55% of Scots voted to stay in the UK then
This isn't about governance. This is about the union. If Scotland cannot vote to challenge its place in the union without the agreement of England then the union is no longer based on consent. It becomes impossible for Scotland to leave or renegotiate the terms of union - it is beholden to England. Instead of a mutual union it is annexation.
Scotland voted to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum (more than the Spanish government ever gave Catalonia).
And that is why you and yours want to trap them forever into a union that they no longer have any say in.
Let's find some common ground. I think we can agree that the UK should be a voluntary union (which weirdly, is pretty unusual in the world, but still). Thus, any part which wants to secede can. But there has to be a bar of reasonableness - we probably wouldn't want to have a situation where we get Handforth seceding because the parish council had worked itself up about something. So we have the tool of a referendum. But we don't want to be in a position where we are having constant referendums until the right answer is received. Independence would be a fairly momentous change. We wouldn't want to get into a hokey-cokey situation. I think therefore we can agree that 'nevermore' is too seldom for a referendum on independence, and every year is too often. What is the right frequency to ask the question? I would argue 'once a generation' is correct, albeit that the term 'generation' is deliberately vague. I'd certainly say any more often than once every fifteen years brings about a state of permanent referendum campaign, which is pretty unhealthy. I wouldn't mind a bar on referenda more often than that. But I certainly wouldn't want a bar on referenda more often than say, once every forty years. So my view is once a generation is correct. With 'a generation' being somewhere between fifteen and forty years.
I don't buy, by the way, the 'they no longer have any say' argument. That only holds true if ALL of Scotland have one view, and ALL of rUK (or even all of England) hold the opposite view. Voters in all parts of the country have a roughly equal democratic say, setting apart arguments about efficiency of voting systems. You could, following that logic, say that voters in Norfolk will always be outvoted by the rest of England, so Norfolk ought to be independent. Or that voters in my house will always be outvoted by the rest of the country, so my family ought to be independent.
All that said, I'm increasingly of the opinion that devolution has been a disaster. There is no constitutional settlement which works evenly apart from treating the UK as one state or complete separation. Allowing a system where Nicola Sturgeon has a veto on everything cannot work, not least because her main political objective is to break up the UK so it is in her interests to be as difficult as possible. And as there seems no appetite in Scotland for the single state solution, sadly only way ahead is independence.
(My own preference would be a single state, but with more power devolved to the county level. I don't want to open the can of worms about what counties should look like, apart from to say 'units of about one or two million people, give or take whatever is workable'. So, say, thirty odd 'counties; in England, two or three in Wales, five or six in Scotland, one or two in NI. Though while that suits me in terms of 'fairness', I'm genuinely not sure what advantage it brings, say, Greater Manchester to be able to dictate its own health policy.)
I am a federalist so I am not advocating a case for Scottish independence. What I am arguing is for the democratic right of the people of the Nation of Scotland to express that preference. Election of a Scottish government committed to independence is the "will of the people" to use the Brexit language - as we know the will of the people has to be obeyed.
Unless of course it is the will of the Scottish people. They are now being told that they can vote for anything they like, but that unless England agrees with them they cannot have it. Handforth or Norfolk are not comparable as Handforth or Norfolk are not nations within the British state - Scotland is.
Repeated referenda benefit no-one. But if that is what the people of Scotland vote for that is what they want. What you describe as a "voluntary union" is literally what was created when Scotland was left with a separate legal system in which its act of union remains law subject to amendment and repeal.
55% of Scots expressed they wanted to stay in the UK in the once in a generation 2014 referendum.
7 years after is not a generation.
Until a genuine generation has elapsed from 2014 Scots will therefore remain part of the UK and under UK government control (with their own domestic parliament) and the UK government, certainly while under Tory control, will ensure no change to the Union for the rest of that generation.
If there was a 2/3 majority for independence in Scotland you might have a case and the UK government may not be able to maintain the Union as it was not in Ireland in 1918 when only 29% of Irish voters voted for Unionist parties.
However now in Scotland about 50% of Scots will still vote for Unionist parties and back the Union, so there is no overwhelming desire amongst Scots for independence anyway
This is interesting. @DominicRaab - asked if government was planning on holding a debate & vote on its decision to cut overseas aid spending to 0.5% of national income from 0.7% - signals HMG is not but says backbench MPs are free to debate and vote on "anything they wish" https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1385178739940724738
Again another very popular policy
That really is mean-spirited. Sorry, but it is. Especially when national income seems to be declining a little.
See I think that too and then you discover we are still spending aid in China. I mean, FFS. It really undermines the idea that the money is being well spent. The Indian space program is another issue. Why is it our moral duty to give medical aid to Indian nationals when their own government thinks space is more important?
And then there is the mixed evidence of whether aid actually does any good. Aid seems to me to be how we feel good about ourselves rather than what it does for the recipients.
The issue with international aid for me is that there is a clear international commitment to the 0.7% target, which almost no-one adheres to. The theory is that, if the UK leads the way on this, then other nations might follow, and therefore it's important to set an example (similar to the NATO spending target, which, again, almost no-one except us and the US actually manage).
The problem is that, even with the UK having the 0.7% target enshrined in law for several years now, it's had almost no effect on other countries' behaviour (that I am aware of, and I am sure I will be corrected if I am wrong...). So, it's difficult to justify spending the money abroad whilst our national finances are in the mess they're currently in.
I can't see how the lie holds beyond the immediate
The one lesson BoZo learned from Brexit is that it doesn't have to.
The campaign lies he told didn't survive beyond the end of the count.
Tomorrow's headline is the event horizon.
Out of interest, what lies did he tell?
No customs border in the Irish Sea? Protection for army veterans against vexatious prosecutions? Both manifesto pledges. Lioar even went to the DUP conference to state his NI pledge.
Thats just two. How about "I did not shag that musician Carrie"...?
You are you indulging in misogyny and abuse to Carrie again
I just do not understand why you feel a need to be this way
I was asked to state what lies he told. That he didn't have an affair whilst Carrie is pregnant is one. How on earth is that abuse to Carrie - she is the victim here and has my sympathy.
It is the way you express yourself at times and your posts are important and would improve immeasurably if you were maybe a little less school boyish
The NATION would improve immeasurably is this amoral bumbling liar wasn't running it. The Conservative Party used to have basic principles and decency. I am arguing for a return to these basic standards.
And many agree with you and you can make a case much better if you just reduce the name calling a (now you live in Scotland) 'wee' bit
Texas was a Republic that chose its annexation into the USA as a state. Scotland was a country which chose to join with another country (England) to form a new country. The legal systems and statuses are not the same.
The forms are slightly different; the underlying function is the same - not least because the word 'country' is so vague as to have absolutely no meaning in international law. You'll note that the original 13 states, which all chose to join with other states to form a new union in exactly the same way Scotland did, have no peculiar privileges in respect of being entitled to secede.
What you and HYUFD argue is that the Union with England Act is no longer the business of the Scottish law it legally applies to but can only be amended by the English it does not apply to.
It can only be amended by the UK parliament, just as Texas can only leave the union with the consent of other states. Those are the terms Scotland agreed to when they joined the union, and dissolved their parliament to join the UK parliament. The Scottish 'parliament' does not have the sovereignty of its predecessor: it has the powers that are devolved to it from the UK parliament. Just as the Texas or New York state legislatures cannot repeal the bills that made them part of the United States, because they signed away that power, the only body which can legally repeal the Union is the UK Parliament.
The idea that Scotland is uniquely disadvantaged by those constitutional provisions is laughable: as I've illustrated clearly, Scotland is in many respects better off than other comparable bodies. But if you want to continue to argue, like the slaveholding Confederates, that states which join a union can simply withdraw at any time they see fit without going through the legal forms to which they signed up, be my guest. Indeed, I urge you to apply the same logic to the contracts you sign personally and see how well it works out for you.
This is interesting. @DominicRaab - asked if government was planning on holding a debate & vote on its decision to cut overseas aid spending to 0.5% of national income from 0.7% - signals HMG is not but says backbench MPs are free to debate and vote on "anything they wish" https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1385178739940724738
Again another very popular policy
That really is mean-spirited. Sorry, but it is. Especially when national income seems to be declining a little.
No it really isn't. Not when the UK is still a leading aid donor around the globe. There is no point us pissing our money away as part of a penis measuring contest to stroke our own egos and show how good we are, while other nations refuse to do the same.
If the money is needed in recipient nations we should be giving what is needed, in accordance with the other rich nations, not based upon our own GNI. Doing it as a percentage of the GNI shows that's about us - not about them or what they need.
I'm not religious, but every religion of which I'm aware asks it's members to give a proportion of their income to charity. That provides a standard. Whether those gifts are wisely apportioned or spent is a different matter.
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has revealed that production at two of its UK manufacturing plants is to be suspended due to a shortage of parts.
The company said operations at the Castle Bromwich (Birmingham) and Halewood (Liverpool) sites would be affected through a "limited period" of non-production from next Monday.
It blamed a COVID-19 crisis issue of semi-conductor shortages, widely flagged by the industry as a whole and blamed for disruption to schedules among rivals and at other firms which rely on computer chips.
JLR's UK plants, including this one in Solihull, employ 40,000 people. The shortage of computer chips is not affecting output at Solihull
JLR - which has the UK's largest car manufacturing operation - said it was unclear how long the stoppages would last but it insisted production at the Solihull plant would continue as normal.
Its statement said: "Like other automotive manufacturers, we are currently experiencing some COVID-19 supply chain disruption, including the global availability of semi-conductors, which is having an impact on our production schedules and our ability to meet global demand for some of our vehicles.
"As a result, we have adjusted production schedules for certain vehicles which means that our Castle Bromwich and Halewood manufacturing plants will be operating a limited period of non-production from Monday 26th April.
Jaguar's otherwise mystifying decision to stop platform sharing with LR must mean Tata are preparing to split the brands and sell off Jaguar.
It's hard to see where Jaguar go from here. Their traditional niche (badly made large saloons for golf club bores) has gone and they are trying to pivot to an electric only brand without the economies of scale that the major OEMs have.
That's a really bad poll for the Tories. Either it is an outlier or the trends we have been seeing in the national polling have been significantly reversed in Wales. It seems not that long ago we were speculating that the Tories might get more votes in Wales than Labour.
Abol seem to be taking their list vote but as I have said consistently Andrew RT Davies is poor much like Douglas Ross in Scotland and if these polls reflect the vote RT will have to be sacked
I have long since said that labour with plaid help are likely to form the next Senedd
However, it does not change my attitude to Drakeford or labour in Wales which has seen increased poverty and failed health and education under their 22 years in power
Sadly we will just have to continue to see continuing failure in all these areas
Today's Welsh poll would see the Tories up 3% on the 21% they got on the constituency vote in the 2016 Senedd elections and up 3% on the 19% they got on the list vote, so RT would still see Conservative gains in Wales even on today's polling (Labour got 35% on the constituency vote in 2016 too, so there would still be a 1.5% swing to the Welsh Conservatives which would see them gain Vale of Glamorgan from Labour with Vale of Clwyd neck and neck). Plaid would gain Llanelli from Labour too on a 1.5% to Plaid the poll also forecasts.
On today's Comres Holyrood poll the Tories would be on 25% on the constituency vote under Ross, actually also up 3% on the 22% Ruth Davidson got on the constituency vote in 2016
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has revealed that production at two of its UK manufacturing plants is to be suspended due to a shortage of parts.
The company said operations at the Castle Bromwich (Birmingham) and Halewood (Liverpool) sites would be affected through a "limited period" of non-production from next Monday.
It blamed a COVID-19 crisis issue of semi-conductor shortages, widely flagged by the industry as a whole and blamed for disruption to schedules among rivals and at other firms which rely on computer chips.
