Looks like my tip a couple of days ago on James Geoghegan (FG) to win the Dublin Bay South by-election is not going to go down as one of the smartest in PB history...
FG can't win but my analysis did not get beyond almost anyone else could. Having to guess STV transfers adds a whole new horror to by-election betting. The Polling Station video tipped Ivana and Labour iirc, who looks like winning.
Big result for Labour. Been nearly a decade. Utterly dismal for FF, in admittedly unfriendly territory.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
when the UK government increases spending which doesn't affect a devolved nation, that devolved nation receives money, equivalent to its population share, back to spend itself. This is the case with HS2 and Scotland which means that, in effect, all money spent on HS2 which is raised by Scottish taxes will be returned via something called the Barnett formula.
Thanks for that - wasn't sure of the situation there.
She is talking bollox Carnyx, they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
It's not "me" it's the Scottish Government and FullFact, but you're the chap who believes there's a vault in the Bank of England with "Scotland's Pension Contributions" in it......
I already posted the relevant part in that they have no clue how much we paid and many ( ie expensive ) projects are excluded from Barnett. As to your other point more lies , I believe the UK pension liabilities lie with the Westminster government and their central bank. You think they can welch on their responsibilities , surprise surprise. How many contracts did you get.
There are no pensions liabilities. They all come out of the current account.
They are still liabilities. If you have to pay something and pay it cash , just because it does not come out of your bank account does not mean you do not have to pay it. You can try to spin it any way you like but the UK has liability to pay citizens who contributed to state pensions, regardless of where they reside. Hence why people all over the world receive state pensions from UK.
Yes and Scotland is part of the UK.
If Scotland goes independent then Scotland will need to resolve that.
The UK is not just some "other" you can dump your liabilities on while continuing to claim benefits from.
The UK as part of the negotiations will resolve it as part of sharing out all the assets and liabilities etc. You F***ing halfwits cannot seem to grasp that a corrupt Westminster bunch of arseholes can just welch on their liabilities.
The UK will be on both sides of the table.
Much as I love Scotland, it'll be a very small stool that they will sit on.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
So nothing different wrt infrastructure spending in Scotland then, or any other part of the country.
So the fact that the Scottish Government had to fully fund the Forth Crossing was just the same then.
And the fifth Forth vehicular crossing (not chronologically) - you will recognise the name of the engineer... but rather mean to make the human self-loading cargo get off for the crossing. Cattle had a more luxurious time.
Bouch designed a rail crossing for the Forth too and I believe work had started on it when his Tay bridge collapsed, and his spindly looking design was abandoned, replaced by the superbly over-engineered thing of beauty that was put up in its place. A bridge that is designed to state unambiguously to all who see it, I will not get blown down in a gale.*
* actually the first Tay Bridge may have been hit by a derailing train I think, but blown down in a gale is how it's remembered.
Quite. They weren't messing around when they built the Forth Bridge. The Bouch design is terrifying ... rather nice pic here, C19 vapourware.
Peter Lewis has written an interesting book - in short reckons that the Tay Bridge was so mickey mouse in design and execution it was rattling itself to bits, and bits falling off, every time a train ran along it, especially when the train met the kink where they dropped and bent a girder when erecting it (!). The accounts of quality control, or lack of, by the fabricator are terrifying.
PS Friday afternoon, so I add some nice photos (though i have to get back to work) - amaxing how the time exposure blanks out the waves:
I've a large book containing photos of the Forth Bridge's construction. Let's just say that the health and safety bods nowadays would have a little bit of a heart attack ...
My favourite is a man sitting at the end of a scaffold board, the other end of which is attached to one of the girders. No safety harness, no hard hat. Or the ones of people working in the caissons, digging out the seabed. Compressed-air working is scarier than heights.
Is that The Briggers by Elspeth Wills? It's a great book. 73 men died building it.
It is no surprise Southgate is more popular than Churchill.
Churchill was a fascist (keeping people under dominion of the UK against their will is fascism.)
Churchill was an Imperialist and quite definitely not a Fascist.
The fact that you can't detect the difference suggests that your terrible taste in clothes has caused structural damage - Long Fashion?
Imperialism is fascism.
Forcible suppression of opponents is a key characteristic of fascism, look at all the arrests of Indian independence figures.
Churchill had promised India dominion status after the war but of course that fell short of independence.
The time for the former was post WW1 not WW2. India might still be a Commonwealth realm today, and you could enjoy toasting the Queen across the subcontinent.
Possibly though the reason I think Canada, Australia and New Zealand are the only non UK nations of any significant size which still have the Queen as Head of State is most of their population have ancestors who originally came from the British Isles.
