Talking about obsessed and out of touch....somebody just pointed me to some of the social media posts of Labour Party candidates standing for council in Oxford...you would think it would all be about the bins, the traffic, supporting local people after covid, the students and the university so crucial to the place, after this difficult year...nope banging on about Palestine and twinning with Palestinian towns etc
I was a heavy user of usenet in the 1990s completely passed me by.... uk.politics.misc
Reddit is the obvious natural progression to usenet but it doesnt really work as well. At least on usenet there would be a respectable couple of dozen or so posts before the nazi comparison was drawn, reddit political discussions usually the third response.
I was a heavy user of usenet in the 1990s completely passed me by.... uk.politics.misc
Reddit is the obvious natural progression to usenet but it doesnt really work as well. At least on usenet there would be a respectable couple of dozen or so posts before the nazi comparison was drawn, reddit political discussions usually the third response.
Reddit groups nowadays have a more rightwing reputation, no ?
Mr. Thompson, except when discussing Cisalpine Gaul, of course.
Caesar said that Gaul was divided into three parts. And one was for Cis's.
Though he would say that, wouldn't he? After all, he WAS batting for more than one team!
Caesar got really annoyed at being called the Queen of Bithynia, for allegedly prostituting himself to King Nicomedes in return for a fleet. Even his soldiers sang songs about it at his triumph.
I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.
As a committed Unionist the case is very clear - the referendum in 2014 was fought, in part, on a falsehood, that only by voting No would Scotland remain in the EU.
There is therefore an understandable bitterness that the 2016 referendum has resulted in Scotland leaving the EU. Another referendum would be a chance to settle the question of whether that was sufficient for voters to choose Independence or renew the mandate for the Union in the new circumstances created by Brexit.
I don't think the English living in England get the fundamental self-determination question. Scotland has been dragged out of something it voted to not be dragged out of, it has caused economic damage and the government is saying tough. Whats then worse is that the government is saying that it has the legal right to do whatever it likes in and to Scotland and that the Scottish people have no ability to do anything about it.
The union - in the sense of being a union of equals and not an annexation like NI and Wales are - is dead. That is why there must be another referendum. Everything has changed since 2014. Literally everything.
I would prefer a new constitutional settlement to create a federation that is fit for the future. But as we aren't going to get that Scotland and NI and potentially Wales are going to get a divorce.
So there must be another referendum even if there isn't a clear majority who want one? Scots are being oppressed whether they realise it or not.
If people elect a majority of MSPs on a manifesto of independence that is the literal definition of wanting one. We have a representative democracy not one based on opinion polls or even national vote tallies in elections - all that counts is who gets elected.
If I vote SNP or Green or Alba tomorrow I vote for an independence referendum. It is explicit in their manifestos. I won't vote for them, but more of their MSPs will get elected than those opposed to independence. It is - to retread the Brexit line - the will of the people.
It is a reserved power. The UK government has every right to say you had a referendum just seven years ago. By your logic every time there is a majority for independent parties they should be allowed to hold another referendum. Leaving the EU may represent a substantial change but I still don't see the case for another referendum unless there is overwhelming support for it. It doesn't appear that there is.
Yes every time there's a majority for a party, that party gets to implement its manifesto. That's called democracy.
If the Scottish voters don't want that manifesto, they can elect a different party instead.
There is a way to tell if there is a "case for another referendum" or not, and that is whether those pledging one win a majority at an election or not.
So they are allowed "one referendum" per parliament? Or can they have one every two years? Every month?
What are the rules? There aren't any. Your pulling it your ass.
The power to approve referendums is reserved to Westminster for a reason, no state can withstand the constitutional and economic chaos of endless referendums threatening to break up the country - and plunging everyone - not just Scotland - into deep recession and a decade of bitter arguments.
It is commonly accepted that grave constitutional matters - and it doesn't get bigger than shattering the UK - should be addressed by very rare referendums. We had two EU votes in forty-odd years.
Why should the voters of 2014 be allowed to withhold options from the voters of 2024?
Or, let me put it another way, if the EU referendum had been for Remain, and then ukip had won the next UK election on a manifesto promise to hold another referendum, what possible grounds would there be for withholding it?
If my social media timelines.are anything to go by, any politician wanting so good PR / increased chance of some votes....claim that the end of Line of Duty was disgraceful bollocks and call for a full judge led public inquiry.
. . . The vote on Rep. Liz Cheney’s future in leadership has rocketed forward, and few House Republicans are ready to throw her a life jacket — at least not publicly. Another sign of how this is heading: I’m told Cheney (R-Wyo.) is not making calls to try to whip votes in her favor.
In fact, the conversation quickly skipped from the possibility of an official vote to it becoming all but inevitable. And members of the conference have already identified a likely successor to replace her: Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who was sending messages to colleagues along the lines of “if the conference chair becomes open, can I count on your support?”
Here are key factions to watch as the GOP barrels towards reshuffling their leadership lineup.
-GOP Leadership: Cheney has become Tom Hanks in Cast Away – on an island of her own. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is openly campaigning against his deputy both on and off-air, effectively green-lighting a vote to remove her, which could occur as early as next week. Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) showed he is not only in Splitsville with Cheney as well, but he is publicly advocating for Stefanik to take her place. . . .
-House Freedom Caucus: You better bet the pro-Trump House Freedom Caucus is on board with booting Cheney. But are they okay with Stefanik taking Cheney’s place? Stefanik, once a moderate, has turned more conservative and pro-Trump as her district has shifted more red. But her lifetime conservative scorecard, per Heritage, is quite a bit lower than Cheney’s. . . .
-House Impeachment Republicans: Your Huddle host has learned that some House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump on Jan. 6 have been frustrated by Cheney’s persistent remarks – and fielding questions about them – including Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.). . . .
-GOP Women: Republican women are not all on the same page. While some of the women who are longtime House GOP members appear to lean towards supporting Cheney, there is a group of freshmen Republican women who are very loyal to Stefanik after her PAC became involved in races this past cycle. Stefanik’s PAC helped 18 freshmen women who won in 2020. Quite a few of those women represent swing districts and Cheney’s messaging prompts unwelcome questions for them back home.
Your Huddle host is also keeping an eye out to see if some of Cheney’s fellow defense hawks and allies on the House Armed Services Committee stand by her.
-The question is: What message does this send outside the beltway?. . . .
I have never heard anyone 'in real life' use the term "cis". It is a term that only exists on the internet in my experience.
I used to think that of woke, but I have heard one person, and only one, use both (not including people doing so ironically). It was a younger person in fairness. Now my nieces and nephews are entering the teens itll be interesting to see if they start using these terms and thinking about these issues, as reportedly from their parents its never come up so far.
I was a heavy user of usenet in the 1990s completely passed me by.... uk.politics.misc
Reddit is the obvious natural progression to usenet but it doesnt really work as well. At least on usenet there would be a respectable couple of dozen or so posts before the nazi comparison was drawn, reddit political discussions usually the third response.
Politico.com - Trump still blocked from Facebook — for now "Within six months of this decision, Facebook must reexamine the arbitrary penalty it imposed on January 7," the company's oversight board said.
Former President Donald Trump’s Facebook account should remain suspended for the time being, the company’s oversight board announced Wednesday — agreeing that his rhetoric had created "a serious risk of violence" but saying the social network had been "arbitrary" in ousting him indefinitely.
"Within six months of this decision, Facebook must reexamine the arbitrary penalty it imposed on January 7 and decide the appropriate penalty," the board said in its ruling.
Not sure how one decides he created a serious risk of violence but that permanent banning is arbitrary. If the former is true then anything else but a permanent ban is just silly.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
I'm talking under 20, and I'm talking specifically of my daughters and their friends - 14-15. They ALL claim some letter or other on LGBTQAIPK
Edit: and I am also, I think, talking more of females than males. It is still socially more problematic, I guess, for a boy to pose as gay than for a girl to say she's "genderfluid". This is a guess, however
When I was at school, we all made jokes about so-and-so being "gay" or looking or being "a bit gay" all the time. And that was for males across the political spectrum, including those who were solid Lefties then and are still so today. Even one or two gay teenagers I knew at the time did the same.
None of us thought we were being homophobic at the time, because we weren't - we used "gay" to mean pathetic/crap/stupid. But, we'd obviously never do that today.
Times change.
A gay friend of mine got REALLY angry when I casually described a naff restaurant as "a bit gay"
It occurred to me that he had a good point, and I was possibly skirting around homophobia (which was not my intention). I could have gotten into a long heated debate about "Well you guys stole the word in the first place and you don't own it", but life is too short, really
I have not publicly used it in that way since, and won't - unless lexical fashions change. Which is also possible
Don't the negative connotations of "a bit gay" come from homophobia, though? That's what I always thought - it came about when 'gay' meant 'homosexual' and mainstream opinion was that was a bad thing.
If you'd been referring to the restaurant having a happy and jolly atmosphere, then you'd have had your friend bang to rights with the "you guys stole the word" argument.
I was not even aware that it the word gay meant naff till about 15 years ago, when my step-son got sent home from school for he and his friends laughing at his teacher for being gay. That's when I learned they weren't making fun of him for being homosexual but for being an idiot.
If my social media timelines.are anything to go by, any politician wanting so good PR / increased chance of some votes....claim that the end of Line of Duty was disgraceful bollocks and call for a full judge led public inquiry.
I've heard Martin Amis use the word "cis-Atlantic" on TV with only a hint of smugness as to the riches of his vocabulary
In 80s London it was thought amusing to refer to Battersea as transpontine Chelsea.
I still find that amusing now. You can take the boy out of the 80s.....
I really am an 80s kid in so many ways. The vulgarity and narcissism. But also an energy. And Thatcherism. And a certain callousness. And a giddy eagerness for novelty tending to excess. That's the 80s, that's what made me
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
I'm talking under 20, and I'm talking specifically of my daughters and their friends - 14-15. They ALL claim some letter or other on LGBTQAIPK
Edit: and I am also, I think, talking more of females than males. It is still socially more problematic, I guess, for a boy to pose as gay than for a girl to say she's "genderfluid". This is a guess, however
When I was at school, we all made jokes about so-and-so being "gay" or looking or being "a bit gay" all the time. And that was for males across the political spectrum, including those who were solid Lefties then and are still so today. Even one or two gay teenagers I knew at the time did the same.
None of us thought we were being homophobic at the time, because we weren't - we used "gay" to mean pathetic/crap/stupid. But, we'd obviously never do that today.
Times change.
A gay friend of mine got REALLY angry when I casually described a naff restaurant as "a bit gay"
It occurred to me that he had a good point, and I was possibly skirting around homophobia (which was not my intention). I could have gotten into a long heated debate about "Well you guys stole the word in the first place and you don't own it", but life is too short, really
I have not publicly used it in that way since, and won't - unless lexical fashions change. Which is also possible
Don't the negative connotations of "a bit gay" come from homophobia, though? That's what I always thought - it came about when 'gay' meant 'homosexual' and mainstream opinion was that was a bad thing.
If you'd been referring to the restaurant having a happy and jolly atmosphere, then you'd have had your friend bang to rights with the "you guys stole the word" argument.
I was not even aware that it the word gay meant naff till about 15 years ago, when my step-son got sent home from school for he and his friends laughing at his teacher for being gay. That's when I learned they weren't making fun of him for being homosexual but for being an idiot.
I am surprised the Inbetweeners, which is from that sort of period, hasn't had the old ban hammer outrage bus treatment, as one of the recurring jokes is basically calling stuff gay and that one of the parents is a closeted homosexual and taking the piss out of the son for that and that his dad does "gay" stuff.
How long will it be, before some Brit is given a gong by Her Majesty (or her successor) for "services to Wokeism"?
May sound far fetched. However, NOT as much as Paula Vennells receiving her CBE "for services to the Post Office and to charity"!
BTW, should not THAT particular honor be rescinded?
IIRC some soldiers who received the Victoria Cross had it taken away, for stealing an umbrella or annoying young ladies in train carriages, or suchlike? AND they actually preformed the services for which they were given their VCs in the first place!
I've never met an academic who was stuffy about such a thing in truth, but maybe they are only amongst themselves (though I think in america they all get called Professor?)
Within academia people don't tend to use titles for the obvious reason that we (pretty much) all have them. Just checked my email signature and it does indeed say 'Dr' but I think I copied and pasted from my boss's when I started and changed as appropriate. I fill in forms with Dr, but I never correct anyone who calls me Mr. I just put my name on presentations, no title or qualifications.
People are generally a bit coy about 'Prof' too. My boss (now 'Prof') doesn't like people calling her Prof but mainly, I think, because she prefers to be addressed by first name. I've seen newly professorised profs get introduced as 'Dr' on several occasions (meetings/presentations) and never seen one correct the introducer. Probably we all hate the patriarchical hierarchical (something-ist) structure it implies... If you insist on Dr/Prof or use it ostentatiously you look a bit needy.
Everyone still wants to get to be 'Prof' though, so they can not use the title. It's enough that everyone knows
When I was a councillor I confused the admin people by telling them I was also Dr. They had to work out whether I was Cllr Dr or Dr Cllr.
I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.
As a committed Unionist the case is very clear - the referendum in 2014 was fought, in part, on a falsehood, that only by voting No would Scotland remain in the EU.