JLR's UK plants, including this one in Solihull, employ 40,000 people. The shortage of computer chips is not affecting output at Solihull
JLR - which has the UK's largest car manufacturing operation - said it was unclear how long the stoppages would last but it insisted production at the Solihull plant would continue as normal.
Its statement said: "Like other automotive manufacturers, we are currently experiencing some COVID-19 supply chain disruption, including the global availability of semi-conductors, which is having an impact on our production schedules and our ability to meet global demand for some of our vehicles.
"As a result, we have adjusted production schedules for certain vehicles which means that our Castle Bromwich and Halewood manufacturing plants will be operating a limited period of non-production from Monday 26th April.
Jaguar's otherwise mystifying decision to stop platform sharing with LR must mean Tata are preparing to split the brands and sell off Jaguar.
It's hard to see where Jaguar go from here. Their traditional niche (badly made large saloons for golf club bores) has gone and they are trying to pivot to an electric only brand without the economies of scale that the major OEMs have.
Me. I'm waiting to buy an affordable Jaguar electric.
This is interesting. @DominicRaab - asked if government was planning on holding a debate & vote on its decision to cut overseas aid spending to 0.5% of national income from 0.7% - signals HMG is not but says backbench MPs are free to debate and vote on "anything they wish" https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1385178739940724738
Again another very popular policy
That really is mean-spirited. Sorry, but it is. Especially when national income seems to be declining a little.
See I think that too and then you discover we are still spending aid in China. I mean, FFS. It really undermines the idea that the money is being well spent. The Indian space program is another issue. Why is it our moral duty to give medical aid to Indian nationals when their own government thinks space is more important?
And then there is the mixed evidence of whether aid actually does any good. Aid seems to me to be how we feel good about ourselves rather than what it does for the recipients.
The fact its about ourselves rather than the recipients is demonstrated by the fixed percentage.
The fixed percentage means that if a crisis occurs are we to say "sorry, we've already accounted for our budget, you're on your own now" - or draw down funds from other projects that are supposedly critical today?
If it were based upon actual need it would be a variable percentage not a fixed one.
I think one of the many problems with the DFiD approach was that it committed the budget to "long term projects" which were then dependent upon that money to run the school, the hospital, whatever. That meant the budget was spent.
And then along comes Covid. Right now I think that there is a compelling argument we should be spending more than 0.7% of our GDP on aid in the form of vaccines to the third world. We have a clear vested interest in such expenditure and it is win win. I very much hope that the vaccine capacity that the government has funded will continue full steam ahead after we have been vaccinated at our cost for this purpose.
I agree that our budget should reflect need (as well as self interest) but cutting the aid budget now when the need is off the scale seems a little bit odd.
This is interesting. @DominicRaab - asked if government was planning on holding a debate & vote on its decision to cut overseas aid spending to 0.5% of national income from 0.7% - signals HMG is not but says backbench MPs are free to debate and vote on "anything they wish" https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1385178739940724738
Again another very popular policy
That really is mean-spirited. Sorry, but it is. Especially when national income seems to be declining a little.
No it really isn't. Not when the UK is still a leading aid donor around the globe. There is no point us pissing our money away as part of a penis measuring contest to stroke our own egos and show how good we are, while other nations refuse to do the same.
If the money is needed in recipient nations we should be giving what is needed, in accordance with the other rich nations, not based upon our own GNI. Doing it as a percentage of the GNI shows that's about us - not about them or what they need.
I'm not religious, but every religion of which I'm aware asks it's members to give a proportion of their income to charity. That provides a standard. Whether those gifts are wisely apportioned or spent is a different matter.
I'm not religious either, but I think if people wish to practice a religion that should be their free choice. If someone wishes to give some of their income to charity, that too is their choice. I do not have any desire for government to get into the realm of religion.
Wise apprortionment and well spent money is meant to be a responsibility of government. Not a venue for people to give to their pet charity projects regardless of how well spent the money is.
Texas was a Republic that chose its annexation into the USA as a state. Scotland was a country which chose to join with another country (England) to form a new country. The legal systems and statuses are not the same.
The forms are slightly different; the underlying function is the same - not least because the word 'country' is so vague as to have absolutely no meaning in international law. You'll note that the original 13 states, which all chose to join with other states to form a new union in exactly the same way Scotland did, have no peculiar privileges in respect of being entitled to secede.
What you and HYUFD argue is that the Union with England Act is no longer the business of the Scottish law it legally applies to but can only be amended by the English it does not apply to.
It can only be amended by the UK parliament, just as Texas can only leave the union with the consent of other states. Those are the terms Scotland agreed to when they joined the union, and dissolved their parliament to join the UK parliament. The Scottish 'parliament' does not have the sovereignty of its predecessor: it has the powers that are devolved to it from the UK parliament. Just as the Texas or New York state legislatures cannot repeal the bills that made them part of the United States, because they signed away that power, the only body which can legally repeal the Union is the UK Parliament.
The idea that Scotland is uniquely disadvantaged by those constitutional provisions is laughable: as I've illustrated clearly, Scotland is in many respects better off than other comparable bodies. But if you want to continue to argue, like the slaveholding Confederates, that states which join a union can simply withdraw at any time they see fit without going through the legal forms to which they signed up, be my guest. Indeed, I urge you to apply the same logic to the contracts you sign personally and see how well it works out for you.
With respect to your continued American comparators it is comparing apples and screwdrivers. I know that the act of Union can only be amended by the UK parliament. You say that I am arguing that Scotland should "simply withdraw at any time they see fit without going through the legal forms to which they signed up". On the contrary, I am absolutely saying they have to go through the legal process. And that they CANNOT do so without the express approval of the other nation in the union.
Scotland being outvoted by England on should Scotland stay in a union with England is like giving the legal right for a woman to divorce her husband if the husband consents.
This is interesting. @DominicRaab - asked if government was planning on holding a debate & vote on its decision to cut overseas aid spending to 0.5% of national income from 0.7% - signals HMG is not but says backbench MPs are free to debate and vote on "anything they wish" https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1385178739940724738
Again another very popular policy
That really is mean-spirited. Sorry, but it is. Especially when national income seems to be declining a little.
See I think that too and then you discover we are still spending aid in China. I mean, FFS. It really undermines the idea that the money is being well spent. The Indian space program is another issue. Why is it our moral duty to give medical aid to Indian nationals when their own government thinks space is more important?
And then there is the mixed evidence of whether aid actually does any good. Aid seems to me to be how we feel good about ourselves rather than what it does for the recipients.
See my response at 11.54. I have absolutely no objection to reviewing our aid programmes, although I suspect that some are on-going commitments. I support the 'teach a man to fish' policy on aid, rather than that of giving him a bowl of food. It would also be helpful to encourage medical and other technical personnel to come to this countries for short periods... experience, FE and so on, and then paying them to go home.
This is interesting. @DominicRaab - asked if government was planning on holding a debate & vote on its decision to cut overseas aid spending to 0.5% of national income from 0.7% - signals HMG is not but says backbench MPs are free to debate and vote on "anything they wish" https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1385178739940724738
Again another very popular policy
That really is mean-spirited. Sorry, but it is. Especially when national income seems to be declining a little.
See I think that too and then you discover we are still spending aid in China. I mean, FFS. It really undermines the idea that the money is being well spent. The Indian space program is another issue. Why is it our moral duty to give medical aid to Indian nationals when their own government thinks space is more important?
And then there is the mixed evidence of whether aid actually does any good. Aid seems to me to be how we feel good about ourselves rather than what it does for the recipients.
The issue with international aid for me is that there is a clear international commitment to the 0.7% target, which almost no-one adheres to. The theory is that, if the UK leads the way on this, then other nations might follow, and therefore it's important to set an example (similar to the NATO spending target, which, again, almost no-one except us and the US actually manage).
The problem is that, even with the UK having the 0.7% target enshrined in law for several years now, it's had almost no effect on other countries' behaviour (that I am aware of, and I am sure I will be corrected if I am wrong...). So, it's difficult to justify spending the money abroad whilst our national finances are in the mess they're currently in.
Unless it is clearly in our interests to do so. Eg vaccines. This virus does not recognise borders. We are, apparently, completely incapable of isolating ourselves from the world as the 2.5k from India (an estimated 125 of which will be +ve) this week shows all too clearly. We need to reduce the quantity of this virus everywhere because one thing we can be sure of is that any dangerous variant anywhere will end up here.
That's a really bad poll for the Tories. Either it is an outlier or the trends we have been seeing in the national polling have been significantly reversed in Wales. It seems not that long ago we were speculating that the Tories might get more votes in Wales than Labour.
I would treat this poll from Awan Scully much more seriously than the Opinium yesterday (Opinium have no track record in Wales).
From AS's blog
"Our new poll suggests a large rise in Labour’s lead over the past month, and a substantial fall in Conservative support. Labour’s advantage has apparently gone from two points to eleven since the campaign for the Senedd began. As always, we should be cautious about over-interpreting a single poll, and the changes that it suggests. It may be that the previous Barometer poll somewhat over-stated the Conservative position; this one might be under-stating it. But our latest evidence does indicate Labour’s position as the largest party in the Senedd to be rather more secure than did March’s poll ."
Note also, though a good poll for Labour, this still equals Labour's worst ever performance in the Senedd.
This is interesting. @DominicRaab - asked if government was planning on holding a debate & vote on its decision to cut overseas aid spending to 0.5% of national income from 0.7% - signals HMG is not but says backbench MPs are free to debate and vote on "anything they wish" https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1385178739940724738
Again another very popular policy
That really is mean-spirited. Sorry, but it is. Especially when national income seems to be declining a little.
See I think that too and then you discover we are still spending aid in China. I mean, FFS. It really undermines the idea that the money is being well spent. The Indian space program is another issue. Why is it our moral duty to give medical aid to Indian nationals when their own government thinks space is more important?
And then there is the mixed evidence of whether aid actually does any good. Aid seems to me to be how we feel good about ourselves rather than what it does for the recipients.
The issue with international aid for me is that there is a clear international commitment to the 0.7% target, which almost no-one adheres to. The theory is that, if the UK leads the way on this, then other nations might follow, and therefore it's important to set an example (similar to the NATO spending target, which, again, almost no-one except us and the US actually manage).
The problem is that, even with the UK having the 0.7% target enshrined in law for several years now, it's had almost no effect on other countries' behaviour (that I am aware of, and I am sure I will be corrected if I am wrong...). So, it's difficult to justify spending the money abroad whilst our national finances are in the mess they're currently in.
Unless it is clearly in our interests to do so. Eg vaccines. This virus does not recognise borders. We are, apparently, completely incapable of isolating ourselves from the world as the 2.5k from India (an estimated 125 of which will be +ve) this week shows all too clearly. We need to reduce the quantity of this vaccine everywhere because one thing we can be sure of is that any dangerous variant anywhere will end up here.
Mr L, I think you need to edit your last sentence.
This is interesting. @DominicRaab - asked if government was planning on holding a debate & vote on its decision to cut overseas aid spending to 0.5% of national income from 0.7% - signals HMG is not but says backbench MPs are free to debate and vote on "anything they wish" https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1385178739940724738
Again another very popular policy
That really is mean-spirited. Sorry, but it is. Especially when national income seems to be declining a little.
See I think that too and then you discover we are still spending aid in China. I mean, FFS. It really undermines the idea that the money is being well spent. The Indian space program is another issue. Why is it our moral duty to give medical aid to Indian nationals when their own government thinks space is more important?
And then there is the mixed evidence of whether aid actually does any good. Aid seems to me to be how we feel good about ourselves rather than what it does for the recipients.
The issue with international aid for me is that there is a clear international commitment to the 0.7% target, which almost no-one adheres to. The theory is that, if the UK leads the way on this, then other nations might follow, and therefore it's important to set an example (similar to the NATO spending target, which, again, almost no-one except us and the US actually manage).