That does not apply to India
I'm mildly surprised that J❤️cinda hasn't held a referendum on becoming a republic. She's probably got enough popularity and political heft to get it done at the moment. Perhaps, like Australia, they are waiting for Brenda to drop off the twig.
I think the Aussies are waiting for a year of King Charles III.
George VII please.
Why not Henry IX ?
He prefers George, and previous users of the King Charles name have had something of an unfortunate press.
Charles II gets an unfairly bad press. England made huge strides towards becoming a world power in his reign, helped by methods of government funding developed during the Civil War and Commonwealth. His main fault was not to provide a legitimate male heir.
Considering the fates of his immediate royal predecessor and successor, simply avoiding that counts as an achievement, albeit aided by time and luck.
they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
You clearly haven't been here long enough to know that the size of the chip on malcomg's shoulder is roughly the same size and weight of the stone of scone.
Don't worry, I well know what malcolmmg is like. I don't expect him to actually respond to what should, after all, be a very simple question - if the claims he's making are true. However, the risk that neutrals start to believe a claim repeated without challenge - and the prospect of getting something as good as the "the UK government will pay my pension" claim if he does respond - made it worthwhile.
Looks like my tip a couple of days ago on James Geoghegan (FG) to win the Dublin Bay South by-election is not going to go down as one of the smartest in PB history...
FG can't win but my analysis did not get beyond almost anyone else could. Having to guess STV transfers adds a whole new horror to by-election betting. The Polling Station video tipped Ivana and Labour iirc, who looks like winning.
Big result for Labour. Been nearly a decade. Utterly dismal for FF, in admittedly unfriendly territory.
It shouldn't be all that unfriendly to FF - they won one of the four seats in 2020 and in 2016.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
when the UK government increases spending which doesn't affect a devolved nation, that devolved nation receives money, equivalent to its population share, back to spend itself. This is the case with HS2 and Scotland which means that, in effect, all money spent on HS2 which is raised by Scottish taxes will be returned via something called the Barnett formula.
Thanks for that - wasn't sure of the situation there.
She is talking bollox Carnyx, they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
It's not "me" it's the Scottish Government and FullFact, but you're the chap who believes there's a vault in the Bank of England with "Scotland's Pension Contributions" in it......
I already posted the relevant part in that they have no clue how much we paid and many ( ie expensive ) projects are excluded from Barnett. As to your other point more lies , I believe the UK pension liabilities lie with the Westminster government and their central bank. You think they can welch on their responsibilities , surprise surprise. How many contracts did you get.
There are no pensions liabilities. They all come out of the current account.
They are still liabilities. If you have to pay something and pay it cash , just because it does not come out of your bank account does not mean you do not have to pay it. You can try to spin it any way you like but the UK has liability to pay citizens who contributed to state pensions, regardless of where they reside. Hence why people all over the world receive state pensions from UK.
Yes and Scotland is part of the UK.
If Scotland goes independent then Scotland will need to resolve that.
The UK is not just some "other" you can dump your liabilities on while continuing to claim benefits from.
The UK as part of the negotiations will resolve it as part of sharing out all the assets and liabilities etc. You F***ing halfwits cannot seem to grasp that a corrupt Westminster bunch of arseholes can just welch on their liabilities.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
So nothing different wrt infrastructure spending in Scotland then, or any other part of the country.
So the fact that the Scottish Government had to fully fund the Forth Crossing was just the same then.
And the fifth Forth vehicular crossing (not chronologically) - you will recognise the name of the engineer... but rather mean to make the human self-loading cargo get off for the crossing. Cattle had a more luxurious time.
Bouch designed a rail crossing for the Forth too and I believe work had started on it when his Tay bridge collapsed, and his spindly looking design was abandoned, replaced by the superbly over-engineered thing of beauty that was put up in its place. A bridge that is designed to state unambiguously to all who see it, I will not get blown down in a gale.*
* actually the first Tay Bridge may have been hit by a derailing train I think, but blown down in a gale is how it's remembered.
Quite. They weren't messing around when they built the Forth Bridge. The Bouch design is terrifying ... rather nice pic here, C19 vapourware.
Peter Lewis has written an interesting book - in short reckons that the Tay Bridge was so mickey mouse in design and execution it was rattling itself to bits, and bits falling off, every time a train ran along it, especially when the train met the kink where they dropped and bent a girder when erecting it (!). The accounts of quality control, or lack of, by the fabricator are terrifying.