There is therefore an understandable bitterness that the 2016 referendum has resulted in Scotland leaving the EU. Another referendum would be a chance to settle the question of whether that was sufficient for voters to choose Independence or renew the mandate for the Union in the new circumstances created by Brexit.
I don't think the English living in England get the fundamental self-determination question. Scotland has been dragged out of something it voted to not be dragged out of, it has caused economic damage and the government is saying tough. Whats then worse is that the government is saying that it has the legal right to do whatever it likes in and to Scotland and that the Scottish people have no ability to do anything about it.
The union - in the sense of being a union of equals and not an annexation like NI and Wales are - is dead. That is why there must be another referendum. Everything has changed since 2014. Literally everything.
I would prefer a new constitutional settlement to create a federation that is fit for the future. But as we aren't going to get that Scotland and NI and potentially Wales are going to get a divorce.
So there must be another referendum even if there isn't a clear majority who want one? Scots are being oppressed whether they realise it or not.
If people elect a majority of MSPs on a manifesto of independence that is the literal definition of wanting one. We have a representative democracy not one based on opinion polls or even national vote tallies in elections - all that counts is who gets elected.
If I vote SNP or Green or Alba tomorrow I vote for an independence referendum. It is explicit in their manifestos. I won't vote for them, but more of their MSPs will get elected than those opposed to independence. It is - to retread the Brexit line - the will of the people.
It is a reserved power. The UK government has every right to say you had a referendum just seven years ago. By your logic every time there is a majority for independent parties they should be allowed to hold another referendum. Leaving the EU may represent a substantial change but I still don't see the case for another referendum unless there is overwhelming support for it. It doesn't appear that there is.
Yes every time there's a majority for a party, that party gets to implement its manifesto. That's called democracy.
If the Scottish voters don't want that manifesto, they can elect a different party instead.
There is a way to tell if there is a "case for another referendum" or not, and that is whether those pledging one win a majority at an election or not.
So they are allowed "one referendum" per parliament? Or can they have one every two years? Every month?
What are the rules? There aren't any. Your pulling it your ass.
The power to approve referendums is reserved to Westminster for a reason, no state can withstand the constitutional and economic chaos of endless referendums threatening to break up the country - and plunging everyone - not just Scotland - into deep recession and a decade of bitter arguments.
It is commonly accepted that grave constitutional matters - and it doesn't get bigger than shattering the UK - should be addressed by very rare referendums. We had two EU votes in forty-odd years.
Why should the voters of 2014 be allowed to withhold options from the voters of 2024?
Or, let me put it another way, if the EU referendum had been for Remain, and then ukip had won the next UK election on a manifesto promise to hold another referendum, what possible grounds would there be for withholding it?
Same as the reasons for refusing a Scottish vote. Too soon. And I would have said that in the hypothetical example you describe. Although the difference there, of course, is that in practise it could not be refused because the UK parliament decides UK matters, like referendums
I've heard Martin Amis use the word "cis-Atlantic" on TV with only a hint of smugness as to the riches of his vocabulary
In 80s London it was thought amusing to refer to Battersea as transpontine Chelsea.
I still find that amusing now. You can take the boy out of the 80s.....
I really am an 80s kid in so many ways. The vulgarity and narcissism. But also an energy. And Thatcherism. And a certain callousness. And a giddy eagerness for novelty tending to excess. That's the 80s, that's what made me
Politico.com - Trump still blocked from Facebook — for now "Within six months of this decision, Facebook must reexamine the arbitrary penalty it imposed on January 7," the company's oversight board said.
Former President Donald Trump’s Facebook account should remain suspended for the time being, the company’s oversight board announced Wednesday — agreeing that his rhetoric had created "a serious risk of violence" but saying the social network had been "arbitrary" in ousting him indefinitely.
"Within six months of this decision, Facebook must reexamine the arbitrary penalty it imposed on January 7 and decide the appropriate penalty," the board said in its ruling.
Not sure how one decides he created a serious risk of violence but that permanent banning is arbitrary. If the former is true then anything else but a permanent ban is just silly.
Think Facebook is kicking the can forward but leaving the door ajar (or is it the other way around?) trying to avoid antagonizing the MAGA hordes, who my guess are at least as addicted to FB as their progressive opposite numbers. Probably more so.
I was a heavy user of usenet in the 1990s completely passed me by.... uk.politics.misc
Reddit is the obvious natural progression to usenet but it doesnt really work as well. At least on usenet there would be a respectable couple of dozen or so posts before the nazi comparison was drawn, reddit political discussions usually the third response.
Reddit groups nowadays have a more rightwing reputation, no ?
Logged on to a uk politics reddit, "boris is a murderer" and variations of a theme was the whole page of comments.
I've never met an academic who was stuffy about such a thing in truth, but maybe they are only amongst themselves (though I think in america they all get called Professor?)
Within academia people don't tend to use titles for the obvious reason that we (pretty much) all have them. Just checked my email signature and it does indeed say 'Dr' but I think I copied and pasted from my boss's when I started and changed as appropriate. I fill in forms with Dr, but I never correct anyone who calls me Mr. I just put my name on presentations, no title or qualifications.
People are generally a bit coy about 'Prof' too. My boss (now 'Prof') doesn't like people calling her Prof but mainly, I think, because she prefers to be addressed by first name. I've seen newly professorised profs get introduced as 'Dr' on several occasions (meetings/presentations) and never seen one correct the introducer. Probably we all hate the patriarchical hierarchical (something-ist) structure it implies... If you insist on Dr/Prof or use it ostentatiously you look a bit needy.
Everyone still wants to get to be 'Prof' though, so they can not use the title. It's enough that everyone knows
When I was a councillor I confused the admin people by telling them I was also Dr. They had to work out whether I was Cllr Dr or Dr Cllr.
Standard form is to go Cllr Dr I believe.
A rare one might be Cllr Brigadier etc, but going by past rank seems to be out of fashion.
There are a few Councillors who have been Peers though, so Cllr Baroness or Cllr Baron.
I've heard Martin Amis use the word "cis-Atlantic" on TV with only a hint of smugness as to the riches of his vocabulary
In 80s London it was thought amusing to refer to Battersea as transpontine Chelsea.
I remember that. I lived down the road in Twixt the Commons at the time.
Wandsworth Town, me
And Battersea was pronounced "Boadicea" is you were posh, and Streatham was "St Reathem" - as the upper middle classes were forced out of the nice bits of town
I was a heavy user of usenet in the 1990s completely passed me by.... uk.politics.misc
Reddit is the obvious natural progression to usenet but it doesnt really work as well. At least on usenet there would be a respectable couple of dozen or so posts before the nazi comparison was drawn, reddit political discussions usually the third response.
Reddit groups nowadays have a more rightwing reputation, no ?
Logged on to a uk politics reddit, "boris is a murderer" and variations of a theme was the whole page of comments.
I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.
As a committed Unionist the case is very clear - the referendum in 2014 was fought, in part, on a falsehood, that only by voting No would Scotland remain in the EU.
There is therefore an understandable bitterness that the 2016 referendum has resulted in Scotland leaving the EU. Another referendum would be a chance to settle the question of whether that was sufficient for voters to choose Independence or renew the mandate for the Union in the new circumstances created by Brexit.
I don't think the English living in England get the fundamental self-determination question. Scotland has been dragged out of something it voted to not be dragged out of, it has caused economic damage and the government is saying tough. Whats then worse is that the government is saying that it has the legal right to do whatever it likes in and to Scotland and that the Scottish people have no ability to do anything about it.
The union - in the sense of being a union of equals and not an annexation like NI and Wales are - is dead. That is why there must be another referendum. Everything has changed since 2014. Literally everything.
I would prefer a new constitutional settlement to create a federation that is fit for the future. But as we aren't going to get that Scotland and NI and potentially Wales are going to get a divorce.
So there must be another referendum even if there isn't a clear majority who want one? Scots are being oppressed whether they realise it or not.
If people elect a majority of MSPs on a manifesto of independence that is the literal definition of wanting one. We have a representative democracy not one based on opinion polls or even national vote tallies in elections - all that counts is who gets elected.
If I vote SNP or Green or Alba tomorrow I vote for an independence referendum. It is explicit in their manifestos. I won't vote for them, but more of their MSPs will get elected than those opposed to independence. It is - to retread the Brexit line - the will of the people.
It is a reserved power. The UK government has every right to say you had a referendum just seven years ago. By your logic every time there is a majority for independent parties they should be allowed to hold another referendum. Leaving the EU may represent a substantial change but I still don't see the case for another referendum unless there is overwhelming support for it. It doesn't appear that there is.
Yes every time there's a majority for a party, that party gets to implement its manifesto. That's called democracy.
If the Scottish voters don't want that manifesto, they can elect a different party instead.
There is a way to tell if there is a "case for another referendum" or not, and that is whether those pledging one win a majority at an election or not.
So they are allowed "one referendum" per parliament? Or can they have one every two years? Every month?
What are the rules? There aren't any. Your pulling it your ass.
The power to approve referendums is reserved to Westminster for a reason, no state can withstand the constitutional and economic chaos of endless referendums threatening to break up the country - and plunging everyone - not just Scotland - into deep recession and a decade of bitter arguments.
It is commonly accepted that grave constitutional matters - and it doesn't get bigger than shattering the UK - should be addressed by very rare referendums. We had two EU votes in forty-odd years.
Why should the voters of 2014 be allowed to withhold options from the voters of 2024?
Or, let me put it another way, if the EU referendum had been for Remain, and then ukip had won the next UK election on a manifesto promise to hold another referendum, what possible grounds would there be for withholding it?
Same as the reasons for refusing a Scottish vote. Too soon. And I would have said that in the hypothetical example you describe. Although the difference there, of course, is that in practise it could not be refused because the UK parliament decides UK matters, like referendums
I understand your view, but disagree.
The voters are allowed to change their minds. And if holding constant referendum is unpopular, the voters will punish the party that engages in it.
Looking at this discussion from the eve of my 83rd birthday it seems weird. Even for someone who prides himself...... fall unquestionably coming ........on being of the lefty/progressive/liberal wing of society. And much of the previous thread, some of which I've flicked through does, too. I really can't imagine my younger self, 60+ years ago being prepared to even consider a relationship with another boy. Mates, yes, fight for each other..... as well as sometimes with ...... yes, but sexual relations of any sort were for having with girls. And, so far as I ever knew the reverse applied. Admittedly one of my 'friends' did make a pass at me once but he got thumped and forever after 'kept well away from'. Male homosexual practices were illegal then, of course, and bored coppers would sometimes hang around public toilets to see if they could catch, and frequently ruin, some poor sod.
I was a heavy user of usenet in the 1990s completely passed me by.... uk.politics.misc
Reddit is the obvious natural progression to usenet but it doesnt really work as well. At least on usenet there would be a respectable couple of dozen or so posts before the nazi comparison was drawn, reddit political discussions usually the third response.
Reddit groups nowadays have a more rightwing reputation, no ?
Logged on to a uk politics reddit, "boris is a murderer" and variations of a theme was the whole page of comments.
I am surprised nobody has found all those bodies he waa supposed to be personally secretly burying...
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
I'm talking under 20, and I'm talking specifically of my daughters and their friends - 14-15. They ALL claim some letter or other on LGBTQAIPK
Edit: and I am also, I think, talking more of females than males. It is still socially more problematic, I guess, for a boy to pose as gay than for a girl to say she's "genderfluid". This is a guess, however
When I was at school, we all made jokes about so-and-so being "gay" or looking or being "a bit gay" all the time. And that was for males across the political spectrum, including those who were solid Lefties then and are still so today. Even one or two gay teenagers I knew at the time did the same.
None of us thought we were being homophobic at the time, because we weren't - we used "gay" to mean pathetic/crap/stupid. But, we'd obviously never do that today.
Times change.
A gay friend of mine got REALLY angry when I casually described a naff restaurant as "a bit gay"
It occurred to me that he had a good point, and I was possibly skirting around homophobia (which was not my intention). I could have gotten into a long heated debate about "Well you guys stole the word in the first place and you don't own it", but life is too short, really
I have not publicly used it in that way since, and won't - unless lexical fashions change. Which is also possible
Don't the negative connotations of "a bit gay" come from homophobia, though? That's what I always thought - it came about when 'gay' meant 'homosexual' and mainstream opinion was that was a bad thing.
If you'd been referring to the restaurant having a happy and jolly atmosphere, then you'd have had your friend bang to rights with the "you guys stole the word" argument.
I was not even aware that it the word gay meant naff till about 15 years ago, when my step-son got sent home from school for he and his friends laughing at his teacher for being gay. That's when I learned they weren't making fun of him for being homosexual but for being an idiot.
I am surprised the Inbetweeners, which is from that sort of period, hasn't had the old ban hammer outrage bus treatment, as one of the recurring jokes is basically calling stuff gay and that one of the parents is a closeted homosexual and taking the piss out of the son for that and that his dad does "gay" stuff.
Who knows - took a few years from someone getting attention for complaining about Apu before it led to heartfelt apologies from the actor etc.
I was a heavy user of usenet in the 1990s completely passed me by.... uk.politics.misc
Reddit is the obvious natural progression to usenet but it doesnt really work as well. At least on usenet there would be a respectable couple of dozen or so posts before the nazi comparison was drawn, reddit political discussions usually the third response.
Reddit groups nowadays have a more rightwing reputation, no ?
Logged on to a uk politics reddit, "boris is a murderer" and variations of a theme was the whole page of comments.