The problem is that, even with the UK having the 0.7% target enshrined in law for several years now, it's had almost no effect on other countries' behaviour (that I am aware of, and I am sure I will be corrected if I am wrong...). So, it's difficult to justify spending the money abroad whilst our national finances are in the mess they're currently in.
Unless it is clearly in our interests to do so. Eg vaccines. This virus does not recognise borders. We are, apparently, completely incapable of isolating ourselves from the world as the 2.5k from India (an estimated 125 of which will be +ve) this week shows all too clearly. We need to reduce the quantity of this vaccine everywhere because one thing we can be sure of is that any dangerous variant anywhere will end up here.
Mr L, I think you need to edit your last sentence.
With all the comments of "Keir Starmer is crap", "Labour is doomed", they seem to be making quiet progress in Scotland and Wales, places they need to do well in to make up lost ground in the Red Wall.
This is interesting. @DominicRaab - asked if government was planning on holding a debate & vote on its decision to cut overseas aid spending to 0.5% of national income from 0.7% - signals HMG is not but says backbench MPs are free to debate and vote on "anything they wish" https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1385178739940724738
Again another very popular policy
That really is mean-spirited. Sorry, but it is. Especially when national income seems to be declining a little.
See I think that too and then you discover we are still spending aid in China. I mean, FFS. It really undermines the idea that the money is being well spent. The Indian space program is another issue. Why is it our moral duty to give medical aid to Indian nationals when their own government thinks space is more important?
And then there is the mixed evidence of whether aid actually does any good. Aid seems to me to be how we feel good about ourselves rather than what it does for the recipients.
The issue with international aid for me is that there is a clear international commitment to the 0.7% target, which almost no-one adheres to. The theory is that, if the UK leads the way on this, then other nations might follow, and therefore it's important to set an example (similar to the NATO spending target, which, again, almost no-one except us and the US actually manage).
The problem is that, even with the UK having the 0.7% target enshrined in law for several years now, it's had almost no effect on other countries' behaviour (that I am aware of, and I am sure I will be corrected if I am wrong...). So, it's difficult to justify spending the money abroad whilst our national finances are in the mess they're currently in.
Unless it is clearly in our interests to do so. Eg vaccines. This virus does not recognise borders. We are, apparently, completely incapable of isolating ourselves from the world as the 2.5k from India (an estimated 125 of which will be +ve) this week shows all too clearly. We need to reduce the quantity of this virus everywhere because one thing we can be sure of is that any dangerous variant anywhere will end up here.
Yes, agreed. And I would add that, more generally, it seems that our guidelines for what does and does not constitute international aid could do with some updating. I'd rather we spent 1% that does serve our interests, than 0.7% that ignores the internationally accepted guidelines whilst not serving our interests. And we really need to stop trying to use the aid programme as a way of inflicting social engineering in other countries.
Boris should use the present ‘enormous goodwill’ from UEFA/FIFA to England, for saving football (see The Times, today) to unite the structures of English and Scottish league football, so the Old Firm can play in the British Prem, and Scotland League 1 feeds in like the English Championship.
This saves Scottish fitba, produces some cracking matches - Celtic-Liverpool!! - reinforces Britishness and UEFA/FIFA are, right now, so grateful to English football they would agree to keeping the four home nations as is. All playing and voting individually
Go for it, Boris.
The issue with that, is by uniting the leagues of England and Scotland, one diminishes their status as separate nations under UEFA and FIFA. There's a lot of grandfather rights that currently allows the UK to enter four teams in international competitions.
Cardiff and Swansea play in the English league system. They used to enter the Welsh Cup as a way to qualify for the Cup Winners’ Cup (European police forces loved that!).
That’s the big downside for the old firm. Europe only on merit.
The other thing is sporting merit, having made a big hoo ha about how sporting merit needs to be honoured there's no way the PL would let the Old Firm straight into the PL and there's a couple of PL clubs and a few Championship clubs who would have strenuous objections to that.
If Celtic and Rangers want to join the English football system let them apply for membership of the National League.
EPL teams would brick it , they would be scared of a good thrashing from Old Firm. Unfortunately we see their boring matches up here, most would struggle against the Old Firm.
Yeah right.
When was the last time a non Old Firm side won the title or when was the last time a Scottish side won a European trophy? I'm guessing the 80s with Aberdeen?
Compare and contrast with England, we've had 5 different winners in the last decade and two different clubs to have won the Champions league in the last decade, and three Europa League winners.
The SPL is a pub league in comparison, you'd lose to Sheffield United.
Last Scottish champions not Rangers nor Celtic, was Ferguson's Aberdeen in 1985.
As an Aberdeen fan of that vintage I can add some colour here ... (in case anyone is interested).
Even back in the 70s and 80 it was very, very difficult to compete with Celtic and Rangers because of the structural advantages in place for them in Scottish football. It took the world's greatest ever club manager to break the stranglehold - my view is that his achievements with the Dons are even greater than those with Man U, not only overcoming the big Glasgow teams in domestic competition but also leading a team composed entirely of Scottish players to victory over Real Madrid in the ECWC.
But back then there was a level playing field (more or less) in terms of player wages. We could afford to pay Willie Miller enough so he could rebuff an offer from Rangers. Nowadays, of course, it is very different with a 6x or 7x multiplier in place. There is no way even Fergie could succeed. The disparity in wages is now so high that no team outside Celtic or The Rangers (as they are now) will win the SPL ever again unless a sugar daddy with some serious investment comes in ... and they are not going to do that because the big 2 demand that they finish 1st and 2nd so they can tie up the CL places. Everyone else is playing for 3rd at best. If by some miracle Stephen Glass turns out to be the next Pep, the big 2 will take action to knobble him.
The problem for Celtic and The Rangers is that their business growth opportunity is now tapped out. They are two giant fish in a tiny pond. They complain that poor domestic competition means they can't compete Europe ... well duh, who's fault is that? So, they need to move to a bigger league ... but no-one will have them (for the reasons expressed by other PBers) and if they were able to leave it would kill the finances of the Scottish game. The solution they have come up with is to propose colt teams for domestic competition while they try to get access to the English (or European) league for the first team.
They are kind of stuffed ... they can't compete in Europe because of the poor quality of domestic competition but improved domestic competition might jeopardize their CL qualification.
This is interesting. @DominicRaab - asked if government was planning on holding a debate & vote on its decision to cut overseas aid spending to 0.5% of national income from 0.7% - signals HMG is not but says backbench MPs are free to debate and vote on "anything they wish" https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1385178739940724738
Again another very popular policy
That really is mean-spirited. Sorry, but it is. Especially when national income seems to be declining a little.
See I think that too and then you discover we are still spending aid in China. I mean, FFS. It really undermines the idea that the money is being well spent. The Indian space program is another issue. Why is it our moral duty to give medical aid to Indian nationals when their own government thinks space is more important?
And then there is the mixed evidence of whether aid actually does any good. Aid seems to me to be how we feel good about ourselves rather than what it does for the recipients.
The issue with international aid for me is that there is a clear international commitment to the 0.7% target, which almost no-one adheres to. The theory is that, if the UK leads the way on this, then other nations might follow, and therefore it's important to set an example (similar to the NATO spending target, which, again, almost no-one except us and the US actually manage).
The problem is that, even with the UK having the 0.7% target enshrined in law for several years now, it's had almost no effect on other countries' behaviour (that I am aware of, and I am sure I will be corrected if I am wrong...). So, it's difficult to justify spending the money abroad whilst our national finances are in the mess they're currently in.
Unless it is clearly in our interests to do so. Eg vaccines. This virus does not recognise borders. We are, apparently, completely incapable of isolating ourselves from the world as the 2.5k from India (an estimated 125 of which will be +ve) this week shows all too clearly. We need to reduce the quantity of this virus everywhere because one thing we can be sure of is that any dangerous variant anywhere will end up here.
Yes, agreed. And I would add that, more generally, it seems that our guidelines for what does and does not constitute international aid could do with some updating. I'd rather we spent 1% that does serve our interests, than 0.7% that ignores the internationally accepted guidelines whilst not serving our interests. And we really need to stop trying to use the aid programme as a way of inflicting social engineering in other countries.
Not sure about the last bit. We believe in equality for women for example. We spend money on education for girls. Those girls tend to have fewer babies as a result and be more independent and with better job prospects. Social engineering, certainly. A good thing? I'd say so.
This is interesting. @DominicRaab - asked if government was planning on holding a debate & vote on its decision to cut overseas aid spending to 0.5% of national income from 0.7% - signals HMG is not but says backbench MPs are free to debate and vote on "anything they wish" https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1385178739940724738
Again another very popular policy
That really is mean-spirited. Sorry, but it is. Especially when national income seems to be declining a little.
No it really isn't. Not when the UK is still a leading aid donor around the globe. There is no point us pissing our money away as part of a penis measuring contest to stroke our own egos and show how good we are, while other nations refuse to do the same.
If the money is needed in recipient nations we should be giving what is needed, in accordance with the other rich nations, not based upon our own GNI. Doing it as a percentage of the GNI shows that's about us - not about them or what they need.
I'm struggling to marry up 'giving what is needed' with halving the aid budget to Yemen while 2/3rds of the population are dependent on humanitarian assistance.
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has revealed that production at two of its UK manufacturing plants is to be suspended due to a shortage of parts.
The company said operations at the Castle Bromwich (Birmingham) and Halewood (Liverpool) sites would be affected through a "limited period" of non-production from next Monday.
It blamed a COVID-19 crisis issue of semi-conductor shortages, widely flagged by the industry as a whole and blamed for disruption to schedules among rivals and at other firms which rely on computer chips.
JLR's UK plants, including this one in Solihull, employ 40,000 people. The shortage of computer chips is not affecting output at Solihull
JLR - which has the UK's largest car manufacturing operation - said it was unclear how long the stoppages would last but it insisted production at the Solihull plant would continue as normal.
Its statement said: "Like other automotive manufacturers, we are currently experiencing some COVID-19 supply chain disruption, including the global availability of semi-conductors, which is having an impact on our production schedules and our ability to meet global demand for some of our vehicles.
"As a result, we have adjusted production schedules for certain vehicles which means that our Castle Bromwich and Halewood manufacturing plants will be operating a limited period of non-production from Monday 26th April.
Jaguar's otherwise mystifying decision to stop platform sharing with LR must mean Tata are preparing to split the brands and sell off Jaguar.
It's hard to see where Jaguar go from here. Their traditional niche (badly made large saloons for golf club bores) has gone and they are trying to pivot to an electric only brand without the economies of scale that the major OEMs have.
Pet hates of the semiconductor industry ... hyphenating "semi-conductors" ... Grrr!
Another example of the government only pursuing headlines and having no interest in the policy announced. Last year they launched the "Pick for Britain" campaign to recruit a domestic workforce to pick fruit and vegetables. Not a total success in terms of numbers but ticked all the boxes - a patriotic name, jobs for us not foreigners, support Brexit.
The scheme has been scrapped. Which means that farms will go back to importing literal coachloads of eastern Europeans to do the harvest.
Why does it matter? A significant driver for Brexit in eastern England is the "invasion" of people from eastern Europe to work in the food and agriculture sector. These are jobs that British people do not want to do. So the government make a lot of noise about removing migrants in favour of patriotic jobs for plucky locals, and once the headlines are gained and the policy weaved into knowledge, it gets withdrawn.
Which means that despite the policy of continuing migration of labour, the government will get the credit for ending it. Its smart politics, but I can't see how the lie holds beyond the immediate - the foreigner workforce will still be here.
You're having a shocker this week, Rochdale. This is more BS.
Pick for Britain - a campaign to provide jobs for people not working through COVID. Hasn't worked well - partly because East Euro workers were back in from about May 2020. Fine. Let it go. COVID is nearly over.
The seasonal workers scheme has been under development for 2-3 years, and continues.
Seasonal workers where needed have never been a problem for Brexiteers afaik. Certainly not for me.