PS Friday afternoon, so I add some nice photos (though i have to get back to work) - amaxing how the time exposure blanks out the waves:
I've a large book containing photos of the Forth Bridge's construction. Let's just say that the health and safety bods nowadays would have a little bit of a heart attack ...
My favourite is a man sitting at the end of a scaffold board, the other end of which is attached to one of the girders. No safety harness, no hard hat. Or the ones of people working in the caissons, digging out the seabed. Compressed-air working is scarier than heights.
Is that The Briggers by Elspeth Wills? It's a great book. 73 men died building it.
73 men died building a book?
I know parchment is made from skin, but 73 men skinned for a 144 page book still seems excessive.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
So nothing different wrt infrastructure spending in Scotland then, or any other part of the country.
So the fact that the Scottish Government had to fully fund the Forth Crossing was just the same then.
And the fifth Forth vehicular crossing (not chronologically) - you will recognise the name of the engineer... but rather mean to make the human self-loading cargo get off for the crossing. Cattle had a more luxurious time.
Bouch designed a rail crossing for the Forth too and I believe work had started on it when his Tay bridge collapsed, and his spindly looking design was abandoned, replaced by the superbly over-engineered thing of beauty that was put up in its place. A bridge that is designed to state unambiguously to all who see it, I will not get blown down in a gale.*
* actually the first Tay Bridge may have been hit by a derailing train I think, but blown down in a gale is how it's remembered.
Quite. They weren't messing around when they built the Forth Bridge. The Bouch design is terrifying ... rather nice pic here, C19 vapourware.
Peter Lewis has written an interesting book - in short reckons that the Tay Bridge was so mickey mouse in design and execution it was rattling itself to bits, and bits falling off, every time a train ran along it, especially when the train met the kink where they dropped and bent a girder when erecting it (!). The accounts of quality control, or lack of, by the fabricator are terrifying.
PS Friday afternoon, so I add some nice photos (though i have to get back to work) - amaxing how the time exposure blanks out the waves:
I've a large book containing photos of the Forth Bridge's construction. Let's just say that the health and safety bods nowadays would have a little bit of a heart attack ...
My favourite is a man sitting at the end of a scaffold board, the other end of which is attached to one of the girders. No safety harness, no hard hat. Or the ones of people working in the caissons, digging out the seabed. Compressed-air working is scarier than heights.
Is that The Briggers by Elspeth Wills? It's a great book. 73 men died building it.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
when the UK government increases spending which doesn't affect a devolved nation, that devolved nation receives money, equivalent to its population share, back to spend itself. This is the case with HS2 and Scotland which means that, in effect, all money spent on HS2 which is raised by Scottish taxes will be returned via something called the Barnett formula.
Thanks for that - wasn't sure of the situation there.
She is talking bollox Carnyx, they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
It's not "me" it's the Scottish Government and FullFact, but you're the chap who believes there's a vault in the Bank of England with "Scotland's Pension Contributions" in it......
I already posted the relevant part in that they have no clue how much we paid and many ( ie expensive ) projects are excluded from Barnett. As to your other point more lies , I believe the UK pension liabilities lie with the Westminster government and their central bank. You think they can welch on their responsibilities , surprise surprise. How many contracts did you get.
There are no pensions liabilities. They all come out of the current account.
They are still liabilities. If you have to pay something and pay it cash , just because it does not come out of your bank account does not mean you do not have to pay it. You can try to spin it any way you like but the UK has liability to pay citizens who contributed to state pensions, regardless of where they reside. Hence why people all over the world receive state pensions from UK.
They are liable for pensions due at this moment, and not to citizens of a foreign country.
And any rUK government that tried to pay them would be voted out at the next election....
Hmm...DWP position as stated in the run-up to the 2014 campaign.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
when the UK government increases spending which doesn't affect a devolved nation, that devolved nation receives money, equivalent to its population share, back to spend itself. This is the case with HS2 and Scotland which means that, in effect, all money spent on HS2 which is raised by Scottish taxes will be returned via something called the Barnett formula.
Thanks for that - wasn't sure of the situation there.
She is talking bollox Carnyx, they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
It's not "me" it's the Scottish Government and FullFact, but you're the chap who believes there's a vault in the Bank of England with "Scotland's Pension Contributions" in it......
I already posted the relevant part in that they have no clue how much we paid and many ( ie expensive ) projects are excluded from Barnett. As to your other point more lies , I believe the UK pension liabilities lie with the Westminster government and their central bank. You think they can welch on their responsibilities , surprise surprise. How many contracts did you get.
There are no pensions liabilities. They all come out of the current account.