I was a heavy user of usenet in the 1990s completely passed me by.... uk.politics.misc
Reddit is the obvious natural progression to usenet but it doesnt really work as well. At least on usenet there would be a respectable couple of dozen or so posts before the nazi comparison was drawn, reddit political discussions usually the third response.
Reddit groups nowadays have a more rightwing reputation, no ?
Logged on to a uk politics reddit, "boris is a murderer" and variations of a theme was the whole page of comments.
I am surprised nobody has found all those bodies he waa supposed to be personally secretly burying...
Boris putting his back into it, labouring with a shovel? Not likely.
I was a heavy user of usenet in the 1990s completely passed me by.... uk.politics.misc
Reddit is the obvious natural progression to usenet but it doesnt really work as well. At least on usenet there would be a respectable couple of dozen or so posts before the nazi comparison was drawn, reddit political discussions usually the third response.
Reddit groups nowadays have a more rightwing reputation, no ?
Logged on to a uk politics reddit, "boris is a murderer" and variations of a theme was the whole page of comments.
I am surprised nobody has found all those bodies he waa supposed to be personally secretly burying...
Boris putting his back into it, labouring with a shovel? Not likely.
I know...as a conspiracy theory goes, it has to be at least vaguely plausible.
I've never met an academic who was stuffy about such a thing in truth, but maybe they are only amongst themselves (though I think in america they all get called Professor?)
Within academia people don't tend to use titles for the obvious reason that we (pretty much) all have them. Just checked my email signature and it does indeed say 'Dr' but I think I copied and pasted from my boss's when I started and changed as appropriate. I fill in forms with Dr, but I never correct anyone who calls me Mr. I just put my name on presentations, no title or qualifications.
People are generally a bit coy about 'Prof' too. My boss (now 'Prof') doesn't like people calling her Prof but mainly, I think, because she prefers to be addressed by first name. I've seen newly professorised profs get introduced as 'Dr' on several occasions (meetings/presentations) and never seen one correct the introducer. Probably we all hate the patriarchical hierarchical (something-ist) structure it implies... If you insist on Dr/Prof or use it ostentatiously you look a bit needy.
Everyone still wants to get to be 'Prof' though, so they can not use the title. It's enough that everyone knows
When I was a councillor I confused the admin people by telling them I was also Dr. They had to work out whether I was Cllr Dr or Dr Cllr.
Standard form is to go Cllr Dr I believe.
A rare one might be Cllr Brigadier etc, but going by past rank seems to be out of fashion.
There are a few Councillors who have been Peers though, so Cllr Baroness or Cllr Baron.
Yes that was the way it turned out. With the sad death of Lord Greaves how many Cllr Baron and Baroness are there. I know Cllr Baroness Kath Pinnock in my local authority.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
I'm talking under 20, and I'm talking specifically of my daughters and their friends - 14-15. They ALL claim some letter or other on LGBTQAIPK
Edit: and I am also, I think, talking more of females than males. It is still socially more problematic, I guess, for a boy to pose as gay than for a girl to say she's "genderfluid". This is a guess, however
When I was at school, we all made jokes about so-and-so being "gay" or looking or being "a bit gay" all the time. And that was for males across the political spectrum, including those who were solid Lefties then and are still so today. Even one or two gay teenagers I knew at the time did the same.
None of us thought we were being homophobic at the time, because we weren't - we used "gay" to mean pathetic/crap/stupid. But, we'd obviously never do that today.
Times change.
A gay friend of mine got REALLY angry when I casually described a naff restaurant as "a bit gay"
It occurred to me that he had a good point, and I was possibly skirting around homophobia (which was not my intention). I could have gotten into a long heated debate about "Well you guys stole the word in the first place and you don't own it", but life is too short, really
I have not publicly used it in that way since, and won't - unless lexical fashions change. Which is also possible
Don't the negative connotations of "a bit gay" come from homophobia, though? That's what I always thought - it came about when 'gay' meant 'homosexual' and mainstream opinion was that was a bad thing.
If you'd been referring to the restaurant having a happy and jolly atmosphere, then you'd have had your friend bang to rights with the "you guys stole the word" argument.
I was not even aware that it the word gay meant naff till about 15 years ago, when my step-son got sent home from school for he and his friends laughing at his teacher for being gay. That's when I learned they weren't making fun of him for being homosexual but for being an idiot.
I am surprised the Inbetweeners, which is from that sort of period, hasn't had the old ban hammer outrage bus treatment, as one of the recurring jokes is basically calling stuff gay and that one of the parents is a closeted homosexual and taking the piss out of the son for that and that his dad does "gay" stuff.
Who knows - took a few years from someone getting attention for complaining about Apu before it led to heartfelt apologies from the actor etc.
I felt embarrassed for the actor, after reading his "confession."
I was a heavy user of usenet in the 1990s completely passed me by.... uk.politics.misc
Reddit is the obvious natural progression to usenet but it doesnt really work as well. At least on usenet there would be a respectable couple of dozen or so posts before the nazi comparison was drawn, reddit political discussions usually the third response.
Reddit groups nowadays have a more rightwing reputation, no ?
Logged on to a uk politics reddit, "boris is a murderer" and variations of a theme was the whole page of comments.
I am surprised nobody has found all those bodies he waa supposed to be personally secretly burying...
That's why he became Prime Minister, so he could order the police to cover up his murderous tenancies.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
I'm talking under 20, and I'm talking specifically of my daughters and their friends - 14-15. They ALL claim some letter or other on LGBTQAIPK
Edit: and I am also, I think, talking more of females than males. It is still socially more problematic, I guess, for a boy to pose as gay than for a girl to say she's "genderfluid". This is a guess, however
When I was at school, we all made jokes about so-and-so being "gay" or looking or being "a bit gay" all the time. And that was for males across the political spectrum, including those who were solid Lefties then and are still so today. Even one or two gay teenagers I knew at the time did the same.
None of us thought we were being homophobic at the time, because we weren't - we used "gay" to mean pathetic/crap/stupid. But, we'd obviously never do that today.
Times change.
A gay friend of mine got REALLY angry when I casually described a naff restaurant as "a bit gay"
It occurred to me that he had a good point, and I was possibly skirting around homophobia (which was not my intention). I could have gotten into a long heated debate about "Well you guys stole the word in the first place and you don't own it", but life is too short, really
I have not publicly used it in that way since, and won't - unless lexical fashions change. Which is also possible
Don't the negative connotations of "a bit gay" come from homophobia, though? That's what I always thought - it came about when 'gay' meant 'homosexual' and mainstream opinion was that was a bad thing.
If you'd been referring to the restaurant having a happy and jolly atmosphere, then you'd have had your friend bang to rights with the "you guys stole the word" argument.
I'm not sure about this. My impression was that gay meaning naff comes not directly from homosexuality being naff but from stereotypically gay things - musicals, lightweight 80s pop, bright heavily patterned shirts, etc. - being a bit naff.
I don't think calling something 'of a similar quality to a musical, lightweight 80s pop or a bright heavily patterned shirt' is homophobic - but the sterotyping of homosexuals liking those things probably is.
I've never met an academic who was stuffy about such a thing in truth, but maybe they are only amongst themselves (though I think in america they all get called Professor?)
Within academia people don't tend to use titles for the obvious reason that we (pretty much) all have them. Just checked my email signature and it does indeed say 'Dr' but I think I copied and pasted from my boss's when I started and changed as appropriate. I fill in forms with Dr, but I never correct anyone who calls me Mr. I just put my name on presentations, no title or qualifications.
People are generally a bit coy about 'Prof' too. My boss (now 'Prof') doesn't like people calling her Prof but mainly, I think, because she prefers to be addressed by first name. I've seen newly professorised profs get introduced as 'Dr' on several occasions (meetings/presentations) and never seen one correct the introducer. Probably we all hate the patriarchical hierarchical (something-ist) structure it implies... If you insist on Dr/Prof or use it ostentatiously you look a bit needy.
Everyone still wants to get to be 'Prof' though, so they can not use the title. It's enough that everyone knows
When I was a councillor I confused the admin people by telling them I was also Dr. They had to work out whether I was Cllr Dr or Dr Cllr.
Standard form is to go Cllr Dr I believe.
A rare one might be Cllr Brigadier etc, but going by past rank seems to be out of fashion.
There are a few Councillors who have been Peers though, so Cllr Baroness or Cllr Baron.
Yes that was the way it turned out. With the sad death of Lord Greaves how many Cllr Baron and Baroness are there. I know Cllr Baroness Kath Pinnock in my local authority.
What happened to Cllr Lord True? I know Cllr Baroness Scott retired from the former part.
To be fair, I nearly bought a peleton, as i do like a good spin class (even if it is a bit gay woke). Their bikes look fine, the treadmill always looked ropey to me.
My next fitness equipment purchase is probably going to be a curved assault runner and hook it up to zwift.
I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.
As a committed Unionist the case is very clear - the referendum in 2014 was fought, in part, on a falsehood, that only by voting No would Scotland remain in the EU.
There is therefore an understandable bitterness that the 2016 referendum has resulted in Scotland leaving the EU. Another referendum would be a chance to settle the question of whether that was sufficient for voters to choose Independence or renew the mandate for the Union in the new circumstances created by Brexit.
I don't think the English living in England get the fundamental self-determination question. Scotland has been dragged out of something it voted to not be dragged out of, it has caused economic damage and the government is saying tough. Whats then worse is that the government is saying that it has the legal right to do whatever it likes in and to Scotland and that the Scottish people have no ability to do anything about it.
The union - in the sense of being a union of equals and not an annexation like NI and Wales are - is dead. That is why there must be another referendum. Everything has changed since 2014. Literally everything.
I would prefer a new constitutional settlement to create a federation that is fit for the future. But as we aren't going to get that Scotland and NI and potentially Wales are going to get a divorce.
So there must be another referendum even if there isn't a clear majority who want one? Scots are being oppressed whether they realise it or not.
If people elect a majority of MSPs on a manifesto of independence that is the literal definition of wanting one. We have a representative democracy not one based on opinion polls or even national vote tallies in elections - all that counts is who gets elected.
If I vote SNP or Green or Alba tomorrow I vote for an independence referendum. It is explicit in their manifestos. I won't vote for them, but more of their MSPs will get elected than those opposed to independence. It is - to retread the Brexit line - the will of the people.
It is a reserved power. The UK government has every right to say you had a referendum just seven years ago. By your logic every time there is a majority for independent parties they should be allowed to hold another referendum. Leaving the EU may represent a substantial change but I still don't see the case for another referendum unless there is overwhelming support for it. It doesn't appear that there is.
I think that you absolutely understand the key point but hope the issue will go away: 1. If the people of Scotland elect a clear majority of MSPs on a platform of independence. That is the expressed will of the Scottish people. A thumping majority elected for independence is "overwhelming support" 2. Yes it is a reserved power. If the UK government says no then it is no longer about the referendum it is about democracy 3. If "no, you had a referendum 7 years ago" is the answer from the UK government, then Scotland no longer has the right to self-determination. It has become a colony of England. Which will only accelerate the move to independence.
I've never met an academic who was stuffy about such a thing in truth, but maybe they are only amongst themselves (though I think in america they all get called Professor?)
Within academia people don't tend to use titles for the obvious reason that we (pretty much) all have them. Just checked my email signature and it does indeed say 'Dr' but I think I copied and pasted from my boss's when I started and changed as appropriate. I fill in forms with Dr, but I never correct anyone who calls me Mr. I just put my name on presentations, no title or qualifications.
People are generally a bit coy about 'Prof' too. My boss (now 'Prof') doesn't like people calling her Prof but mainly, I think, because she prefers to be addressed by first name. I've seen newly professorised profs get introduced as 'Dr' on several occasions (meetings/presentations) and never seen one correct the introducer. Probably we all hate the patriarchical hierarchical (something-ist) structure it implies... If you insist on Dr/Prof or use it ostentatiously you look a bit needy.
Everyone still wants to get to be 'Prof' though, so they can not use the title. It's enough that everyone knows
When I was a councillor I confused the admin people by telling them I was also Dr. They had to work out whether I was Cllr Dr or Dr Cllr.
Standard form is to go Cllr Dr I believe.
A rare one might be Cllr Brigadier etc, but going by past rank seems to be out of fashion.
There are a few Councillors who have been Peers though, so Cllr Baroness or Cllr Baron.
In the House of Commons, a MP who is a (courtesy) Lord is "noble", one who is a barrister is "learned", another who was a Brigadier is "gallant".
But what IF you tick all three boxes?
"I rise to commend the remarks of the noble, learned and gallant Member for West Wokeshire West on behalf of free bus passes for honourably discharged BAME batsmen . . ."
I've heard Martin Amis use the word "cis-Atlantic" on TV with only a hint of smugness as to the riches of his vocabulary
In 80s London it was thought amusing to refer to Battersea as transpontine Chelsea.
I remember that. I lived down the road in Twixt the Commons at the time.
Wandsworth Town, me
And Battersea was pronounced "Boadicea" is you were posh, and Streatham was "St Reathem" - as the upper middle classes were forced out of the nice bits of town
Speak, Memory
LOL. Forgotten about St Reatham. Battersea as South Chelsea was another.