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has revealed that production at two of its UK manufacturing plants is to be suspended due to a shortage of parts.
The company said operations at the Castle Bromwich (Birmingham) and Halewood (Liverpool) sites would be affected through a "limited period" of non-production from next Monday.
It blamed a COVID-19 crisis issue of semi-conductor shortages, widely flagged by the industry as a whole and blamed for disruption to schedules among rivals and at other firms which rely on computer chips.
JLR's UK plants, including this one in Solihull, employ 40,000 people. The shortage of computer chips is not affecting output at Solihull
JLR - which has the UK's largest car manufacturing operation - said it was unclear how long the stoppages would last but it insisted production at the Solihull plant would continue as normal.
Its statement said: "Like other automotive manufacturers, we are currently experiencing some COVID-19 supply chain disruption, including the global availability of semi-conductors, which is having an impact on our production schedules and our ability to meet global demand for some of our vehicles.
"As a result, we have adjusted production schedules for certain vehicles which means that our Castle Bromwich and Halewood manufacturing plants will be operating a limited period of non-production from Monday 26th April.
Jaguar's otherwise mystifying decision to stop platform sharing with LR must mean Tata are preparing to split the brands and sell off Jaguar.
It's hard to see where Jaguar go from here. Their traditional niche (badly made large saloons for golf club bores) has gone and they are trying to pivot to an electric only brand without the economies of scale that the major OEMs have.
Me. I'm waiting to buy an affordable Jaguar electric.
I love my XE.
You're going to have a long wait. Jaguar have cancelled their mid size MLA project and are going to exit the C and D segments to try to go upmarket.
It's amazing that they have the absolute perfect brand for an electric sports car with enormous cultural heft (E-TYPE) yet they have no plans to do anything with it.
On topic I find the idea that the scales were suddenly lifted from Mercer's eyes in the last 36 hours and he suddenly realised that those involved in politics were not always truthful genuinely risible. I begin to wonder if he is one of those adults that @TSE was talking about in the previous thread header who really shouldn't be allowed out of the house without adult supervision. I mean, this man has been in Parliament for 6 years. What did he think was going on?
So is the complaint that Mercer should have known that the PM is a lair and therefore should not have complained? The problem is that the PM is a liar who is throwing yet another group (army veterans) under the bus having lied about a pledge he had no intention of keeping. Again. So it is truly entertaining that the blame is being aimed at the former army Captain doing his job with honour instead of the repeatedly sacked liar.
Yes, you are starting to get the idea.
Understood. So your complaint isn't a PM who lied to army veterans that he would stop them being thrown under the bus. Your complaint is that an honourable man trying to do his job on behalf of his former comrades didn't quit earlier and make no attempt to help them.
No, I will try to explain how it works. Boris stood for the leadership. In doing so he was asked a lot of questions about a lot of things and expressed views on them. His answers no doubt reflected his opinion on many of those things but were also skillfully designed to expand the tent of his supporters so that he could win. This is called politics.
Some who came on board because of those views, such as Mercer, were expecting action on those views. But a PM can only fight so many battles at one time. Boris had first to deal with getting Brexit through and then deal with Covid. It has been all consuming for his government. Those who have an agenda that falls within those priorities, such as some of Patel's plans, have made progress. Those whose agenda did not fall within that have found themselves on the back burner. This is government. It's what happens.
To ask if this makes Boris a liar is really looking down the wrong end of the telescope. He has expressed aspirations that he has not achieved. He is trying to run a government in a time of absolute crisis. Mercer is painfully naïve. Well meaning and genuinely motivated but naïve.
It really is worth reading a little more about him. His mendacity predates this pandemic by several years. There are politicians who tell white lies because they have no choice. They are put in impossible positions. There are very few for whom truth has no meaning. Trump was one and Johnson is another. Alan Duncan as his No 2 at the foreign office paints an interesting picture.....
Though he has a roguish charm he is in fact Iago. It might be attractive to Tories who want to win at all costs but there will be a reckoning and some pretty red faces when it happens.
I would trust Alan Duncan considerably less far than I could throw him but I do not dispute that Boris is mendacious.
...
You could throw Duncan considerably further than Boris, though - and that's probably a decent assessment of their relative trustworthiness.
Look, we Tories won a majority of 80 in the UK in the Commons in 2019 and under our constitution what a UK government with a majority in the Commons wants goes until the next general election.
It does not matter what happens at Holyrood next month
Snipped right there. We English are in power. It doesn't matter what you Scotch want to do, we rule you.
This is literally why independence is sadly inevitable. Dripping English arrogance and ignorance and disregard for basic principles of democracy.
Wrong, England does not always get its own way. In 1950, 1964 and February 1974 England voted Tory but got a UK Labour government thanks to Scottish and Welsh Labour MPs.
On current polling the only way Starmer becomes UK PM in 2024 is with the support of Scottish SNP MPs and Welsh Labour MPs, England will almost certainly have a Tory majority still.
So it is not the case England always gets its own way in the UK (England does not even have its own Parliament unlike every other Home Nation), it is the case however that the UK government with a majority in the Commons always gets its own way.
Until 2024 that UK government with a majority in the Commons is a Tory one and it will decide until then and has made clear 2014 was a once in a generation vote when 55% of Scots voted to stay in the UK then
This isn't about governance. This is about the union. If Scotland cannot vote to challenge its place in the union without the agreement of England then the union is no longer based on consent. It becomes impossible for Scotland to leave or renegotiate the terms of union - it is beholden to England. Instead of a mutual union it is annexation.
Scotland voted to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum (more than the Spanish government ever gave Catalonia).
And that is why you and yours want to trap them forever into a union that they no longer have any say in.
Let's find some common ground. I think we can agree that the UK should be a voluntary union (which weirdly, is pretty unusual in the world, but still). Thus, any part which wants to secede can. But there has to be a bar of reasonableness - we probably wouldn't want to have a situation where we get Handforth seceding because the parish council had worked itself up about something. So we have the tool of a referendum. But we don't want to be in a position where we are having constant referendums until the right answer is received. Independence would be a fairly momentous change. We wouldn't want to get into a hokey-cokey situation. I think therefore we can agree that 'nevermore' is too seldom for a referendum on independence, and every year is too often. What is the right frequency to ask the question? I would argue 'once a generation' is correct, albeit that the term 'generation' is deliberately vague. I'd certainly say any more often than once every fifteen years brings about a state of permanent referendum campaign, which is pretty unhealthy. I wouldn't mind a bar on referenda more often than that. But I certainly wouldn't want a bar on referenda more often than say, once every forty years. So my view is once a generation is correct. With 'a generation' being somewhere between fifteen and forty years.
I don't buy, by the way, the 'they no longer have any say' argument. That only holds true if ALL of Scotland have one view, and ALL of rUK (or even all of England) hold the opposite view. Voters in all parts of the country have a roughly equal democratic say, setting apart arguments about efficiency of voting systems. You could, following that logic, say that voters in Norfolk will always be outvoted by the rest of England, so Norfolk ought to be independent. Or that voters in my house will always be outvoted by the rest of the country, so my family ought to be independent.
All that said, I'm increasingly of the opinion that devolution has been a disaster. There is no constitutional settlement which works evenly apart from treating the UK as one state or complete separation. Allowing a system where Nicola Sturgeon has a veto on everything cannot work, not least because her main political objective is to break up the UK so it is in her interests to be as difficult as possible. And as there seems no appetite in Scotland for the single state solution, sadly only way ahead is independence.
(My own preference would be a single state, but with more power devolved to the county level. I don't want to open the can of worms about what counties should look like, apart from to say 'units of about one or two million people, give or take whatever is workable'. So, say, thirty odd 'counties; in England, two or three in Wales, five or six in Scotland, one or two in NI. Though while that suits me in terms of 'fairness', I'm genuinely not sure what advantage it brings, say, Greater Manchester to be able to dictate its own health policy.)
to trap I am a federalist so I am not advocating a case for Scottish independence. What I am arguing is for the democratic right of the people of the Nation of Scotland to express that preference. Election of a Scottish government committed to independence is the "will of the people" to use the Brexit language - as we know the will of the people has to be obeyed.
Unless of course it is the will of the Scottish people. They are now being told that they can vote for anything they like, but that unless England agrees with them they cannot have it. Handforth or Norfolk are not comparable as Handforth or Norfolk are not nations within the British state - Scotland is.
Repeated referenda benefit no-one. But if that is what the people of Scotland vote for that is what they want. What you describe as a "voluntary union" is literally what was created when Scotland was left with a separate legal system in which its act of union remains law subject to amendment and repeal.
But we're disagreeing about technicalities. We agree that we don't want repreated referenda, and we agree that we don't want an indissoluble union. The question is when it's reasonable to re-ask the question.
Your federal solution sounds fine from the point of view of Scotland, which is suddenly elevated to having a blocking position on UK policy. That's less fine from an English perspective, and indeed from a UK perspective.
Imagine a USA shorn of all states except New York, Connecticut, Vermont and Rhode Island. Do you not see the massively disproportionate power you are proposing to give the little states?
Scotland already wields disproportionate power within the UK (the West Lothian Question) and consumes disproportionate gold. If the only we can keep the union together is by bribing its smaller members, it's time for the union to end. We're either one country, or we're not. Either is fine by me.
On topic I find the idea that the scales were suddenly lifted from Mercer's eyes in the last 36 hours and he suddenly realised that those involved in politics were not always truthful genuinely risible. I begin to wonder if he is one of those adults that @TSE was talking about in the previous thread header who really shouldn't be allowed out of the house without adult supervision. I mean, this man has been in Parliament for 6 years. What did he think was going on?
So is the complaint that Mercer should have known that the PM is a lair and therefore should not have complained? The problem is that the PM is a liar who is throwing yet another group (army veterans) under the bus having lied about a pledge he had no intention of keeping. Again. So it is truly entertaining that the blame is being aimed at the former army Captain doing his job with honour instead of the repeatedly sacked liar.
Yes, you are starting to get the idea.
Understood. So your complaint isn't a PM who lied to army veterans that he would stop them being thrown under the bus. Your complaint is that an honourable man trying to do his job on behalf of his former comrades didn't quit earlier and make no attempt to help them.
No, I will try to explain how it works. Boris stood for the leadership. In doing so he was asked a lot of questions about a lot of things and expressed views on them. His answers no doubt reflected his opinion on many of those things but were also skillfully designed to expand the tent of his supporters so that he could win. This is called politics.
Some who came on board because of those views, such as Mercer, were expecting action on those views. But a PM can only fight so many battles at one time. Boris had first to deal with getting Brexit through and then deal with Covid. It has been all consuming for his government. Those who have an agenda that falls within those priorities, such as some of Patel's plans, have made progress. Those whose agenda did not fall within that have found themselves on the back burner. This is government. It's what happens.
To ask if this makes Boris a liar is really looking down the wrong end of the telescope. He has expressed aspirations that he has not achieved. He is trying to run a government in a time of absolute crisis. Mercer is painfully naïve. Well meaning and genuinely motivated but naïve.
It really is worth reading a little more about him. His mendacity predates this pandemic by several years. There are politicians who tell white lies because they have no choice. They are put in impossible positions. There are very few for whom truth has no meaning. Trump was one and Johnson is another. Alan Duncan as his No 2 at the foreign office paints an interesting picture.....
Though he has a roguish charm he is in fact Iago. It might be attractive to Tories who want to win at all costs but there will be a reckoning and some pretty red faces when it happens.
I would trust Alan Duncan considerably less far than I could throw him but I do not dispute that Boris is mendacious.
...
You could throw Duncan considerably further than Boris, though - and that's probably a decent assessment of their relative trustworthiness.
This is interesting. @DominicRaab - asked if government was planning on holding a debate & vote on its decision to cut overseas aid spending to 0.5% of national income from 0.7% - signals HMG is not but says backbench MPs are free to debate and vote on "anything they wish" https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1385178739940724738
Again another very popular policy
That really is mean-spirited. Sorry, but it is. Especially when national income seems to be declining a little.
See I think that too and then you discover we are still spending aid in China. I mean, FFS. It really undermines the idea that the money is being well spent. The Indian space program is another issue. Why is it our moral duty to give medical aid to Indian nationals when their own government thinks space is more important?
And then there is the mixed evidence of whether aid actually does any good. Aid seems to me to be how we feel good about ourselves rather than what it does for the recipients.
The issue with international aid for me is that there is a clear international commitment to the 0.7% target, which almost no-one adheres to. The theory is that, if the UK leads the way on this, then other nations might follow, and therefore it's important to set an example (similar to the NATO spending target, which, again, almost no-one except us and the US actually manage).
The problem is that, even with the UK having the 0.7% target enshrined in law for several years now, it's had almost no effect on other countries' behaviour (that I am aware of, and I am sure I will be corrected if I am wrong...). So, it's difficult to justify spending the money abroad whilst our national finances are in the mess they're currently in.
Unless it is clearly in our interests to do so. Eg vaccines. This virus does not recognise borders. We are, apparently, completely incapable of isolating ourselves from the world as the 2.5k from India (an estimated 125 of which will be +ve) this week shows all too clearly. We need to reduce the quantity of this virus everywhere because one thing we can be sure of is that any dangerous variant anywhere will end up here.
Yes, agreed. And I would add that, more generally, it seems that our guidelines for what does and does not constitute international aid could do with some updating. I'd rather we spent 1% that does serve our interests, than 0.7% that ignores the internationally accepted guidelines whilst not serving our interests. And we really need to stop trying to use the aid programme as a way of inflicting social engineering in other countries.
Not sure about the last bit. We believe in equality for women for example. We spend money on education for girls. Those girls tend to have fewer babies as a result and be more independent and with better job prospects. Social engineering, certainly. A good thing? I'd say so.
Yes, I should clarify. My objection is to things which push agendas, which have little chance of working - while we can probably all agree that sub-Saharan Africa would be a better place if people were less homophobic, that's not a fight we can realistically win in any sensible timeframe, and I'm not sure the population as a whole is receptive to the message. I therefore conclude we are doing it more to score political points back in the UK than because it is cost effective.
Women's rights is a much easier sell, and is an area where it's much easier to find existing movements with local support and momentum behind them to assist, rather than having to pick a fight all on our own, very much against the mainstream culture. And, as you said, of huge direct benefit to the local economies, so you don't even need to make the moral argument.
That's a really bad poll for the Tories. Either it is an outlier or the trends we have been seeing in the national polling have been significantly reversed in Wales. It seems not that long ago we were speculating that the Tories might get more votes in Wales than Labour.
If it wasn't for the 'Boris ' vaccine bounce I think Tory figures might be worse. Their leader in Wales is appalling and their campaign going nowhere. He may not be popular on here but Mark Drakeford is generally perceived to have had a 'good' pandemic. These figures give Labour @29 seats. I think that's a bit high. I speculated a couple of months ago, when Labour polling was dire that Labour would get @26 seats. I stand by that, although perhaps I am being a bit pessimistic.
Johnny Mercer apparently known in Afghanistan as "the 105mm sniper" because of the accuracy with which he could call down artillery fire. It seems that Johnson should have know that.
That's a really bad poll for the Tories. Either it is an outlier or the trends we have been seeing in the national polling have been significantly reversed in Wales. It seems not that long ago we were speculating that the Tories might get more votes in Wales than Labour.
I would treat this poll from Awan Scully much more seriously than the Opinium yesterday (Opinium have no track record in Wales).
From AS's blog
"Our new poll suggests a large rise in Labour’s lead over the past month, and a substantial fall in Conservative support. Labour’s advantage has apparently gone from two points to eleven since the campaign for the Senedd began. As always, we should be cautious about over-interpreting a single poll, and the changes that it suggests. It may be that the previous Barometer poll somewhat over-stated the Conservative position; this one might be under-stating it. But our latest evidence does indicate Labour’s position as the largest party in the Senedd to be rather more secure than did March’s poll ."
Note also, though a good poll for Labour, this still equals Labour's worst ever performance in the Senedd.
14 Conservative seats would also still be their joint highest ever total in the Senedd, matching their 2014 performance, 26 would indeed be Labour's joint lowest Senedd total alongside their 2007 total
That's a really bad poll for the Tories. Either it is an outlier or the trends we have been seeing in the national polling have been significantly reversed in Wales. It seems not that long ago we were speculating that the Tories might get more votes in Wales than Labour.
I would treat this poll from Awan Scully much more seriously than the Opinium yesterday (Opinium have no track record in Wales).
From AS's blog
"Our new poll suggests a large rise in Labour’s lead over the past month, and a substantial fall in Conservative support. Labour’s advantage has apparently gone from two points to eleven since the campaign for the Senedd began. As always, we should be cautious about over-interpreting a single poll, and the changes that it suggests. It may be that the previous Barometer poll somewhat over-stated the Conservative position; this one might be under-stating it. But our latest evidence does indicate Labour’s position as the largest party in the Senedd to be rather more secure than did March’s poll ."
Note also, though a good poll for Labour, this still equals Labour's worst ever performance in the Senedd.
I agree that this poll seems far more credible than the earlier one. I am relieved that the Tories, despite the vaccine bounce and UkIP support going to them, are being largely held at bay. May not be a great performance by Labour, but it could have been a lot worse. Plaid making some progress, but still not quite getting a ringing endorsement they were hoping for hardly surprising when Wales is still generally sceptical over the benefits of independence.
This is interesting. @DominicRaab - asked if government was planning on holding a debate & vote on its decision to cut overseas aid spending to 0.5% of national income from 0.7% - signals HMG is not but says backbench MPs are free to debate and vote on "anything they wish" https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1385178739940724738
Again another very popular policy
That really is mean-spirited. Sorry, but it is. Especially when national income seems to be declining a little.
No it really isn't. Not when the UK is still a leading aid donor around the globe. There is no point us pissing our money away as part of a penis measuring contest to stroke our own egos and show how good we are, while other nations refuse to do the same.
If the money is needed in recipient nations we should be giving what is needed, in accordance with the other rich nations, not based upon our own GNI. Doing it as a percentage of the GNI shows that's about us - not about them or what they need.
I'm struggling to marry up 'giving what is needed' with halving the aid budget to Yemen while 2/3rds of the population are dependent on humanitarian assistance.
I said in accordance with other countries. What is the aid budget that Yemen requires and what proportion of it is coming as proposed from the UK? How does that weigh in versus what everyone else is doing?
But to be frank aid to Yemen right now is like putting a sticking plaster on someone with their arm half cut off.
Ending the conflict in Yemen would do far more than any amount of aid does. Countries can only realistically develop if they're safe, stable and respect the rule of law.
Johnny Mercer apparently known in Afghanistan as "the 105mm sniper" because of the accuracy with which he could call down artillery fire. It seems that Johnson should have know that.
Timing and surprise are as important as accuracy, though. Mercer couldn’t have chosen a worse time to bring his lengthy fester to a boil, being a footnote in the current news, and as for secrecy, he made the silly mistake of telling party colleagues about his plan to resign at the despatch box, whereupon they rushed off and told the press.
Standard subsample warnings, but Street apparently leads every borough bar Birmingham.
Street's net approval at +31 (15% strongly approve, against 4% strongly disproving).
They key thing that I think may punters have overlooked are the other elections on the same day - every district of West Midlands County *bar* the City of Birmingham also have Metro borough elections happening. So turnout in the most strongly Labour area is likely to be lower, whereas no such effect should be present in the Tory boroughs. In 2017 no metro boroughs had elections.
Street at 4/11 at WH looks to be strong value to me.
Makes you think how on earth can he not win? On pretty much every measure he is highly thought of and respected across the political spectrum.
Yeah, I think that he's a shoo-in.
The only thing going against him are headline macro trends - when he won in 2017 the Tories were 19% ahead, and won by 0.8%, now they're only 8% ahead, but all signs are that the WM has disproportionally swung towards Con. In 2017 Cons won the wider West Midlands region by 6.5% (2.4% national lead), but in 2019 won it by 20% (NL 12.5%). But add in no Birmingham elections, no GE coming up and all that and I think it'd be a decent shock to see him lose.
Starmer must be relieved at the good Welsh polling, between that and the WoE Mayor he should have enough things he can sell as wins to draw focus away from Hartlepool, Teeside, and West Midlands.
Why do you think the WoE mayor will move to Labour?
Germany is in talks with Russia to buy 30 million doses of the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine once it is approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), Saxony state premier Michael Kretschmer said on Thursday.
"Germany is negotiating 3 x 10 million doses for June, July, August. The prerequisite for this is the swift EMA approval of the vaccine," Kretschmer wrote on Twitter.
That's a really bad poll for the Tories. Either it is an outlier or the trends we have been seeing in the national polling have been significantly reversed in Wales. It seems not that long ago we were speculating that the Tories might get more votes in Wales than Labour.
I would treat this poll from Awan Scully much more seriously than the Opinium yesterday (Opinium have no track record in Wales).
From AS's blog
"Our new poll suggests a large rise in Labour’s lead over the past month, and a substantial fall in Conservative support. Labour’s advantage has apparently gone from two points to eleven since the campaign for the Senedd began. As always, we should be cautious about over-interpreting a single poll, and the changes that it suggests. It may be that the previous Barometer poll somewhat over-stated the Conservative position; this one might be under-stating it. But our latest evidence does indicate Labour’s position as the largest party in the Senedd to be rather more secure than did March’s poll ."
Note also, though a good poll for Labour, this still equals Labour's worst ever performance in the Senedd.
I agree that this poll seems far more credible than the earlier one. I am relieved that the Tories, despite the vaccine bounce and UkIP support going to them, are being largely held at bay. May not be a great performance by Labour, but it could have been a lot worse. Plaid making some progress, but still not quite getting a ringing endorsement they were hoping for hardly surprising when Wales is still generally sceptical over the benefits of independence.
17 seats would be Plaid's best performance since 1999, matching their Senedd total then but on a lower voteshare for Price than Wigley got then
" France plans to lift travel restrictions and ease a nationwide curfew on May 2 on expectations that daily Covid-19 cases will soon begin falling,"
What the f&&& are the French doing?
They're on 32,000 cases a day! If they're confident it'll all be OK in two weeks why not wait and see first????!!
That is as mad... as a box of frogs....
The french data has plateaued a bit. But lifting restrictions when cases are that high and not dropping fast....
The french clearly know they aren't going to get to herd immunity via vaccinations - so they may as well let it rip as that seems to be what people want.
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has revealed that production at two of its UK manufacturing plants is to be suspended due to a shortage of parts.
The company said operations at the Castle Bromwich (Birmingham) and Halewood (Liverpool) sites would be affected through a "limited period" of non-production from next Monday.
It blamed a COVID-19 crisis issue of semi-conductor shortages, widely flagged by the industry as a whole and blamed for disruption to schedules among rivals and at other firms which rely on computer chips.
JLR's UK plants, including this one in Solihull, employ 40,000 people. The shortage of computer chips is not affecting output at Solihull
JLR - which has the UK's largest car manufacturing operation - said it was unclear how long the stoppages would last but it insisted production at the Solihull plant would continue as normal.
Its statement said: "Like other automotive manufacturers, we are currently experiencing some COVID-19 supply chain disruption, including the global availability of semi-conductors, which is having an impact on our production schedules and our ability to meet global demand for some of our vehicles.
"As a result, we have adjusted production schedules for certain vehicles which means that our Castle Bromwich and Halewood manufacturing plants will be operating a limited period of non-production from Monday 26th April.
Jaguar's otherwise mystifying decision to stop platform sharing with LR must mean Tata are preparing to split the brands and sell off Jaguar.