I was a heavy user of usenet in the 1990s completely passed me by.... uk.politics.misc
Reddit is the obvious natural progression to usenet but it doesnt really work as well. At least on usenet there would be a respectable couple of dozen or so posts before the nazi comparison was drawn, reddit political discussions usually the third response.
Reddit groups nowadays have a more rightwing reputation, no ?
Logged on to a uk politics reddit, "boris is a murderer" and variations of a theme was the whole page of comments.
I am surprised nobody has found all those bodies he waa supposed to be personally secretly burying...
Boris putting his back into it, labouring with a shovel? Not likely.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
I'm talking under 20, and I'm talking specifically of my daughters and their friends - 14-15. They ALL claim some letter or other on LGBTQAIPK
Edit: and I am also, I think, talking more of females than males. It is still socially more problematic, I guess, for a boy to pose as gay than for a girl to say she's "genderfluid". This is a guess, however
When I was at school, we all made jokes about so-and-so being "gay" or looking or being "a bit gay" all the time. And that was for males across the political spectrum, including those who were solid Lefties then and are still so today. Even one or two gay teenagers I knew at the time did the same.
None of us thought we were being homophobic at the time, because we weren't - we used "gay" to mean pathetic/crap/stupid. But, we'd obviously never do that today.
Times change.
A gay friend of mine got REALLY angry when I casually described a naff restaurant as "a bit gay"
It occurred to me that he had a good point, and I was possibly skirting around homophobia (which was not my intention). I could have gotten into a long heated debate about "Well you guys stole the word in the first place and you don't own it", but life is too short, really
I have not publicly used it in that way since, and won't - unless lexical fashions change. Which is also possible
Don't the negative connotations of "a bit gay" come from homophobia, though? That's what I always thought - it came about when 'gay' meant 'homosexual' and mainstream opinion was that was a bad thing.
If you'd been referring to the restaurant having a happy and jolly atmosphere, then you'd have had your friend bang to rights with the "you guys stole the word" argument.
I was not even aware that it the word gay meant naff till about 15 years ago, when my step-son got sent home from school for he and his friends laughing at his teacher for being gay. That's when I learned they weren't making fun of him for being homosexual but for being an idiot.
I am surprised the Inbetweeners, which is from that sort of period, hasn't had the old ban hammer outrage bus treatment, as one of the recurring jokes is basically calling stuff gay and that one of the parents is a closeted homosexual and taking the piss out of the son for that and that his dad does "gay" stuff.
Who knows - took a few years from someone getting attention for complaining about Apu before it led to heartfelt apologies from the actor etc.
I felt embarrassed for the actor, after reading his "confession."
I dont think Harry Shearer, another of The Simpsons cast, is totally on board with some changes, as I think he dared suggest voice actors can voice people of different ethnicities(I know it's been decided it's more than that with Apu), which was described as not reading the times very well, or words to that effect
@squareroot2 I use "Ms X" in every professional correspondence with a woman who has not first indicated otherwise because I have no idea if they're married or not. Just seems more appropriate, and also seems weird that a woman would be defined by their marital status in any case.
I believe Mademoiselle is seen as antiquated in France also, for the same reason.
An advantage for using first names instead of surnames unless you have a good reason not to.
Can't go wrong with calling someone "Jane" instead of "Miss Smith", "Mrs Smith" or "Ms. Smith" then.
I was a heavy user of usenet in the 1990s completely passed me by.... uk.politics.misc
Reddit is the obvious natural progression to usenet but it doesnt really work as well. At least on usenet there would be a respectable couple of dozen or so posts before the nazi comparison was drawn, reddit political discussions usually the third response.
Reddit groups nowadays have a more rightwing reputation, no ?
Logged on to a uk politics reddit, "boris is a murderer" and variations of a theme was the whole page of comments.
I am surprised nobody has found all those bodies he waa supposed to be personally secretly burying...
Boris putting his back into it, labouring with a shovel? Not likely.
White privilege and unconscious bias are simply sociological theories that some loudly agree with and others vociferously disagree with.
I'd add that whilst young people often have a fresh take on the world, and can see things their elders cannot, they're not always "right" about everything - far from it. I had very black and white views when I was young (you're trying to understand the world so you try and fit it into a theory you can subscribe to and understand) and it's only as you get older that you realise through experience how grey everything is, and how there are no theories and everyone has a point.
That's why we have democracy: to take the views of all age groups and backgrounds into account, and figure it out.
I largely agree (though I do think unconscious bias is a thing for most people including me) - my point was that young people feel the matter's settled, in the same way that climate change used to be disputed but is now generlaly (though not universally) accepted.
If I may say so, I think you've evolved on this forum, as have most of us - you're more open-minded tthan I remember unless directly provoked, as am I (I think).
Thanks. I thought the issue of race was largely behind us, and we'd moved on. I certainly had.
My conservations last year (privately, on a 1:1 basis with black colleagues and peers of mind) convinced me this was not the case. Having said that their experiences were varied, distinctive and personal and each of their views uniquely nuanced. They also weren't necessarily what you'd think, but in all cases their views were moderate and reasonable.
That's quite a separate thing from my very strong objections to re-racialising language, iconoclasm, marxist interpretations of Western histroy, and critical race theory which I remain strongly critical of (and so did a couple of them), and I will continue to call out as I see it.
I think it's important to remember that two things can be true at the same time, and it's important to take both views into account.
I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.
As a committed Unionist the case is very clear - the referendum in 2014 was fought, in part, on a falsehood, that only by voting No would Scotland remain in the EU.
There is therefore an understandable bitterness that the 2016 referendum has resulted in Scotland leaving the EU. Another referendum would be a chance to settle the question of whether that was sufficient for voters to choose Independence or renew the mandate for the Union in the new circumstances created by Brexit.
I don't think the English living in England get the fundamental self-determination question. Scotland has been dragged out of something it voted to not be dragged out of, it has caused economic damage and the government is saying tough. Whats then worse is that the government is saying that it has the legal right to do whatever it likes in and to Scotland and that the Scottish people have no ability to do anything about it.
The union - in the sense of being a union of equals and not an annexation like NI and Wales are - is dead. That is why there must be another referendum. Everything has changed since 2014. Literally everything.
I would prefer a new constitutional settlement to create a federation that is fit for the future. But as we aren't going to get that Scotland and NI and potentially Wales are going to get a divorce.
So there must be another referendum even if there isn't a clear majority who want one? Scots are being oppressed whether they realise it or not.
If people elect a majority of MSPs on a manifesto of independence that is the literal definition of wanting one. We have a representative democracy not one based on opinion polls or even national vote tallies in elections - all that counts is who gets elected.
If I vote SNP or Green or Alba tomorrow I vote for an independence referendum. It is explicit in their manifestos. I won't vote for them, but more of their MSPs will get elected than those opposed to independence. It is - to retread the Brexit line - the will of the people.
It is a reserved power. The UK government has every right to say you had a referendum just seven years ago. By your logic every time there is a majority for independent parties they should be allowed to hold another referendum. Leaving the EU may represent a substantial change but I still don't see the case for another referendum unless there is overwhelming support for it. It doesn't appear that there is.
Yes every time there's a majority for a party, that party gets to implement its manifesto. That's called democracy.
If the Scottish voters don't want that manifesto, they can elect a different party instead.
There is a way to tell if there is a "case for another referendum" or not, and that is whether those pledging one win a majority at an election or not.
So they are allowed "one referendum" per parliament? Or can they have one every two years? Every month?
What are the rules? There aren't any. Your pulling it your ass.
The power to approve referendums is reserved to Westminster for a reason, no state can withstand the constitutional and economic chaos of endless referendums threatening to break up the country - and plunging everyone - not just Scotland - into deep recession and a decade of bitter arguments.
It is commonly accepted that grave constitutional matters - and it doesn't get bigger than shattering the UK - should be addressed by very rare referendums. We had two EU votes in forty-odd years.
Why should the voters of 2014 be allowed to withhold options from the voters of 2024?
Or, let me put it another way, if the EU referendum had been for Remain, and then ukip had won the next UK election on a manifesto promise to hold another referendum, what possible grounds would there be for withholding it?
Same as the reasons for refusing a Scottish vote. Too soon. And I would have said that in the hypothetical example you describe. Although the difference there, of course, is that in practise it could not be refused because the UK parliament decides UK matters, like referendums
I understand your view, but disagree.
The voters are allowed to change their minds. And if holding constant referendum is unpopular, the voters will punish the party that engages in it.
But these votes are not taking place in some ideal Platonic political universe, as exercises in free thought. They have real life consequences, on countries AND their neighbours.
eg one Brexit vote destabilised the EU, and if we had constant Brexit votes the Europeans would rightly get very fucking annoyed. It is not mature political behaviour. It is not done
This is even more true of Scexit, which - if it ever happened - would ravage the UK economy, menace our foreign policy, endanger our fiscal position, and immure us in many years of wretched and painful divorce
Scotland cannot be allowed to level that pistol at the UK every few years, no matter what government is returned to Holyrood.
The UKG has to decide on any referendum in the best interest of the UK as a whole (including Scotland), right now, the answer is No. If a Scottish government wishes to overturn this, they can go to the courts, or declare UDI as Salmond wants. Then the voters will punish them
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
I'm talking under 20, and I'm talking specifically of my daughters and their friends - 14-15. They ALL claim some letter or other on LGBTQAIPK
Edit: and I am also, I think, talking more of females than males. It is still socially more problematic, I guess, for a boy to pose as gay than for a girl to say she's "genderfluid". This is a guess, however
When I was at school, we all made jokes about so-and-so being "gay" or looking or being "a bit gay" all the time. And that was for males across the political spectrum, including those who were solid Lefties then and are still so today. Even one or two gay teenagers I knew at the time did the same.
None of us thought we were being homophobic at the time, because we weren't - we used "gay" to mean pathetic/crap/stupid. But, we'd obviously never do that today.
Times change.
A gay friend of mine got REALLY angry when I casually described a naff restaurant as "a bit gay"
It occurred to me that he had a good point, and I was possibly skirting around homophobia (which was not my intention). I could have gotten into a long heated debate about "Well you guys stole the word in the first place and you don't own it", but life is too short, really
I have not publicly used it in that way since, and won't - unless lexical fashions change. Which is also possible
Don't the negative connotations of "a bit gay" come from homophobia, though? That's what I always thought - it came about when 'gay' meant 'homosexual' and mainstream opinion was that was a bad thing.
If you'd been referring to the restaurant having a happy and jolly atmosphere, then you'd have had your friend bang to rights with the "you guys stole the word" argument.
I'm not sure about this. My impression was that gay meaning naff comes not directly from homosexuality being naff but from stereotypically gay things - musicals, lightweight 80s pop, bright heavily patterned shirts, etc. - being a bit naff.
I don't think calling something 'of a similar quality to a musical, lightweight 80s pop or a bright heavily patterned shirt' is homophobic - but the sterotyping of homosexuals liking those things probably is.
Naff itself comes from Polari. It is an acronym for a straight person.
@squareroot2 I use "Ms X" in every professional correspondence with a woman who has not first indicated otherwise because I have no idea if they're married or not. Just seems more appropriate, and also seems weird that a woman would be defined by their marital status in any case.
I believe Mademoiselle is seen as antiquated in France also, for the same reason.
An advantage for using first names instead of surnames unless you have a good reason not to.
Can't go wrong with calling someone "Jane" instead of "Miss Smith", "Mrs Smith" or "Ms. Smith" then.
As in "It's Ms Bitch to you"
Our granddaughter-in-law has hyphenated her name to be Mrs Smith-Jones*. However, her husband, our grandson is plain Mr Jones*.
What they would do if they ever went anywhere where the were 'intoduced' I'm not sure.
@squareroot2 I use "Ms X" in every professional correspondence with a woman who has not first indicated otherwise because I have no idea if they're married or not. Just seems more appropriate, and also seems weird that a woman would be defined by their marital status in any case.
I believe Mademoiselle is seen as antiquated in France also, for the same reason.
An advantage for using first names instead of surnames unless you have a good reason not to.
Can't go wrong with calling someone "Jane" instead of "Miss Smith", "Mrs Smith" or "Ms. Smith" then.
Except some people dont like strangers referring to them by first name, especially in formal communications or first meeting.
An old fashioned view, to be sure, but you can in fact go wrong. See also using a diminutive they do not like.
If it's an email and I'm uncertain I might just open with Hello, and see how they sign off a response.
I was a heavy user of usenet in the 1990s completely passed me by.... uk.politics.misc
Reddit is the obvious natural progression to usenet but it doesnt really work as well. At least on usenet there would be a respectable couple of dozen or so posts before the nazi comparison was drawn, reddit political discussions usually the third response.
Reddit groups nowadays have a more rightwing reputation, no ?
Logged on to a uk politics reddit, "boris is a murderer" and variations of a theme was the whole page of comments.
I am surprised nobody has found all those bodies he waa supposed to be personally secretly burying...
Boris putting his back into it, labouring with a shovel? Not likely.
Mr. Leon, I remember reading (I think it was Cicero praising Caesar's literary talents, although I could be wrong) that the best way to use vocabulary is to use words your audience knows but rarely uses. That way they understand everything you're saying and think you're smart (and it makes them feel clever too)..
If you use words others don't understand deliberately it makes you sound compunctuous.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
I'm talking under 20, and I'm talking specifically of my daughters and their friends - 14-15. They ALL claim some letter or other on LGBTQAIPK
Edit: and I am also, I think, talking more of females than males. It is still socially more problematic, I guess, for a boy to pose as gay than for a girl to say she's "genderfluid". This is a guess, however
When I was at school, we all made jokes about so-and-so being "gay" or looking or being "a bit gay" all the time. And that was for males across the political spectrum, including those who were solid Lefties then and are still so today. Even one or two gay teenagers I knew at the time did the same.
None of us thought we were being homophobic at the time, because we weren't - we used "gay" to mean pathetic/crap/stupid. But, we'd obviously never do that today.
Times change.
A gay friend of mine got REALLY angry when I casually described a naff restaurant as "a bit gay"
It occurred to me that he had a good point, and I was possibly skirting around homophobia (which was not my intention). I could have gotten into a long heated debate about "Well you guys stole the word in the first place and you don't own it", but life is too short, really
I have not publicly used it in that way since, and won't - unless lexical fashions change. Which is also possible
Don't the negative connotations of "a bit gay" come from homophobia, though? That's what I always thought - it came about when 'gay' meant 'homosexual' and mainstream opinion was that was a bad thing.
If you'd been referring to the restaurant having a happy and jolly atmosphere, then you'd have had your friend bang to rights with the "you guys stole the word" argument.
I was not even aware that it the word gay meant naff till about 15 years ago, when my step-son got sent home from school for he and his friends laughing at his teacher for being gay. That's when I learned they weren't making fun of him for being homosexual but for being an idiot.
I am surprised the Inbetweeners, which is from that sort of period, hasn't had the old ban hammer outrage bus treatment, as one of the recurring jokes is basically calling stuff gay and that one of the parents is a closeted homosexual and taking the piss out of the son for that and that his dad does "gay" stuff.
Who knows - took a few years from someone getting attention for complaining about Apu before it led to heartfelt apologies from the actor etc.
I felt embarrassed for the actor, after reading his "confession."
I dont think Harry Shearer, another of The Simpsons cast, is totally on board with some changes, as I think he dared suggest voice actors can voice people of different ethnicities(I know it's been decided it's more than that with Apu), which was described as not reading the times very well, or words to that effect
It seemed to me that the "offence" in question was extremely minor and the actor in question was having to read a script that someone else had written for him.
Under full fiscal autonomy or independence, the deficit would be the Scottish government’s responsibility and there will be a loss of risk sharing with the rest of the UK. While Scotland could benefit from tax revenues from North Sea oil reserves, these are likely to be a less predictable source of revenue compared to transfers from the British Treasury. An independent Scotland is likely to inherit a large hole in its public finances and significant tax rises or spending cuts would be needed to reduce the deficit. The Covid-19 pandemic, falling oil prices and Brexit have made transitioning to stable public finances even more challenging for Scotland, compared to 2014.
Scotland would need credible macroeconomic policies in order to attract investors to finance its deficit. The question of how an independent Scotland would negotiate a share of the UK national debt and liabilities is also highly uncertain.
Moreover Scotland is an open economy and is highly dependent on international trade at around 58% of GDP. This is above the 35% for the UK as a whole. Scotland is particularly dependent on trade with the Rest of the UK (RUK), and currently benefits from being in the UK Single Market and Customs Union, hence facing neither tariff nor non-tariff barriers, and sharing the UK common currency. 60% of Scotland’s exports and 67% of its imports are to and from the rest of the UK (RUK), while 19% of Scottish exports were to the EU. Scotland’s trade with the rest of the UK is around four times larger than its EU trade.
Scottish independence is likely to create a new international border between Scotland and the rest of the UK and lead to higher trade costs and frictions, especially if Scotland decides to rejoin the EU.
Without wishing to be all holier than thou, the use of the word 'gay' in a pejorative sense (i.e. virtually always) remains a significant source of bullying in many schools because of the effect it has on its recipients. The recipients of the label are either a) gay boys, b) boys who are 'effeminate' or even just sensitive/not macho, and c) boys who are excessively studious, also known as boffins. The impact it can have on all three groups is not insignificant, and it's undoubtedly used in a homophobic way, whether or not the target is gay. The female equivalent (used largely, but not solely, by boys) is 'lez'.
Good schools have driven out this form of bullying, weaker schools haven't.
@squareroot2 I use "Ms X" in every professional correspondence with a woman who has not first indicated otherwise because I have no idea if they're married or not. Just seems more appropriate, and also seems weird that a woman would be defined by their marital status in any case.
I believe Mademoiselle is seen as antiquated in France also, for the same reason.
An advantage for using first names instead of surnames unless you have a good reason not to.
Can't go wrong with calling someone "Jane" instead of "Miss Smith", "Mrs Smith" or "Ms. Smith" then.
Except some people dont like strangers referring to them by first name, especially in formal communications or first meeting.
An old fashioned view, to be sure, but you can in fact go wrong. See also using a diminutive they do not like.
If it's an email and I'm uncertain I might just open with Hello, and see how they sign off a response.
I definitely don't like a cold caller ringing me and calling me by my first name. That is over-familiar.
I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.
As a committed Unionist the case is very clear - the referendum in 2014 was fought, in part, on a falsehood, that only by voting No would Scotland remain in the EU.
There is therefore an understandable bitterness that the 2016 referendum has resulted in Scotland leaving the EU. Another referendum would be a chance to settle the question of whether that was sufficient for voters to choose Independence or renew the mandate for the Union in the new circumstances created by Brexit.
I don't think the English living in England get the fundamental self-determination question. Scotland has been dragged out of something it voted to not be dragged out of, it has caused economic damage and the government is saying tough. Whats then worse is that the government is saying that it has the legal right to do whatever it likes in and to Scotland and that the Scottish people have no ability to do anything about it.
The union - in the sense of being a union of equals and not an annexation like NI and Wales are - is dead. That is why there must be another referendum. Everything has changed since 2014. Literally everything.
I would prefer a new constitutional settlement to create a federation that is fit for the future. But as we aren't going to get that Scotland and NI and potentially Wales are going to get a divorce.
So there must be another referendum even if there isn't a clear majority who want one? Scots are being oppressed whether they realise it or not.
If people elect a majority of MSPs on a manifesto of independence that is the literal definition of wanting one. We have a representative democracy not one based on opinion polls or even national vote tallies in elections - all that counts is who gets elected.
If I vote SNP or Green or Alba tomorrow I vote for an independence referendum. It is explicit in their manifestos. I won't vote for them, but more of their MSPs will get elected than those opposed to independence. It is - to retread the Brexit line - the will of the people.
It is a reserved power. The UK government has every right to say you had a referendum just seven years ago. By your logic every time there is a majority for independent parties they should be allowed to hold another referendum. Leaving the EU may represent a substantial change but I still don't see the case for another referendum unless there is overwhelming support for it. It doesn't appear that there is.
Yes every time there's a majority for a party, that party gets to implement its manifesto. That's called democracy.
If the Scottish voters don't want that manifesto, they can elect a different party instead.
There is a way to tell if there is a "case for another referendum" or not, and that is whether those pledging one win a majority at an election or not.
So they are allowed "one referendum" per parliament? Or can they have one every two years? Every month?
What are the rules? There aren't any. Your pulling it your ass.
The power to approve referendums is reserved to Westminster for a reason, no state can withstand the constitutional and economic chaos of endless referendums threatening to break up the country - and plunging everyone - not just Scotland - into deep recession and a decade of bitter arguments.
It is commonly accepted that grave constitutional matters - and it doesn't get bigger than shattering the UK - should be addressed by very rare referendums. We had two EU votes in forty-odd years.
The rules are that elected governments decide what they're going to do, which they put to the voters at elections. If a government chooses to have two referenda in a Parliament I wouldn't support that if they didn't have that in their manifesto, but if they're the elected government that's their choice. If the voters don't like it, they should elect a different government.
As for "commonly accepted" it should be rare - by whom?
As for the example of having only two referenda on the EU in forty-odd years, many would argue (including me) that in hindsight that was a terrible, terrible mistake. Had we followed the Irish path of having a referendum every step of the way - on the Single European Act, Maastricht Treaty, Nice, Lisbon etc - then things might have gone better than letting it all boil until an explosive vote to terminate the union instead.
I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.
As a committed Unionist the case is very clear - the referendum in 2014 was fought, in part, on a falsehood, that only by voting No would Scotland remain in the EU.
There is therefore an understandable bitterness that the 2016 referendum has resulted in Scotland leaving the EU. Another referendum would be a chance to settle the question of whether that was sufficient for voters to choose Independence or renew the mandate for the Union in the new circumstances created by Brexit.
I don't think the English living in England get the fundamental self-determination question. Scotland has been dragged out of something it voted to not be dragged out of, it has caused economic damage and the government is saying tough. Whats then worse is that the government is saying that it has the legal right to do whatever it likes in and to Scotland and that the Scottish people have no ability to do anything about it.
The union - in the sense of being a union of equals and not an annexation like NI and Wales are - is dead. That is why there must be another referendum. Everything has changed since 2014. Literally everything.
I would prefer a new constitutional settlement to create a federation that is fit for the future. But as we aren't going to get that Scotland and NI and potentially Wales are going to get a divorce.
So there must be another referendum even if there isn't a clear majority who want one? Scots are being oppressed whether they realise it or not.
If people elect a majority of MSPs on a manifesto of independence that is the literal definition of wanting one. We have a representative democracy not one based on opinion polls or even national vote tallies in elections - all that counts is who gets elected.
If I vote SNP or Green or Alba tomorrow I vote for an independence referendum. It is explicit in their manifestos. I won't vote for them, but more of their MSPs will get elected than those opposed to independence. It is - to retread the Brexit line - the will of the people.
It is a reserved power. The UK government has every right to say you had a referendum just seven years ago. By your logic every time there is a majority for independent parties they should be allowed to hold another referendum. Leaving the EU may represent a substantial change but I still don't see the case for another referendum unless there is overwhelming support for it. It doesn't appear that there is.
I think that you absolutely understand the key point but hope the issue will go away: 1. If the people of Scotland elect a clear majority of MSPs on a platform of independence. That is the expressed will of the Scottish people. A thumping majority elected for independence is "overwhelming support" 2. Yes it is a reserved power. If the UK government says no then it is no longer about the referendum it is about democracy 3. If "no, you had a referendum 7 years ago" is the answer from the UK government, then Scotland no longer has the right to self-determination. It has become a colony of England. Which will only accelerate the move to independence.
Since the Act of Union in 1707 when the old Scottish Parliament dissolved itself into Westminster, legally and constitutionally the future of Scotland has been a matter for Westminster.
Westminster may occasionally decide to listen to a nationalist majority in the subsidiary Holyrood Parliament, as it did in 2014 and allow an independence referendum but it does not have to and in any case the 2014 referendum was only held not only on the basis of an SNP Holyrood majority but that it would be a once in a generation vote. Scottish polling is also clear most Scots do not want an indyref2 for at least 5 years and despite Brexit Yes remains under 50% including undecideds.
The Spanish government has refused the Catalan nationalist government even 1 independence referendum and 4 years after the Catalans held an illegal referendum on independence Madrid ignored and then declared UDI, which Madrid also correctly ignored, Catalonia remains part of Spain
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.
It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.
Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
I've always thought a flip side to the pronoun thing is what if people dont want to get into a personal detail like that at work?
Obviously we dont want people to feel like they cannot be open about who they are, or in some bizarre it's ok so long as no one asks and no one tells situation, but voluntary personal questions on things like sexuality or religion people often dont see as an employers business other than avoiding discrimination.
It's not really a personal question. It's just telling people how you wish to be addressed. I assume that if you don't put anything, people will just use pronouns that society would assume, which is fine.
I personally don't put "my pronouns" on anything because they are just what society would expect, so why would I bother? To be honest even if someone addressed me as "she" I don't think I'd be bothered either way.
I agree with that, actually.
Where I'd take umbrage is if I was compelled to put my pronouns on my email signature.
What you've laid out is fine.
The other point (especially on email signatures) is that it's helpful in an environment where you can't necessarily tell a person's gender just from their name, either because it's ambiguous or because you're both part of a large multinational organisation and you aren't familiar with the naming conventions in their country. However, it's usually easy enough to get round the issue somehow, and it's clearly not why proponents of the idea push for it.
Would have been handy for my misapprehensions about Jo Grimond being a woman if every mention of him had had in brackets afterwards "he/his"
My title is Dr and so insurers always ask sex too (maybe they always ask sex* anyway?) but I sometimes get the insurance letters through addressed to "Dr (male) Selebian" and, on one memorable occasion when it was addressed to my wife too "Dr (male) Selebian and Dr (female) Selebian"
*I'll have to check, if they ask for 'gender' I can presumably self-identify as female for a lower premium?
Gender/sex-based pricing on personal lines was banned by the EU about ten years ago, so it won't affect your premium. Insurers still ask because it affects the risk, especially for things like life insurance.
On Medical Malpractice, I imagine that insurers would have a view on whether male and female doctors have similar claims profiles or not, although that would more likely be a reflection of bedside manner rather than skill if they did. I would guess (although I don't know) that MedMal is probably priced on a gender neutral basis, regardless of whether it was affected by the rule change.
Not that kind of Dr (the fake/real kind, depending who you speak to). Our elderly neighbours at the time were quite excited when we moved in, got called round in the first week by next door neighbour as his wife had feinted. Explained we weren't 'real' doctors, but went round and saw enough to persuade him to call for an ambulance.