It's hard to see where Jaguar go from here. Their traditional niche (badly made large saloons for golf club bores) has gone and they are trying to pivot to an electric only brand without the economies of scale that the major OEMs have.
Pet hates of the semiconductor industry ... hyphenating "semi-conductors" ... Grrr!
In my old house, the adjoining next-door neighbour was a retired gentleman who was also the church choir leader. He was a semi-conductor
This is interesting. @DominicRaab - asked if government was planning on holding a debate & vote on its decision to cut overseas aid spending to 0.5% of national income from 0.7% - signals HMG is not but says backbench MPs are free to debate and vote on "anything they wish" https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1385178739940724738
Again another very popular policy
That really is mean-spirited. Sorry, but it is. Especially when national income seems to be declining a little.
See I think that too and then you discover we are still spending aid in China. I mean, FFS. It really undermines the idea that the money is being well spent. The Indian space program is another issue. Why is it our moral duty to give medical aid to Indian nationals when their own government thinks space is more important?
And then there is the mixed evidence of whether aid actually does any good. Aid seems to me to be how we feel good about ourselves rather than what it does for the recipients.
The issue with international aid for me is that there is a clear international commitment to the 0.7% target, which almost no-one adheres to. The theory is that, if the UK leads the way on this, then other nations might follow, and therefore it's important to set an example (similar to the NATO spending target, which, again, almost no-one except us and the US actually manage).
The problem is that, even with the UK having the 0.7% target enshrined in law for several years now, it's had almost no effect on other countries' behaviour (that I am aware of, and I am sure I will be corrected if I am wrong...). So, it's difficult to justify spending the money abroad whilst our national finances are in the mess they're currently in.
Unless it is clearly in our interests to do so. Eg vaccines. This virus does not recognise borders. We are, apparently, completely incapable of isolating ourselves from the world as the 2.5k from India (an estimated 125 of which will be +ve) this week shows all too clearly. We need to reduce the quantity of this virus everywhere because one thing we can be sure of is that any dangerous variant anywhere will end up here.
Yes, agreed. And I would add that, more generally, it seems that our guidelines for what does and does not constitute international aid could do with some updating. I'd rather we spent 1% that does serve our interests, than 0.7% that ignores the internationally accepted guidelines whilst not serving our interests. And we really need to stop trying to use the aid programme as a way of inflicting social engineering in other countries.
Not sure about the last bit. We believe in equality for women for example. We spend money on education for girls. Those girls tend to have fewer babies as a result and be more independent and with better job prospects. Social engineering, certainly. A good thing? I'd say so.
Yes, I should clarify. My objection is to things which push agendas, which have little chance of working - while we can probably all agree that sub-Saharan Africa would be a better place if people were less homophobic, that's not a fight we can realistically win in any sensible timeframe, and I'm not sure the population as a whole is receptive to the message. I therefore conclude we are doing it more to score political points back in the UK than because it is cost effective.
Women's rights is a much easier sell, and is an area where it's much easier to find existing movements with local support and momentum behind them to assist, rather than having to pick a fight all on our own, very much against the mainstream culture. And, as you said, of huge direct benefit to the local economies, so you don't even need to make the moral argument.
I am not sure that either of your points is true - about changing homophobic attitudes being unrealistic or women's rights in some societies being an easier sell. I have come across people living in communities where homosexuality is forbidden but male rape commonplace and unreported, who genuinely belief as an article of faith that women only have half the brain of men.
The attitudes against homosexuality and women's equality are both deep-seated beliefs in some places - it is hard to say one is more deep-seated than the other. Changing deep-seated beliefs is hard, but not impossible and can be done more quickly than I had imagined before coming across some remarkable efforts. For example, some people and groups have been successful in some very conservative Arab and East African communities in eradicating FGM. They have done it using creative methods that I could not have imagined working, including things like sympathetic characters in popular radio soaps.
I do think that this is an area where scope for successful direct governmental action is limited. But governments should be seeking out individuals and groups who are already making progress and supporting them. And why should we not ensure that a portion of our aid goes to supporting them?
If we are going to be handing over huge gobs of money, we should only be doing so when we know something of the receiving country's society, power structures, and influencers. If that means doing a little more research before finalizing the aid programme and identifying all its components and partners, I think that would be a good thing.
" France plans to lift travel restrictions and ease a nationwide curfew on May 2 on expectations that daily Covid-19 cases will soon begin falling,"
What the f&&& are the French doing?
They're on 32,000 cases a day! If they're confident it'll all be OK in two weeks why not wait and see first????!!
That is as mad... as a box of frogs....
The french data has plateaued a bit. But lifting restrictions when cases are that high and not dropping fast....
The french clearly know they aren't going to get to herd immunity via vaccinations - so they may as well let it rip as that seems to be what people want.
Or the plan* is to push vaccine uptake by maximising the pain?
Just now been offered a vaccination. They must be moving into the 45-40 range.
Great news. The nationwide invitation on the website still says 45 and up, but it has been a Friday before when they slip it down to the next age group.
Nevertheless if you are in the age group below and click through from the booking site, it is quite possible it will offer ages 40+ a slot - that’s how I got mine a little before my age group made its way to open invitation.
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has revealed that production at two of its UK manufacturing plants is to be suspended due to a shortage of parts.
The company said operations at the Castle Bromwich (Birmingham) and Halewood (Liverpool) sites would be affected through a "limited period" of non-production from next Monday.
It blamed a COVID-19 crisis issue of semi-conductor shortages, widely flagged by the industry as a whole and blamed for disruption to schedules among rivals and at other firms which rely on computer chips.
JLR's UK plants, including this one in Solihull, employ 40,000 people. The shortage of computer chips is not affecting output at Solihull
JLR - which has the UK's largest car manufacturing operation - said it was unclear how long the stoppages would last but it insisted production at the Solihull plant would continue as normal.
Its statement said: "Like other automotive manufacturers, we are currently experiencing some COVID-19 supply chain disruption, including the global availability of semi-conductors, which is having an impact on our production schedules and our ability to meet global demand for some of our vehicles.
"As a result, we have adjusted production schedules for certain vehicles which means that our Castle Bromwich and Halewood manufacturing plants will be operating a limited period of non-production from Monday 26th April.
Jaguar's otherwise mystifying decision to stop platform sharing with LR must mean Tata are preparing to split the brands and sell off Jaguar.
It's hard to see where Jaguar go from here. Their traditional niche (badly made large saloons for golf club bores) has gone and they are trying to pivot to an electric only brand without the economies of scale that the major OEMs have.
Pet hates of the semiconductor industry ... hyphenating "semi-conductors" ... Grrr!
In my old house, the adjoining next-door neighbour was a retired gentleman who was also the church choir leader. He was a semi-conductor
Shouldn'y the answer to pet-hates be something like Labrador?
" France plans to lift travel restrictions and ease a nationwide curfew on May 2 on expectations that daily Covid-19 cases will soon begin falling,"
What the f&&& are the French doing?
They're on 32,000 cases a day! If they're confident it'll all be OK in two weeks why not wait and see first????!!
That is as mad... as a box of frogs....
The french data has plateaued a bit. But lifting restrictions when cases are that high and not dropping fast....
The french clearly know they aren't going to get to herd immunity via vaccinations - so they may as well let it rip as that seems to be what people want.
Or the plan* is to push vaccine uptake by maximising the pain?
*if, indeed, there is one
The sum of the French governments actions recently has been to make things worse - vaccination program, vaccination take up, restrictions....
I can't see how the lie holds beyond the immediate
The one lesson BoZo learned from Brexit is that it doesn't have to.
The campaign lies he told didn't survive beyond the end of the count.
Tomorrow's headline is the event horizon.
Out of interest, what lies did he tell?
No customs border in the Irish Sea? Protection for army veterans against vexatious prosecutions? Both manifesto pledges. Lioar even went to the DUP conference to state his NI pledge.
Thats just two. How about "I did not shag that musician Carrie"...?
You are you indulging in misogyny and abuse to Carrie again
I just do not understand why you feel a need to be this way
I was asked to state what lies he told. That he didn't have an affair whilst Carrie is pregnant is one. How on earth is that abuse to Carrie - she is the victim here and has my sympathy.
I think you missed a comma in the original, and the comment was therefore misparsed. For clarity, Carrie Symonds is not a musician.
And given the widely rumoured super injunction, you might as well confirm that you are not suggesting for a moment that the clown has met up with any young female musicians, now or ever before?
SNP under 50% on both the Yougov and Comres Holyrood constituency polls today then, so if Unionists all vote tactically for the party closest to the SNP in each constituency in 2016, not only should they hold all the Unionist constituency seats, they could even gain a handful from the SNP
The European Commission is getting ready to launch legal proceedings against vaccine producer AstraZeneca, according to five EU diplomats.
The Commission raised the matter at a meeting of ambassadors Wednesday, during which the majority of EU countries said they would support suing the company over complaints it massively failed to deliver pledged doses to the bloc.
One diplomat clarified that the point of the legal proceedings is to make it mandatory for AstraZeneca to provide the doses set out in its EU contract.
I can't see how the lie holds beyond the immediate
The one lesson BoZo learned from Brexit is that it doesn't have to.
The campaign lies he told didn't survive beyond the end of the count.
Tomorrow's headline is the event horizon.
Out of interest, what lies did he tell?
No customs border in the Irish Sea? Protection for army veterans against vexatious prosecutions? Both manifesto pledges. Lioar even went to the DUP conference to state his NI pledge.
Thats just two. How about "I did not shag that musician Carrie"...?
You are you indulging in misogyny and abuse to Carrie again
I just do not understand why you feel a need to be this way
I was asked to state what lies he told. That he didn't have an affair whilst Carrie is pregnant is one. How on earth is that abuse to Carrie - she is the victim here and has my sympathy.
It is the way you express yourself at times and your posts are important and would improve immeasurably if you were maybe a little less school boyish
The NATION would improve immeasurably is this amoral bumbling liar wasn't running it. The Conservative Party used to have basic principles and decency. I am arguing for a return to these basic standards.
I agree, though I cannot help but think that many who pine for the days of those basic principles and decency would not have said the party had them at the time. It's like when someone quits a party and attacks it, and opponents who used to condemn them suddenly talk about what a principled, talented person they are.
The cop is a hero. Saved the woman's life who was being charged at by Bryant.
It's hard to see a more justified action, despite the outcome been tragic for the person killed. Someone was going to die in that altercation. A ferocious momentum to plunge a knife from someone so young to someone else so young.
I can't see how the lie holds beyond the immediate
The one lesson BoZo learned from Brexit is that it doesn't have to.
The campaign lies he told didn't survive beyond the end of the count.
Tomorrow's headline is the event horizon.
Out of interest, what lies did he tell?
No customs border in the Irish Sea? Protection for army veterans against vexatious prosecutions? Both manifesto pledges. Lioar even went to the DUP conference to state his NI pledge.
Thats just two. How about "I did not shag that musician Carrie"...?
You are you indulging in misogyny and abuse to Carrie again
I just do not understand why you feel a need to be this way
I was asked to state what lies he told. That he didn't have an affair whilst Carrie is pregnant is one. How on earth is that abuse to Carrie - she is the victim here and has my sympathy.
I think you missed a comma in the original, and the comment was therefore misparsed. For clarity, Carrie Symonds is not a musician.
And given the widely rumoured super injunction, you might as well confirm that you are not suggesting for a moment that the clown has met up with any young female musicians, now or ever before?
Isn't the whole point of a super injunction that you're not allowed to know it exists at all, and hence you should to all intents and purposes act as though it doesn't, even if you know it does?
The European Commission is getting ready to launch legal proceedings against vaccine producer AstraZeneca, according to five EU diplomats.
The Commission raised the matter at a meeting of ambassadors Wednesday, during which the majority of EU countries said they would support suing the company over complaints it massively failed to deliver pledged doses to the bloc.