I'd forgotten about the banning of sex-based pricing.
Except for “Ladies’ Night” drinks promotions in bars, which are of course completely fine.
@squareroot2 I use "Ms X" in every professional correspondence with a woman who has not first indicated otherwise because I have no idea if they're married or not. Just seems more appropriate, and also seems weird that a woman would be defined by their marital status in any case.
I believe Mademoiselle is seen as antiquated in France also, for the same reason.
An advantage for using first names instead of surnames unless you have a good reason not to.
Can't go wrong with calling someone "Jane" instead of "Miss Smith", "Mrs Smith" or "Ms. Smith" then.
Except some people dont like strangers referring to them by first name, especially in formal communications or first meeting.
An old fashioned view, to be sure, but you can in fact go wrong. See also using a diminutive they do not like.
If it's an email and I'm uncertain I might just open with Hello, and see how they sign off a response.
I definitely don't like a cold caller ringing me and calling me by my first name. That is over-familiar.
I get most cross with sleazy young estate agents calling me by my first name without asking first - 'it's Mr, actually'.
I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.
As a committed Unionist the case is very clear - the referendum in 2014 was fought, in part, on a falsehood, that only by voting No would Scotland remain in the EU.
There is therefore an understandable bitterness that the 2016 referendum has resulted in Scotland leaving the EU. Another referendum would be a chance to settle the question of whether that was sufficient for voters to choose Independence or renew the mandate for the Union in the new circumstances created by Brexit.
I don't think the English living in England get the fundamental self-determination question. Scotland has been dragged out of something it voted to not be dragged out of, it has caused economic damage and the government is saying tough. Whats then worse is that the government is saying that it has the legal right to do whatever it likes in and to Scotland and that the Scottish people have no ability to do anything about it.
The union - in the sense of being a union of equals and not an annexation like NI and Wales are - is dead. That is why there must be another referendum. Everything has changed since 2014. Literally everything.
I would prefer a new constitutional settlement to create a federation that is fit for the future. But as we aren't going to get that Scotland and NI and potentially Wales are going to get a divorce.
So there must be another referendum even if there isn't a clear majority who want one? Scots are being oppressed whether they realise it or not.
If people elect a majority of MSPs on a manifesto of independence that is the literal definition of wanting one. We have a representative democracy not one based on opinion polls or even national vote tallies in elections - all that counts is who gets elected.
If I vote SNP or Green or Alba tomorrow I vote for an independence referendum. It is explicit in their manifestos. I won't vote for them, but more of their MSPs will get elected than those opposed to independence. It is - to retread the Brexit line - the will of the people.
It is a reserved power. The UK government has every right to say you had a referendum just seven years ago. By your logic every time there is a majority for independent parties they should be allowed to hold another referendum. Leaving the EU may represent a substantial change but I still don't see the case for another referendum unless there is overwhelming support for it. It doesn't appear that there is.
I think that you absolutely understand the key point but hope the issue will go away: 1. If the people of Scotland elect a clear majority of MSPs on a platform of independence. That is the expressed will of the Scottish people. A thumping majority elected for independence is "overwhelming support" 2. Yes it is a reserved power. If the UK government says no then it is no longer about the referendum it is about democracy 3. If "no, you had a referendum 7 years ago" is the answer from the UK government, then Scotland no longer has the right to self-determination. It has become a colony of England. Which will only accelerate the move to independence.
Since the Act of Union in 1707 when the old Scottish Parliament dissolved itself into Westminster, legally and constitutionally the future of Scotland has been a matter for Westminster.
Westminster may occasionally decide to listen to a Nationalist majority in the subsidiary Holyrood Parliament, as it did in 2014 and allow an independence referendum but it does not have to and in any case the 2014 referendum was only held not only on the basis of an SNP Holyrood majority but that it would be a once in a generation vote.
The Spanish government has refused the Catalan nationalist government even 1 independence referendum and 4 years after the Catalans held an illegal referendum on independence Madrid ignored and then declared UDI, which Madrid also ignored, Catalonia remains part of Spain
"Since the Act of Union in 1707 when the old Scottish Parliament dissolved itself into Westminster, legally and constitutionally the future of Scotland has been a matter for Westminster."
Is it not a principle of English (and Scots?) law, that a contract engineered by fraud and deceit is NOT legally binding? Or something like that?
Without wishing to be all holier than thou, the use of the word 'gay' in a pejorative sense (i.e. virtually always) remains a significant source of bullying in many schools because of the effect it has on its recipients. The recipients of the label are either a) gay boys, b) boys who are 'effeminate' or even just sensitive/not macho, and c) boys who are excessively studious, also known as boffins. The impact it can have on all three groups is not insignificant, and it's undoubtedly used in a homophobic way, whether or not the target is gay. The female equivalent (used largely, but not solely, by boys) is 'lez'.
Good schools have driven out this form of bullying, weaker schools haven't.
Went to the gym this morning and in the male changing room afterwards someone, a sports coach, not a gym staff member, remarked quite casually that most of the senior local women's football team were lesbians. And this was received without comment by the half-dozen or so mostly middle-aged men present.
I think I'm still mentally in 'governments lose lots of seats' mode, as even with things being as they are that only one of the scenarios predicts the LDs making net gains, and then not many, still seems surprising, even though it shouldn't be.
Last year, just before the plague struck, I had planned to do a piece saying 2020 was the 25th anniversary of the Tories losing 2,000 council seats in one night.
That night is burned in the psyche of myself and many many Tory activists.
After that, the governing party losing a few hundred council seats in one night doesn't seem that bad.
And the Tories still didn't ditch Major.
Much like the centre right of the Labour Party finding Owen Smith as the best candidate to challenge Corbyn in 1995 the right wing of the Tory Party thought John Redwood was the best candidate to take on John Major.
Even as a stalking horse candidate he was dire.
Although three more votes for Redwood and Major would have gone.
A fair few of those who voted for Major must have regretted doing so come 1 May 1997.
I guess they were all counting on him delivering as he had in 1992. They really needed to look at who the opponent was, though.
Redwood would likely have done even worse than Major in 1997, Portillo about the same as Major did (plus he lost his own seat anyway).
The only leader who might have done slightly better was Heseltine but he would also have leaked even more votes to the Referendum Party
Without wishing to be all holier than thou, the use of the word 'gay' in a pejorative sense (i.e. virtually always) remains a significant source of bullying in many schools because of the effect it has on its recipients. The recipients of the label are either a) gay boys, b) boys who are 'effeminate' or even just sensitive/not macho, and c) boys who are excessively studious, also known as boffins. The impact it can have on all three groups is not insignificant, and it's undoubtedly used in a homophobic way, whether or not the target is gay. The female equivalent (used largely, but not solely, by boys) is 'lez'.
Good schools have driven out this form of bullying, weaker schools haven't.
Went to the gym this morning and in the male changing room afterwards someone, a sports coach, not a gym staff member, remarked quite casually that most of the senior local women's football team were lesbians. And this was received without comment by the half-dozen or so mostly middle-aged men present.
Is that code for "I asked them out and they said no... must be lesbians"?
I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.
As a committed Unionist the case is very clear - the referendum in 2014 was fought, in part, on a falsehood, that only by voting No would Scotland remain in the EU.
There is therefore an understandable bitterness that the 2016 referendum has resulted in Scotland leaving the EU. Another referendum would be a chance to settle the question of whether that was sufficient for voters to choose Independence or renew the mandate for the Union in the new circumstances created by Brexit.
I don't think the English living in England get the fundamental self-determination question. Scotland has been dragged out of something it voted to not be dragged out of, it has caused economic damage and the government is saying tough. Whats then worse is that the government is saying that it has the legal right to do whatever it likes in and to Scotland and that the Scottish people have no ability to do anything about it.
The union - in the sense of being a union of equals and not an annexation like NI and Wales are - is dead. That is why there must be another referendum. Everything has changed since 2014. Literally everything.
I would prefer a new constitutional settlement to create a federation that is fit for the future. But as we aren't going to get that Scotland and NI and potentially Wales are going to get a divorce.
So there must be another referendum even if there isn't a clear majority who want one? Scots are being oppressed whether they realise it or not.
If people elect a majority of MSPs on a manifesto of independence that is the literal definition of wanting one. We have a representative democracy not one based on opinion polls or even national vote tallies in elections - all that counts is who gets elected.
If I vote SNP or Green or Alba tomorrow I vote for an independence referendum. It is explicit in their manifestos. I won't vote for them, but more of their MSPs will get elected than those opposed to independence. It is - to retread the Brexit line - the will of the people.
It is a reserved power. The UK government has every right to say you had a referendum just seven years ago. By your logic every time there is a majority for independent parties they should be allowed to hold another referendum. Leaving the EU may represent a substantial change but I still don't see the case for another referendum unless there is overwhelming support for it. It doesn't appear that there is.
Yes every time there's a majority for a party, that party gets to implement its manifesto. That's called democracy.
If the Scottish voters don't want that manifesto, they can elect a different party instead.
There is a way to tell if there is a "case for another referendum" or not, and that is whether those pledging one win a majority at an election or not.
So they are allowed "one referendum" per parliament? Or can they have one every two years? Every month?
What are the rules? There aren't any. Your pulling it your ass.
The power to approve referendums is reserved to Westminster for a reason, no state can withstand the constitutional and economic chaos of endless referendums threatening to break up the country - and plunging everyone - not just Scotland - into deep recession and a decade of bitter arguments.
It is commonly accepted that grave constitutional matters - and it doesn't get bigger than shattering the UK - should be addressed by very rare referendums. We had two EU votes in forty-odd years.
The rules are that elected governments decide what they're going to do, which they put to the voters at elections. If a government chooses to have two referenda in a Parliament I wouldn't support that if they didn't have that in their manifesto, but if they're the elected government that's their choice. If the voters don't like it, they should elect a different government.
As for "commonly accepted" it should be rare - by whom?
As for the example of having only two referenda on the EU in forty-odd years, many would argue (including me) that in hindsight that was a terrible, terrible mistake. Had we followed the Irish path of having a referendum every step of the way - on the Single European Act, Maastricht Treaty, Nice, Lisbon etc - then things might have gone better than letting it all boil until an explosive vote to terminate the union instead.
I don't buy Leon's argument either.
To use a medical analogy, if you have life-threatening surgery which it turns out did not resolve the issue (say cancer removal), you don't forego future life-threatening surgeries for x years just because so. You assess whether a second life-threatening surgery is worth the risks and, if so, when and under what conditions.
So, you don't do these things willy-nilly, but neither should you have hard and fast rules - circumstances should dictate what is appropriate - in this case the results of elections based on manifestos.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.
It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.
Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
I've always thought a flip side to the pronoun thing is what if people dont want to get into a personal detail like that at work?
Obviously we dont want people to feel like they cannot be open about who they are, or in some bizarre it's ok so long as no one asks and no one tells situation, but voluntary personal questions on things like sexuality or religion people often dont see as an employers business other than avoiding discrimination.
It's not really a personal question. It's just telling people how you wish to be addressed. I assume that if you don't put anything, people will just use pronouns that society would assume, which is fine.
I personally don't put "my pronouns" on anything because they are just what society would expect, so why would I bother? To be honest even if someone addressed me as "she" I don't think I'd be bothered either way.
I agree with that, actually.
Where I'd take umbrage is if I was compelled to put my pronouns on my email signature.
What you've laid out is fine.
The other point (especially on email signatures) is that it's helpful in an environment where you can't necessarily tell a person's gender just from their name, either because it's ambiguous or because you're both part of a large multinational organisation and you aren't familiar with the naming conventions in their country. However, it's usually easy enough to get round the issue somehow, and it's clearly not why proponents of the idea push for it.
Would have been handy for my misapprehensions about Jo Grimond being a woman if every mention of him had had in brackets afterwards "he/his"
My title is Dr and so insurers always ask sex too (maybe they always ask sex* anyway?) but I sometimes get the insurance letters through addressed to "Dr (male) Selebian" and, on one memorable occasion when it was addressed to my wife too "Dr (male) Selebian and Dr (female) Selebian"
*I'll have to check, if they ask for 'gender' I can presumably self-identify as female for a lower premium?
Gender/sex-based pricing on personal lines was banned by the EU about ten years ago, so it won't affect your premium. Insurers still ask because it affects the risk, especially for things like life insurance.
On Medical Malpractice, I imagine that insurers would have a view on whether male and female doctors have similar claims profiles or not, although that would more likely be a reflection of bedside manner rather than skill if they did. I would guess (although I don't know) that MedMal is probably priced on a gender neutral basis, regardless of whether it was affected by the rule change.
Not that kind of Dr (the fake/real kind, depending who you speak to). Our elderly neighbours at the time were quite excited when we moved in, got called round in the first week by next door neighbour as his wife had feinted. Explained we weren't 'real' doctors, but went round and saw enough to persuade him to call for an ambulance.
I'd forgotten about the banning of sex-based pricing.
Except for “Ladies’ Night” drinks promotions in bars, which are of course completely fine.
Not everywhere. There are places in the US (think one was Bloomington, Indiana) where "Ladies' Night" perks for women only were banned as discriminatory.