One diplomat clarified that the point of the legal proceedings is to make it mandatory for AstraZeneca to provide the doses set out in its EU contract.
I can't see how the lie holds beyond the immediate
The one lesson BoZo learned from Brexit is that it doesn't have to.
The campaign lies he told didn't survive beyond the end of the count.
Tomorrow's headline is the event horizon.
Out of interest, what lies did he tell?
No customs border in the Irish Sea? Protection for army veterans against vexatious prosecutions? Both manifesto pledges. Lioar even went to the DUP conference to state his NI pledge.
Thats just two. How about "I did not shag that musician Carrie"...?
You are you indulging in misogyny and abuse to Carrie again
I just do not understand why you feel a need to be this way
I was asked to state what lies he told. That he didn't have an affair whilst Carrie is pregnant is one. How on earth is that abuse to Carrie - she is the victim here and has my sympathy.
It is the way you express yourself at times and your posts are important and would improve immeasurably if you were maybe a little less school boyish
The NATION would improve immeasurably is this amoral bumbling liar wasn't running it. The Conservative Party used to have basic principles and decency. I am arguing for a return to these basic standards.
I agree, though I cannot help but think that many who pine for the days of those basic principles and decency would not have said the party had them at the time. It's like when someone quits a party and attacks it, and opponents who used to condemn them suddenly talk about what a principled, talented person they are.
Like Unionists who suddenly have respect for Alex RT Salmond.
" France plans to lift travel restrictions and ease a nationwide curfew on May 2 on expectations that daily Covid-19 cases will soon begin falling,"
What the f&&& are the French doing?
They're on 32,000 cases a day! If they're confident it'll all be OK in two weeks why not wait and see first????!!
That is as mad... as a box of frogs....
The french data has plateaued a bit. But lifting restrictions when cases are that high and not dropping fast....
They are doing the same as the Belgians - lifting lockdown earlier than is justified by the data. Fench R is still above one.
The Grim Reaper beckons...
OTOH, if the data are to be believed, lockdown or lack of it appears to have had zero effect on deaths, which seem to have been remarkably steady since January. Maybe they've decided it just isn't worth the bother.
Vaccine studies investigating booster vaccines and third doses are currently in set-up stages within the NIHR, and will help us gain a better understanding of possible future COVID-19 vaccine schedules.
One of the most recent COVID-19 vaccine studies to launch, Com-Cov2, is enrolling participants who have received the first dose of either the Oxford-AstraZeneca, or Pfizer vaccine, to then be randomly allocated to receive either the same vaccine for their second dose, or a dose of the COVID-19 vaccines produced by Moderna or Novavax.
The Valneva Phase 1/2 clinical trial has reported positive data for their COVID-19 vaccine candidate, VLA2001, with no safety concerns identified. It is the only study examining a whole virus, inactivated, adjuvanted vaccine candidate in clinical trials against COVID-19 in Europe.
Last week, the Medicago COVID-19 vaccine study launched at several sites across the UK. Medicago, a biopharmaceutical company based in Canada, and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) are launching the Phase 3 randomised, observer blinded, placebo-controlled study. The NIHR-supported study is the first to test a plant-derived COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
Researchers at the Bristol Trials Centre at the University of Bristol and University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust are leading a new study which could set the foundations for how booster COVID-19 vaccinations are delivered in the future. The study, supported by the NIHR, will determine whether booster COVID-19 vaccines should be given at the same time as flu vaccines.
If you have had COVID-19, you can join the GenOMICC COVID-19 Study, which analyses the genes of people who have had the virus to discover why some experienced no symptoms while others became extremely ill is appealing for more volunteers.
The European Commission is getting ready to launch legal proceedings against vaccine producer AstraZeneca, according to five EU diplomats.
The Commission raised the matter at a meeting of ambassadors Wednesday, during which the majority of EU countries said they would support suing the company over complaints it massively failed to deliver pledged doses to the bloc.
One diplomat clarified that the point of the legal proceedings is to make it mandatory for AstraZeneca to provide the doses set out in its EU contract.
I can't see how the lie holds beyond the immediate
The one lesson BoZo learned from Brexit is that it doesn't have to.
The campaign lies he told didn't survive beyond the end of the count.
Tomorrow's headline is the event horizon.
Out of interest, what lies did he tell?
No customs border in the Irish Sea? Protection for army veterans against vexatious prosecutions? Both manifesto pledges. Lioar even went to the DUP conference to state his NI pledge.
Thats just two. How about "I did not shag that musician Carrie"...?
You are you indulging in misogyny and abuse to Carrie again
I just do not understand why you feel a need to be this way
I was asked to state what lies he told. That he didn't have an affair whilst Carrie is pregnant is one. How on earth is that abuse to Carrie - she is the victim here and has my sympathy.
It is the way you express yourself at times and your posts are important and would improve immeasurably if you were maybe a little less school boyish
The NATION would improve immeasurably is this amoral bumbling liar wasn't running it. The Conservative Party used to have basic principles and decency. I am arguing for a return to these basic standards.
I agree, though I cannot help but think that many who pine for the days of those basic principles and decency would not have said the party had them at the time. It's like when someone quits a party and attacks it, and opponents who used to condemn them suddenly talk about what a principled, talented person they are.
Like Unionists who suddenly have respect for Alex RT Salmond.
Well I would pretend to if it could be guaranteed he was harming not helping the Sindy cause.
I posted yesterday that our PM is widely held to be a rogue, but for many people a lovable one. Once the 'lovable' goes his fall may well be swift, long and hard.
Very similar to Herman Goering again.
I thnk that's a bit low. One was a convicted war criminal, complicit in the genocide of over 6 million jews, and deaths of countless other millions f people. The other has had serial romantic affairs and a poor attention to detail, and probably the ability to distort the truth at times. As far as i am aware, Johnson has never been responsible for people dying. And before you cry 150,000 Brits, I'd ask if you think Merkel has killed 90,000 Germans, and Macron etc etc etc
SNP under 50% on both the Yougov and Comres Holyrood constituency polls today then, so if Unionists all vote tactically for the party closest to the SNP in each constituency in 2016, not only should they hold all the Unionist constituency seats, they could even gain a handful from the SNP
In 2016 the SNP got 46.5% of the constituency and 41.7% of the list so this would be a small swing in their favour in the constituency vote and a small swing against on the list. Since they didn't get many list seats that is unlikely to reduce the number of seats that they win, indeed it may increase it slightly. A lot depends on the efficiency of the Unionist vote and I am not confident that Douglas Ross is as vote transfer friendly as Ruth was. This is going to be tight.
I can't see how the lie holds beyond the immediate
The one lesson BoZo learned from Brexit is that it doesn't have to.
The campaign lies he told didn't survive beyond the end of the count.
Tomorrow's headline is the event horizon.
Out of interest, what lies did he tell?
No customs border in the Irish Sea? Protection for army veterans against vexatious prosecutions? Both manifesto pledges. Lioar even went to the DUP conference to state his NI pledge.
Thats just two. How about "I did not shag that musician Carrie"...?
You are you indulging in misogyny and abuse to Carrie again
I just do not understand why you feel a need to be this way
I was asked to state what lies he told. That he didn't have an affair whilst Carrie is pregnant is one. How on earth is that abuse to Carrie - she is the victim here and has my sympathy.
I think you missed a comma in the original, and the comment was therefore misparsed. For clarity, Carrie Symonds is not a musician.
And given the widely rumoured super injunction, you might as well confirm that you are not suggesting for a moment that the clown has met up with any young female musicians, now or ever before?
Isn't the whole point of a super injunction that you're not allowed to know it exists at all, and hence you should to all intents and purposes act as though it doesn't, even if you know it does?
eight seconds of google searching but it could easily be just someone pushing a rumour. He really does get good looking totty easily.
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has revealed that production at two of its UK manufacturing plants is to be suspended due to a shortage of parts.
The company said operations at the Castle Bromwich (Birmingham) and Halewood (Liverpool) sites would be affected through a "limited period" of non-production from next Monday.
It blamed a COVID-19 crisis issue of semi-conductor shortages, widely flagged by the industry as a whole and blamed for disruption to schedules among rivals and at other firms which rely on computer chips.
JLR's UK plants, including this one in Solihull, employ 40,000 people. The shortage of computer chips is not affecting output at Solihull
JLR - which has the UK's largest car manufacturing operation - said it was unclear how long the stoppages would last but it insisted production at the Solihull plant would continue as normal.
Its statement said: "Like other automotive manufacturers, we are currently experiencing some COVID-19 supply chain disruption, including the global availability of semi-conductors, which is having an impact on our production schedules and our ability to meet global demand for some of our vehicles.
"As a result, we have adjusted production schedules for certain vehicles which means that our Castle Bromwich and Halewood manufacturing plants will be operating a limited period of non-production from Monday 26th April.
I have a few friends who work at Nissan Sunderland that report they're struggling with the same issues.
SNP under 50% on both the Yougov and Comres Holyrood constituency polls today then, so if Unionists all vote tactically for the party closest to the SNP in each constituency in 2016, not only should they hold all the Unionist constituency seats, they could even gain a handful from the SNP
In 2016 the SNP got 46.5% of the constituency and 41.7% of the list so this would be a small swing in their favour in the constituency vote and a small swing against on the list. Since they didn't get many list seats that is unlikely to reduce the number of seats that they win, indeed it may increase it slightly. A lot depends on the efficiency of the Unionist vote and I am not confident that Douglas Ross is as vote transfer friendly as Ruth was. This is going to be tight.
Except the Greens are standing on a second referendum commitment too aren't they?
Vaccine studies investigating booster vaccines and third doses are currently in set-up stages within the NIHR, and will help us gain a better understanding of possible future COVID-19 vaccine schedules.
One of the most recent COVID-19 vaccine studies to launch, Com-Cov2, is enrolling participants who have received the first dose of either the Oxford-AstraZeneca, or Pfizer vaccine, to then be randomly allocated to receive either the same vaccine for their second dose, or a dose of the COVID-19 vaccines produced by Moderna or Novavax.
The Valneva Phase 1/2 clinical trial has reported positive data for their COVID-19 vaccine candidate, VLA2001, with no safety concerns identified. It is the only study examining a whole virus, inactivated, adjuvanted vaccine candidate in clinical trials against COVID-19 in Europe.
Last week, the Medicago COVID-19 vaccine study launched at several sites across the UK. Medicago, a biopharmaceutical company based in Canada, and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) are launching the Phase 3 randomised, observer blinded, placebo-controlled study. The NIHR-supported study is the first to test a plant-derived COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
Researchers at the Bristol Trials Centre at the University of Bristol and University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust are leading a new study which could set the foundations for how booster COVID-19 vaccinations are delivered in the future. The study, supported by the NIHR, will determine whether booster COVID-19 vaccines should be given at the same time as flu vaccines.
If you have had COVID-19, you can join the GenOMICC COVID-19 Study, which analyses the genes of people who have had the virus to discover why some experienced no symptoms while others became extremely ill is appealing for more volunteers.
Very interesting. Can you post the link so that I can share this with colleagues. Thanks
Comments
And then there is the mixed evidence of whether aid actually does any good. Aid seems to me to be how we feel good about ourselves rather than what it does for the recipients.
The fixed percentage means that if a crisis occurs are we to say "sorry, we've already accounted for our budget, you're on your own now" - or draw down funds from other projects that are supposedly critical today?
If it were based upon actual need it would be a variable percentage not a fixed one.
I have long since said that labour with plaid help are likely to form the next Senedd
However, it does not change my attitude to Drakeford or labour in Wales which has seen increased poverty and failed health and education under their 22 years in power
Sadly we will just have to continue to see continuing failure in all these areas
7 years after is not a generation.
Until a genuine generation has elapsed from 2014 Scots will therefore remain part of the UK and under UK government control (with their own domestic parliament) and the UK government, certainly while under Tory control, will ensure no change to the Union for the rest of that generation.