Under full fiscal autonomy or independence, the deficit would be the Scottish government’s responsibility and there will be a loss of risk sharing with the rest of the UK. While Scotland could benefit from tax revenues from North Sea oil reserves, these are likely to be a less predictable source of revenue compared to transfers from the British Treasury. An independent Scotland is likely to inherit a large hole in its public finances and significant tax rises or spending cuts would be needed to reduce the deficit. The Covid-19 pandemic, falling oil prices and Brexit have made transitioning to stable public finances even more challenging for Scotland, compared to 2014.
Scotland would need credible macroeconomic policies in order to attract investors to finance its deficit. The question of how an independent Scotland would negotiate a share of the UK national debt and liabilities is also highly uncertain.
Moreover Scotland is an open economy and is highly dependent on international trade at around 58% of GDP. This is above the 35% for the UK as a whole. Scotland is particularly dependent on trade with the Rest of the UK (RUK), and currently benefits from being in the UK Single Market and Customs Union, hence facing neither tariff nor non-tariff barriers, and sharing the UK common currency. 60% of Scotland’s exports and 67% of its imports are to and from the rest of the UK (RUK), while 19% of Scottish exports were to the EU. Scotland’s trade with the rest of the UK is around four times larger than its EU trade.
Scottish independence is likely to create a new international border between Scotland and the rest of the UK and lead to higher trade costs and frictions, especially if Scotland decides to rejoin the EU.
I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.
As a committed Unionist the case is very clear - the referendum in 2014 was fought, in part, on a falsehood, that only by voting No would Scotland remain in the EU.
There is therefore an understandable bitterness that the 2016 referendum has resulted in Scotland leaving the EU. Another referendum would be a chance to settle the question of whether that was sufficient for voters to choose Independence or renew the mandate for the Union in the new circumstances created by Brexit.
I don't think the English living in England get the fundamental self-determination question. Scotland has been dragged out of something it voted to not be dragged out of, it has caused economic damage and the government is saying tough. Whats then worse is that the government is saying that it has the legal right to do whatever it likes in and to Scotland and that the Scottish people have no ability to do anything about it.
The union - in the sense of being a union of equals and not an annexation like NI and Wales are - is dead. That is why there must be another referendum. Everything has changed since 2014. Literally everything.
I would prefer a new constitutional settlement to create a federation that is fit for the future. But as we aren't going to get that Scotland and NI and potentially Wales are going to get a divorce.
So there must be another referendum even if there isn't a clear majority who want one? Scots are being oppressed whether they realise it or not.
If people elect a majority of MSPs on a manifesto of independence that is the literal definition of wanting one. We have a representative democracy not one based on opinion polls or even national vote tallies in elections - all that counts is who gets elected.
If I vote SNP or Green or Alba tomorrow I vote for an independence referendum. It is explicit in their manifestos. I won't vote for them, but more of their MSPs will get elected than those opposed to independence. It is - to retread the Brexit line - the will of the people.
It is a reserved power. The UK government has every right to say you had a referendum just seven years ago. By your logic every time there is a majority for independent parties they should be allowed to hold another referendum. Leaving the EU may represent a substantial change but I still don't see the case for another referendum unless there is overwhelming support for it. It doesn't appear that there is.
Yes every time there's a majority for a party, that party gets to implement its manifesto. That's called democracy.
If the Scottish voters don't want that manifesto, they can elect a different party instead.
There is a way to tell if there is a "case for another referendum" or not, and that is whether those pledging one win a majority at an election or not.
So they are allowed "one referendum" per parliament? Or can they have one every two years? Every month?
What are the rules? There aren't any. Your pulling it your ass.
The power to approve referendums is reserved to Westminster for a reason, no state can withstand the constitutional and economic chaos of endless referendums threatening to break up the country - and plunging everyone - not just Scotland - into deep recession and a decade of bitter arguments.
It is commonly accepted that grave constitutional matters - and it doesn't get bigger than shattering the UK - should be addressed by very rare referendums. We had two EU votes in forty-odd years.
The rules are that elected governments decide what they're going to do, which they put to the voters at elections. If a government chooses to have two referenda in a Parliament I wouldn't support that if they didn't have that in their manifesto, but if they're the elected government that's their choice. If the voters don't like it, they should elect a different government.
As for "commonly accepted" it should be rare - by whom?
As for the example of having only two referenda on the EU in forty-odd years, many would argue (including me) that in hindsight that was a terrible, terrible mistake. Had we followed the Irish path of having a referendum every step of the way - on the Single European Act, Maastricht Treaty, Nice, Lisbon etc - then things might have gone better than letting it all boil until an explosive vote to terminate the union instead.
Yes, we should have had referendums at earlier stages of our EU membership, thus avoiding the eruption of Brexit
Yes, 40 years is too long to wait for a 2nd referendum, a generation is about right (as Nicola said) = 15-20 years
Quebec waited 15 years for its 2nd vote
Roll on Sindyref2 in about 2030?
I actually think that's roughly when it will happen. 2030
Politico.com - Trump still blocked from Facebook — for now "Within six months of this decision, Facebook must reexamine the arbitrary penalty it imposed on January 7," the company's oversight board said.
Former President Donald Trump’s Facebook account should remain suspended for the time being, the company’s oversight board announced Wednesday — agreeing that his rhetoric had created "a serious risk of violence" but saying the social network had been "arbitrary" in ousting him indefinitely.
"Within six months of this decision, Facebook must reexamine the arbitrary penalty it imposed on January 7 and decide the appropriate penalty," the board said in its ruling.
Not sure how one decides he created a serious risk of violence but that permanent banning is arbitrary. If the former is true then anything else but a permanent ban is just silly.
Think Facebook is kicking the can forward but leaving the door ajar (or is it the other way around?) trying to avoid antagonizing the MAGA hordes, who my guess are at least as addicted to FB as their progressive opposite numbers. Probably more so.
Twitter are in a real bind as to what they do with Trump. For some reason, their recent numbers are miles down on last year...
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
Ok, but we had @rcs1000 say the other day that all his kids friends identify as non-binary. So does one of my colleagues daughters and her friends (she's 17) so may there's a difference between Gen Z and Y?
I have several friends who are 18, they don't "identify" as anything, some are gay, some aren't. It has never, ever come up in conversation.
My view is that you spend too much time on Twitter.
While we're on the topic of (perjorative) terms, I was surprised in a team lunch a couple of years back when a PhD student was talking about a bit of a faux pas in a public presentation (she asked a question which demonstrated she didn't understand something - "why did you do A not B" when A and B are actually the same thing by different names) and said that it had made her feel "a bit of a nonce".
Bemused looks from all of us over 30 or so round the table, then one of us did the "I don't think that word means what you think it means" thing. She understood it as a synonym for idiot, whereas we were all thinking 'not on normal courtyard exercises' (e.g. convicted sex offender). Her friends of a similar age (early 20s) generally had the same understanding as she did.
On topic, the most interesting thing on Thursday will be whether the LDs do better in the locals than their projected net loss, especially in the Home Counties on a NIMBY platform.
The Tories will likely make a net gain in the district elections, or at least largely tread water but see a net loss to Labour in the county council elections
I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.
As a committed Unionist the case is very clear - the referendum in 2014 was fought, in part, on a falsehood, that only by voting No would Scotland remain in the EU.
There is therefore an understandable bitterness that the 2016 referendum has resulted in Scotland leaving the EU. Another referendum would be a chance to settle the question of whether that was sufficient for voters to choose Independence or renew the mandate for the Union in the new circumstances created by Brexit.
I don't think the English living in England get the fundamental self-determination question. Scotland has been dragged out of something it voted to not be dragged out of, it has caused economic damage and the government is saying tough. Whats then worse is that the government is saying that it has the legal right to do whatever it likes in and to Scotland and that the Scottish people have no ability to do anything about it.
The union - in the sense of being a union of equals and not an annexation like NI and Wales are - is dead. That is why there must be another referendum. Everything has changed since 2014. Literally everything.
I would prefer a new constitutional settlement to create a federation that is fit for the future. But as we aren't going to get that Scotland and NI and potentially Wales are going to get a divorce.
So there must be another referendum even if there isn't a clear majority who want one? Scots are being oppressed whether they realise it or not.
If people elect a majority of MSPs on a manifesto of independence that is the literal definition of wanting one. We have a representative democracy not one based on opinion polls or even national vote tallies in elections - all that counts is who gets elected.
If I vote SNP or Green or Alba tomorrow I vote for an independence referendum. It is explicit in their manifestos. I won't vote for them, but more of their MSPs will get elected than those opposed to independence. It is - to retread the Brexit line - the will of the people.
It is a reserved power. The UK government has every right to say you had a referendum just seven years ago. By your logic every time there is a majority for independent parties they should be allowed to hold another referendum. Leaving the EU may represent a substantial change but I still don't see the case for another referendum unless there is overwhelming support for it. It doesn't appear that there is.
Yes every time there's a majority for a party, that party gets to implement its manifesto. That's called democracy.
If the Scottish voters don't want that manifesto, they can elect a different party instead.
There is a way to tell if there is a "case for another referendum" or not, and that is whether those pledging one win a majority at an election or not.
So they are allowed "one referendum" per parliament? Or can they have one every two years? Every month?
What are the rules? There aren't any. Your pulling it your ass.
The power to approve referendums is reserved to Westminster for a reason, no state can withstand the constitutional and economic chaos of endless referendums threatening to break up the country - and plunging everyone - not just Scotland - into deep recession and a decade of bitter arguments.
It is commonly accepted that grave constitutional matters - and it doesn't get bigger than shattering the UK - should be addressed by very rare referendums. We had two EU votes in forty-odd years.
The rules are that elected governments decide what they're going to do, which they put to the voters at elections. If a government chooses to have two referenda in a Parliament I wouldn't support that if they didn't have that in their manifesto, but if they're the elected government that's their choice. If the voters don't like it, they should elect a different government.
As for "commonly accepted" it should be rare - by whom?
As for the example of having only two referenda on the EU in forty-odd years, many would argue (including me) that in hindsight that was a terrible, terrible mistake. Had we followed the Irish path of having a referendum every step of the way - on the Single European Act, Maastricht Treaty, Nice, Lisbon etc - then things might have gone better than letting it all boil until an explosive vote to terminate the union instead.
Yes, we should have had referendums at earlier stages of our EU membership, thus avoiding the eruption of Brexit
Yes, 40 years is too long to wait for a 2nd referendum, a generation is about right (as Nicola said) = 15-20 years
Quebec waited 15 years for its 2nd vote
Roll on Sindyref2 in about 2030?
I actually think that's roughly when it will happen. 2030
By 2030 we would also likely have a Labour government, even if they lose again in 2024 they would likely win in 2029.
A Labour government would be more likely to grant a legal indyref2 with devomax as a carrot
@squareroot2 I use "Ms X" in every professional correspondence with a woman who has not first indicated otherwise because I have no idea if they're married or not. Just seems more appropriate, and also seems weird that a woman would be defined by their marital status in any case.
I believe Mademoiselle is seen as antiquated in France also, for the same reason.
An advantage for using first names instead of surnames unless you have a good reason not to.
Can't go wrong with calling someone "Jane" instead of "Miss Smith", "Mrs Smith" or "Ms. Smith" then.
Except some people dont like strangers referring to them by first name, especially in formal communications or first meeting.
An old fashioned view, to be sure, but you can in fact go wrong. See also using a diminutive they do not like.
If it's an email and I'm uncertain I might just open with Hello, and see how they sign off a response.
I definitely don't like a cold caller ringing me and calling me by my first name. That is over-familiar.
I get most cross with sleazy young estate agents calling me by my first name without asking first - 'it's Mr, actually'.
My first name is most unusual, and my surname could be a first name. I therefore sometimes get them reversed, with which I can cope, but I do get annoyed when people assume my second name, which has a commonly accepted diminutive, is my first, and the diminutive is used by 'sleazy young estate agents' or similar.
Mr. Leon, I remember reading (I think it was Cicero praising Caesar's literary talents, although I could be wrong) that the best way to use vocabulary is to use words your audience knows but rarely uses. That way they understand everything you're saying and think you're smart (and it makes them feel clever too)..
If you use words others don't understand deliberately it makes you sound compunctuous.
A perspicacious view.
I make allowances for everyone to have a few obscure words that they enjoy. An author used contumacious quite a bit in something I read recently.
Looking at this discussion from the eve of my 83rd birthday it seems weird. Even for someone who prides himself...... fall unquestionably coming ........on being of the lefty/progressive/liberal wing of society. And much of the previous thread, some of which I've flicked through does, too. I really can't imagine my younger self, 60+ years ago being prepared to even consider a relationship with another boy. Mates, yes, fight for each other..... as well as sometimes with ...... yes, but sexual relations of any sort were for having with girls. And, so far as I ever knew the reverse applied. Admittedly one of my 'friends' did make a pass at me once but he got thumped and forever after 'kept well away from'. Male homosexual practices were illegal then, of course, and bored coppers would sometimes hang around public toilets to see if they could catch, and frequently ruin, some poor sod.
Am getting ahead of the curve - Happy Birthday OldKingCole!
Without wishing to be all holier than thou, the use of the word 'gay' in a pejorative sense (i.e. virtually always) remains a significant source of bullying in many schools because of the effect it has on its recipients. The recipients of the label are either a) gay boys, b) boys who are 'effeminate' or even just sensitive/not macho, and c) boys who are excessively studious, also known as boffins. The impact it can have on all three groups is not insignificant, and it's undoubtedly used in a homophobic way, whether or not the target is gay. The female equivalent (used largely, but not solely, by boys) is 'lez'.
Good schools have driven out this form of bullying, weaker schools haven't.
Went to the gym this morning and in the male changing room afterwards someone, a sports coach, not a gym staff member, remarked quite casually that most of the senior local women's football team were lesbians. And this was received without comment by the half-dozen or so mostly middle-aged men present.
Is that code for "I asked them out and they said no... must be lesbians"?
Doubt it; I don't know him that well, but I see him about with wife and family.
Under full fiscal autonomy or independence, the deficit would be the Scottish government’s responsibility and there will be a loss of risk sharing with the rest of the UK. While Scotland could benefit from tax revenues from North Sea oil reserves, these are likely to be a less predictable source of revenue compared to transfers from the British Treasury. An independent Scotland is likely to inherit a large hole in its public finances and significant tax rises or spending cuts would be needed to reduce the deficit. The Covid-19 pandemic, falling oil prices and Brexit have made transitioning to stable public finances even more challenging for Scotland, compared to 2014.
Scotland would need credible macroeconomic policies in order to attract investors to finance its deficit. The question of how an independent Scotland would negotiate a share of the UK national debt and liabilities is also highly uncertain.
Moreover Scotland is an open economy and is highly dependent on international trade at around 58% of GDP. This is above the 35% for the UK as a whole. Scotland is particularly dependent on trade with the Rest of the UK (RUK), and currently benefits from being in the UK Single Market and Customs Union, hence facing neither tariff nor non-tariff barriers, and sharing the UK common currency. 60% of Scotland’s exports and 67% of its imports are to and from the rest of the UK (RUK), while 19% of Scottish exports were to the EU. Scotland’s trade with the rest of the UK is around four times larger than its EU trade.
Scottish independence is likely to create a new international border between Scotland and the rest of the UK and lead to higher trade costs and frictions, especially if Scotland decides to rejoin the EU.
Comments
Reddit is the obvious natural progression to usenet but it doesnt really work as well. At least on usenet there would be a respectable couple of dozen or so posts before the nazi comparison was drawn, reddit political discussions usually the third response.
Edited extra bit: anyway, I must be off. Play nicely, my fellow attack helicopters.
Or, let me put it another way, if the EU referendum had been for Remain, and then ukip had won the next UK election on a manifesto promise to hold another referendum, what possible grounds would there be for withholding it?
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/huddle/2021/05/05/mccarthy-launches-campaign-to-replace-cheney-492738
. . . The vote on Rep. Liz Cheney’s future in leadership has rocketed forward, and few House Republicans are ready to throw her a life jacket — at least not publicly. Another sign of how this is heading: I’m told Cheney (R-Wyo.) is not making calls to try to whip votes in her favor.
In fact, the conversation quickly skipped from the possibility of an official vote to it becoming all but inevitable. And members of the conference have already identified a likely successor to replace her: Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who was sending messages to colleagues along the lines of “if the conference chair becomes open, can I count on your support?”
Here are key factions to watch as the GOP barrels towards reshuffling their leadership lineup.
-GOP Leadership: Cheney has become Tom Hanks in Cast Away – on an island of her own. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is openly campaigning against his deputy both on and off-air, effectively green-lighting a vote to remove her, which could occur as early as next week. Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) showed he is not only in Splitsville with Cheney as well, but he is publicly advocating for Stefanik to take her place. . . .
-House Freedom Caucus: You better bet the pro-Trump House Freedom Caucus is on board with booting Cheney. But are they okay with Stefanik taking Cheney’s place? Stefanik, once a moderate, has turned more conservative and pro-Trump as her district has shifted more red. But her lifetime conservative scorecard, per Heritage, is quite a bit lower than Cheney’s. . . .
-House Impeachment Republicans: Your Huddle host has learned that some House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump on Jan. 6 have been frustrated by Cheney’s persistent remarks – and fielding questions about them – including Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.). . . .
-GOP Women: Republican women are not all on the same page. While some of the women who are longtime House GOP members appear to lean towards supporting Cheney, there is a group of freshmen Republican women who are very loyal to Stefanik after her PAC became involved in races this past cycle. Stefanik’s PAC helped 18 freshmen women who won in 2020. Quite a few of those women represent swing districts and Cheney’s messaging prompts unwelcome questions for them back home.
Your Huddle host is also keeping an eye out to see if some of Cheney’s fellow defense hawks and allies on the House Armed Services Committee stand by her.
-The question is: What message does this send outside the beltway?. . . .
I really am an 80s kid in so many ways. The vulgarity and narcissism. But also an energy. And Thatcherism. And a certain callousness. And a giddy eagerness for novelty tending to excess. That's the 80s, that's what made me
May sound far fetched. However, NOT as much as Paula Vennells receiving her CBE "for services to the Post Office and to charity"!
BTW, should not THAT particular honor be rescinded?
IIRC some soldiers who received the Victoria Cross had it taken away, for stealing an umbrella or annoying young ladies in train carriages, or suchlike? AND they actually preformed the services for which they were given their VCs in the first place!
A rare one might be Cllr Brigadier etc, but going by past rank seems to be out of fashion.
There are a few Councillors who have been Peers though, so Cllr Baroness or Cllr Baron.
Speak, Memory
The voters are allowed to change their minds. And if holding constant referendum is unpopular, the voters will punish the party that engages in it.
And much of the previous thread, some of which I've flicked through does, too.
I really can't imagine my younger self, 60+ years ago being prepared to even consider a relationship with another boy. Mates, yes, fight for each other..... as well as sometimes with ...... yes, but sexual relations of any sort were for having with girls.
And, so far as I ever knew the reverse applied.
Admittedly one of my 'friends' did make a pass at me once but he got thumped and forever after 'kept well away from'.
Male homosexual practices were illegal then, of course, and bored coppers would sometimes hang around public toilets to see if they could catch, and frequently ruin, some poor sod.
It comes after regulators warned people to stop using the machines if they have children or pets.
https://news.sky.com/story/peloton-recalls-treadmills-after-injuries-and-child-death-12297597
Everyone knows this.
My impression was that gay meaning naff comes not directly from homosexuality being naff but from stereotypically gay things - musicals, lightweight 80s pop, bright heavily patterned shirts, etc. - being a bit naff.
I don't think calling something 'of a similar quality to a musical, lightweight 80s pop or a bright heavily patterned shirt' is homophobic - but the sterotyping of homosexuals liking those things probably is.
What Credit Suisse thinks of Scottish independence..
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1389956135218782212
The breakaway in darts saved the sport (yes, I know some say it’s not a sport).
gaywoke). Their bikes look fine, the treadmill always looked ropey to me.My next fitness equipment purchase is probably going to be a curved assault runner and hook it up to zwift.
1. If the people of Scotland elect a clear majority of MSPs on a platform of independence. That is the expressed will of the Scottish people. A thumping majority elected for independence is "overwhelming support"
2. Yes it is a reserved power. If the UK government says no then it is no longer about the referendum it is about democracy
3. If "no, you had a referendum 7 years ago" is the answer from the UK government, then Scotland no longer has the right to self-determination. It has become a colony of England. Which will only accelerate the move to independence.
But what IF you tick all three boxes?
"I rise to commend the remarks of the noble, learned and gallant Member for West Wokeshire West on behalf of free bus passes for honourably discharged BAME batsmen . . ."
Can't go wrong with calling someone "Jane" instead of "Miss Smith", "Mrs Smith" or "Ms. Smith" then.
My conservations last year (privately, on a 1:1 basis with black colleagues and peers of mind) convinced me this was not the case. Having said that their experiences were varied, distinctive and personal and each of their views uniquely nuanced. They also weren't necessarily what you'd think, but in all cases their views were moderate and reasonable.
That's quite a separate thing from my very strong objections to re-racialising language, iconoclasm, marxist interpretations of Western histroy, and critical race theory which I remain strongly critical of (and so did a couple of them), and I will continue to call out as I see it.
I think it's important to remember that two things can be true at the same time, and it's important to take both views into account.
It seems almost walk over territory
eg one Brexit vote destabilised the EU, and if we had constant Brexit votes the Europeans would rightly get very fucking annoyed. It is not mature political behaviour. It is not done
This is even more true of Scexit, which - if it ever happened - would ravage the UK economy, menace our foreign policy, endanger our fiscal position, and immure us in many years of wretched and painful divorce
Scotland cannot be allowed to level that pistol at the UK every few years, no matter what government is returned to Holyrood.
The UKG has to decide on any referendum in the best interest of the UK as a whole (including Scotland), right now, the answer is No. If a Scottish government wishes to overturn this, they can go to the courts, or declare UDI as Salmond wants. Then the voters will punish them
fatbody positive plus size lady sings.Our granddaughter-in-law has hyphenated her name to be Mrs Smith-Jones*. However, her husband, our grandson is plain Mr Jones*.
What they would do if they ever went anywhere where the were 'intoduced' I'm not sure.
*Names changed to protect the guilty.
An old fashioned view, to be sure, but you can in fact go wrong. See also using a diminutive they do not like.
If it's an email and I'm uncertain I might just open with Hello, and see how they sign off a response.
Under full fiscal autonomy or independence, the deficit would be the Scottish government’s responsibility and there will be a loss of risk sharing with the rest of the UK. While Scotland could benefit from tax revenues from North Sea oil reserves, these are likely to be a less predictable source of revenue compared to transfers from the British Treasury. An independent Scotland is likely to inherit a large hole in its public finances and significant tax rises or spending cuts would be needed to reduce the deficit. The Covid-19 pandemic, falling oil prices and Brexit have made transitioning to stable public finances even more challenging for Scotland, compared to 2014.
Scotland would need credible macroeconomic policies in order to attract investors to finance its deficit. The question of how an independent Scotland would negotiate a share of the UK national debt and liabilities is also highly uncertain.
Moreover Scotland is an open economy and is highly dependent on international trade at around 58% of GDP. This is above the 35% for the UK as a whole. Scotland is particularly dependent on trade with the Rest of the UK (RUK), and currently benefits from being in the UK Single Market and Customs Union, hence facing neither tariff nor non-tariff barriers, and sharing the UK common currency. 60% of Scotland’s exports and 67% of its imports are to and from the rest of the UK (RUK), while 19% of Scottish exports were to the EU. Scotland’s trade with the rest of the UK is around four times larger than its EU trade.
Scottish independence is likely to create a new international border between Scotland and the rest of the UK and lead to higher trade costs and frictions, especially if Scotland decides to rejoin the EU.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jxblB64irtrrxqlY6d9KdFU0fEe7gvwA/view
Good schools have driven out this form of bullying, weaker schools haven't.
As for "commonly accepted" it should be rare - by whom?
As for the example of having only two referenda on the EU in forty-odd years, many would argue (including me) that in hindsight that was a terrible, terrible mistake. Had we followed the Irish path of having a referendum every step of the way - on the Single European Act, Maastricht Treaty, Nice, Lisbon etc - then things might have gone better than letting it all boil until an explosive vote to terminate the union instead.
Westminster may occasionally decide to listen to a nationalist majority in the subsidiary Holyrood Parliament, as it did in 2014 and allow an independence referendum but it does not have to and in any case the 2014 referendum was only held not only on the basis of an SNP Holyrood majority but that it would be a once in a generation vote. Scottish polling is also clear most Scots do not want an indyref2 for at least 5 years and despite Brexit Yes remains under 50% including undecideds.
The Spanish government has refused the Catalan nationalist government even 1 independence referendum and 4 years after the Catalans held an illegal referendum on independence Madrid ignored and then declared UDI, which Madrid also correctly ignored, Catalonia remains part of Spain
Is it not a principle of English (and Scots?) law, that a contract engineered by fraud and deceit is NOT legally binding? Or something like that?
Just saying.
And this was received without comment by the half-dozen or so mostly middle-aged men present.
The only leader who might have done slightly better was Heseltine but he would also have leaked even more votes to the Referendum Party
To use a medical analogy, if you have life-threatening surgery which it turns out did not resolve the issue (say cancer removal), you don't forego future life-threatening surgeries for x years just because so. You assess whether a second life-threatening surgery is worth the risks and, if so, when and under what conditions.
So, you don't do these things willy-nilly, but neither should you have hard and fast rules - circumstances should dictate what is appropriate - in this case the results of elections based on manifestos.
Yes, 40 years is too long to wait for a 2nd referendum, a generation is about right (as Nicola said) = 15-20 years
Quebec waited 15 years for its 2nd vote
Roll on Sindyref2 in about 2030?
I actually think that's roughly when it will happen. 2030
My view is that you spend too much time on Twitter.
Bemused looks from all of us over 30 or so round the table, then one of us did the "I don't think that word means what you think it means" thing. She understood it as a synonym for idiot, whereas we were all thinking 'not on normal courtyard exercises' (e.g. convicted sex offender). Her friends of a similar age (early 20s) generally had the same understanding as she did.
The Tories will likely make a net gain in the district elections, or at least largely tread water but see a net loss to Labour in the county council elections
Trump attorney, other allies launch voter fraud organization
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/05/trump-election-integrity-organization-485399
A Labour government would be more likely to grant a legal indyref2 with devomax as a carrot
I make allowances for everyone to have a few obscure words that they enjoy. An author used contumacious quite a bit in something I read recently.
Clouds as black as the Devil's Arse. Hail, rain and storms. 10C, and a bitter wind
May 5th