If there was a 2/3 majority for independence in Scotland you might have a case and the UK government may not be able to maintain the Union as it was not in Ireland in 1918 when only 29% of Irish voters voted for Unionist parties.
However now in Scotland about 50% of Scots will still vote for Unionist parties and back the Union, so there is no overwhelming desire amongst Scots for independence anyway
The problem is that, even with the UK having the 0.7% target enshrined in law for several years now, it's had almost no effect on other countries' behaviour (that I am aware of, and I am sure I will be corrected if I am wrong...). So, it's difficult to justify spending the money abroad whilst our national finances are in the mess they're currently in.
https://twitter.com/GrundyOxford/status/1384388474174902273
The idea that Scotland is uniquely disadvantaged by those constitutional provisions is laughable: as I've illustrated clearly, Scotland is in many respects better off than other comparable bodies. But if you want to continue to argue, like the slaveholding Confederates, that states which join a union can simply withdraw at any time they see fit without going through the legal forms to which they signed up, be my guest. Indeed, I urge you to apply the same logic to the contracts you sign personally and see how well it works out for you.
It's hard to see where Jaguar go from here. Their traditional niche (badly made large saloons for golf club bores) has gone and they are trying to pivot to an electric only brand without the economies of scale that the major OEMs have.
On today's Comres Holyrood poll the Tories would be on 25% on the constituency vote under Ross, actually also up 3% on the 22% Ruth Davidson got on the constituency vote in 2016
I love my XE.
The firewall is as good as the Telegraph's. Turn Javascript off or set up a different browser.
And then along comes Covid. Right now I think that there is a compelling argument we should be spending more than 0.7% of our GDP on aid in the form of vaccines to the third world. We have a clear vested interest in such expenditure and it is win win. I very much hope that the vaccine capacity that the government has funded will continue full steam ahead after we have been vaccinated at our cost for this purpose.
I agree that our budget should reflect need (as well as self interest) but cutting the aid budget now when the need is off the scale seems a little bit odd.
Wise apprortionment and well spent money is meant to be a responsibility of government. Not a venue for people to give to their pet charity projects regardless of how well spent the money is.
Scotland being outvoted by England on should Scotland stay in a union with England is like giving the legal right for a woman to divorce her husband if the husband consents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-9khIeMqJI
I support the 'teach a man to fish' policy on aid, rather than that of giving him a bowl of food.
It would also be helpful to encourage medical and other technical personnel to come to this countries for short periods... experience, FE and so on, and then paying them to go home.
I would treat this poll from Awan Scully much more seriously than the Opinium yesterday (Opinium have no track record in Wales).
From AS's blog
"Our new poll suggests a large rise in Labour’s lead over the past month, and a substantial fall in Conservative support. Labour’s advantage has apparently gone from two points to eleven since the campaign for the Senedd began. As always, we should be cautious about over-interpreting a single poll, and the changes that it suggests. It may be that the previous Barometer poll somewhat over-stated the Conservative position; this one might be under-stating it. But our latest evidence does indicate Labour’s position as the largest party in the Senedd to be rather more secure than did March’s poll ."
Note also, though a good poll for Labour, this still equals Labour's worst ever performance in the Senedd.
Btw Star Sports also has a number of Youtube interviews with professional punters.
Even back in the 70s and 80 it was very, very difficult to compete with Celtic and Rangers because of the structural advantages in place for them in Scottish football. It took the world's greatest ever club manager to break the stranglehold - my view is that his achievements with the Dons are even greater than those with Man U, not only overcoming the big Glasgow teams in domestic competition but also leading a team composed entirely of Scottish players to victory over Real Madrid in the ECWC.
But back then there was a level playing field (more or less) in terms of player wages. We could afford to pay Willie Miller enough so he could rebuff an offer from Rangers. Nowadays, of course, it is very different with a 6x or 7x multiplier in place. There is no way even Fergie could succeed. The disparity in wages is now so high that no team outside Celtic or The Rangers (as they are now) will win the SPL ever again unless a sugar daddy with some serious investment comes in ... and they are not going to do that because the big 2 demand that they finish 1st and 2nd so they can tie up the CL places. Everyone else is playing for 3rd at best. If by some miracle Stephen Glass turns out to be the next Pep, the big 2 will take action to knobble him.
The problem for Celtic and The Rangers is that their business growth opportunity is now tapped out. They are two giant fish in a tiny pond. They complain that poor domestic competition means they can't compete Europe ... well duh, who's fault is that? So, they need to move to a bigger league ... but no-one will have them (for the reasons expressed by other PBers) and if they were able to leave it would kill the finances of the Scottish game. The solution they have come up with is to propose colt teams for domestic competition while they try to get access to the English (or European) league for the first team.
They are kind of stuffed ... they can't compete in Europe because of the poor quality of domestic competition but improved domestic competition might jeopardize their CL qualification.
Treasury rejected all lobbying from Greensill and it ultimately got Cameron nowhere
Good news for Rishi
Covid in Wales falling through the floor
Pick for Britain - a campaign to provide jobs for people not working through COVID. Hasn't worked well - partly because East Euro workers were back in from about May 2020. Fine. Let it go. COVID is nearly over.
The seasonal workers scheme has been under development for 2-3 years, and continues.
Seasonal workers where needed have never been a problem for Brexiteers afaik. Certainly not for me.
Actually that's a bit unfair but I couldn't resist.
It's amazing that they have the absolute perfect brand for an electric sports car with enormous cultural heft (E-TYPE) yet they have no plans to do anything with it.
Your federal solution sounds fine from the point of view of Scotland, which is suddenly elevated to having a blocking position on UK policy. That's less fine from an English perspective, and indeed from a UK perspective.
Imagine a USA shorn of all states except New York, Connecticut, Vermont and Rhode Island. Do you not see the massively disproportionate power you are proposing to give the little states?
Scotland already wields disproportionate power within the UK (the West Lothian Question) and consumes disproportionate gold. If the only we can keep the union together is by bribing its smaller members, it's time for the union to end. We're either one country, or we're not. Either is fine by me.
Women's rights is a much easier sell, and is an area where it's much easier to find existing movements with local support and momentum behind them to assist, rather than having to pick a fight all on our own, very much against the mainstream culture. And, as you said, of huge direct benefit to the local economies, so you don't even need to make the moral argument.
These figures give Labour @29 seats. I think that's a bit high. I speculated a couple of months ago, when Labour polling was dire that Labour would get @26 seats. I stand by that, although perhaps I am being a bit pessimistic.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9497413/LeBron-James-calls-cop-killed-MaKhia-Bryant-held-accountable.html
What the f&&& are the French doing?
They're on 32,000 cases a day! If they're confident it'll all be OK in two weeks why not wait and see first????!!
https://www.politico.eu/coronavirus-in-europe/
May not be a great performance by Labour, but it could have been a lot worse.
Plaid making some progress, but still not quite getting a ringing endorsement they were hoping for hardly surprising when Wales is still generally sceptical over the benefits of independence.
But to be frank aid to Yemen right now is like putting a sticking plaster on someone with their arm half cut off.
Ending the conflict in Yemen would do far more than any amount of aid does. Countries can only realistically develop if they're safe, stable and respect the rule of law.
Net Rating: -6% (-9)
Favourable38% (-5)
Neutral16% (-)
Unfavourable44% (+4)
1,008 respondents, fieldwork 15-19 April 2021. Changes w/ 8-10 April. https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1385195673847570435/photo/1
Dyson moves residency back to UK as text dispute refuses to die down https://on.ft.com/2Pb4443
The french data has plateaued a bit. But lifting restrictions when cases are that high and not dropping fast....
"Germany is negotiating 3 x 10 million doses for June, July, August. The prerequisite for this is the swift EMA approval of the vaccine," Kretschmer wrote on Twitter.
https://www.barrons.com/news/germany-seeking-to-buy-30-mn-sputnik-doses-from-russia-state-premier-01619085013?refsec=afp-news
The Grim Reaper beckons...
PM's spox said y'day: “I’m not going to get into speculation about how stuff gets into the public domain.”
Cabinet office to lead - no suggestion police will be involved.
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1385197070261358594
But Downing Street *won't* be looking into leak of texts from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman - potentially a bigger national security breach.
"We are looking into this specific issue and we think that's the right approach".
Tory lead falls
List:
SNP ~ 39% (-6)
Con ~ 22% (+1)
Lab ~ 17% (+1)
Grn ~ 10% (+4)
LD ~ 5% (nc)
Alba ~ 2% (+2)
Constituency:
SNP ~ 49% (-3)
Con ~ 21% (-1)
Lab ~ 21% (+4)
LD ~ 6% (nc)
Grn ~ 1% (-1)
https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot/status/1385195343848038405?s=20
The attitudes against homosexuality and women's equality are both deep-seated beliefs in some places - it is hard to say one is more deep-seated than the other. Changing deep-seated beliefs is hard, but not impossible and can be done more quickly than I had imagined before coming across some remarkable efforts. For example, some people and groups have been successful in some very conservative Arab and East African communities in eradicating FGM. They have done it using creative methods that I could not have imagined working, including things like sympathetic characters in popular radio soaps.
I do think that this is an area where scope for successful direct governmental action is limited. But governments should be seeking out individuals and groups who are already making progress and supporting them. And why should we not ensure that a portion of our aid goes to supporting them?
If we are going to be handing over huge gobs of money, we should only be doing so when we know something of the receiving country's society, power structures, and influencers. If that means doing a little more research before finalizing the aid programme and identifying all its components and partners, I think that would be a good thing.
*if, indeed, there is one
Nevertheless if you are in the age group below and click through from the booking site, it is quite possible it will offer ages 40+ a slot - that’s how I got mine a little before my age group made its way to open invitation.
Seems like a reversion to the mean more than anything else?
Even the EU knows that, so this is just more PR. I agree, though I cannot help but think that many who pine for the days of those basic principles and decency would not have said the party had them at the time. It's like when someone quits a party and attacks it, and opponents who used to condemn them suddenly talk about what a principled, talented person they are.
Vaccine studies investigating booster vaccines and third doses are currently in set-up stages within the NIHR, and will help us gain a better understanding of possible future COVID-19 vaccine schedules.
One of the most recent COVID-19 vaccine studies to launch, Com-Cov2, is enrolling participants who have received the first dose of either the Oxford-AstraZeneca, or Pfizer vaccine, to then be randomly allocated to receive either the same vaccine for their second dose, or a dose of the COVID-19 vaccines produced by Moderna or Novavax.
The Valneva Phase 1/2 clinical trial has reported positive data for their COVID-19 vaccine candidate, VLA2001, with no safety concerns identified. It is the only study examining a whole virus, inactivated, adjuvanted vaccine candidate in clinical trials against COVID-19 in Europe.
Last week, the Medicago COVID-19 vaccine study launched at several sites across the UK. Medicago, a biopharmaceutical company based in Canada, and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) are launching the Phase 3 randomised, observer blinded, placebo-controlled study. The NIHR-supported study is the first to test a plant-derived COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
Researchers at the Bristol Trials Centre at the University of Bristol and University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust are leading a new study which could set the foundations for how booster COVID-19 vaccinations are delivered in the future. The study, supported by the NIHR, will determine whether booster COVID-19 vaccines should be given at the same time as flu vaccines.
If you have had COVID-19, you can join the GenOMICC COVID-19 Study, which analyses the genes of people who have had the virus to discover why some experienced no symptoms while others became extremely ill is appealing for more volunteers.
https://twitter.com/TechnoGuido/status/1385203389630492675?s=19
So forecasting the weather can now be done by opening your Windows.
It got him exposed as an hypocritical pound shop Blair who panders to sleazy money lenders.
So it won't be that tight.
Please refrain from commenting on any super-injunctions unless they are associated with a link to a reputable news source.