They are still liabilities. If you have to pay something and pay it cash , just because it does not come out of your bank account does not mean you do not have to pay it. You can try to spin it any way you like but the UK has liability to pay citizens who contributed to state pensions, regardless of where they reside. Hence why people all over the world receive state pensions from UK.
Yes and Scotland is part of the UK.
If Scotland goes independent then Scotland will need to resolve that.
The UK is not just some "other" you can dump your liabilities on while continuing to claim benefits from.
The UK as part of the negotiations will resolve it as part of sharing out all the assets and liabilities etc. You F***ing halfwits cannot seem to grasp that a corrupt Westminster bunch of arseholes can just welch on their liabilities.
Oxygen shortages. Difficulties getting dead bodies out of hospitals. "The boat is sinking," says health ministry spokesperson.
It's looking awful in Tunisia:
R: 1.4; CFR: > 3% throughout 2021 so far; new cases: ~0.3% of population per week, and rising; vaccinated (1x, 2x): 12%, 5%.
Any country that has missed the brief respite window to do mass vaccination before being hit with the Indian variant is going to be in big trouble.
Obviously for many countries due to economics that missed window wasn't necessarily their fault.
I think given when we got the Indian variant, if we hadn't been already as far a long with vaccinations, we would be seeing another blood bath.
I did read an estimate from PHE that suggested last week, deaths would be c.500 a day without vaccination.
The US state with just about the lowest vaccination rate is Louisiana. Under 40% first dose.
There were two deaths in Louisiana yesterday.
In marginally less relevant stats, New Zealand has vaccinated under 16% of its population and had zero Covid deaths yesterday.
(On Louisiana, latest data I can see https://www.ldh.la.gov/coronavirus/ has 6 deaths and 789 cases. UK had 32.5k cases and 35 deaths. It's all nonsense/overly crude stats due to differet testing regimes, lags between cases and deaths etc etc, but 35/32.5k looks to me smaller than 6/789, around 1/7 of the ratio, in fact.)
Many moons ago, I did an analysis of UK Central Government spending on healthcare and pensions, to see the impact of demographic drag. As a total of government spending, the sum of both have inexorably risen:
I need to update the data, but it seems unlikely that they are under 50% of government spending today, and may be 51 or 52%.
This poses a fundamental challenge for any government: if total spending as a percent of GDP is held flat, that means that spending on all other things (defence, education, infrastructure, etc.) must fall to make up for the increasing number of oldies, *or* government spending as a percentage of GDP needs to keep rising, which means that works will be paying an increasing proportion of their incomes over to support their elders.
It's a challenge that governments have successively ducked, assuming that whoever followed them would deal with the issue next. And at some point it will have to be faced: an 8% rise in pensions, combined with the fact that the proportion of people of pensionable age keeps rising, would really blow a hole in the public finances.
they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
You clearly haven't been here long enough to know that the size of the chip on malcomg's shoulder is roughly the same size and weight of the stone of scone.
Don't worry, I well know what malcolmmg is like. I don't expect him to actually respond to what should, after all, be a very simple question - if the claims he's making are true. However, the risk that neutrals start to believe a claim repeated without challenge - and the prospect of getting something as good as the "the UK government will pay my pension" claim if he does respond - made it worthwhile.
But I do sense Malcolm would vote Sindy even if he knew he'd have to put his hand in.
Do we know what's happened to case numbers in Scotland, now that schools are out?
Edit to add: yes, we do.
The seven day moving average of cases in Scotland from 3,400 on July 2, to 2,999 today. And new cases were 2,802 yesterday, so that average is continuing to retreat.
Hmm...DWP position as stated in the run-up to the 2014 campaign.
That shows, correctly, that state pensions would still be paid in Scotland after independence. Of course they would, unless for some reason the Scottish government post-independence decided to renege on them, which is verging on unthinkable. Equally certainly, it would of course be up to Scottish taxpayers to foot the bill.
Do we know what's happened to case numbers in Scotland, now that schools are out?
Edit to add: yes, we do.
The seven day moving average of cases in Scotland from 3,400 on July 2, to 2,999 today. And new cases were 2,802 yesterday, so that average is continuing to retreat.
Looks like my tip a couple of days ago on James Geoghegan (FG) to win the Dublin Bay South by-election is not going to go down as one of the smartest in PB history...
FG can't win but my analysis did not get beyond almost anyone else could. Having to guess STV transfers adds a whole new horror to by-election betting. The Polling Station video tipped Ivana and Labour iirc, who looks like winning.
Big result for Labour. Been nearly a decade. Utterly dismal for FF, in admittedly unfriendly territory.
It shouldn't be all that unfriendly to FF - they won one of the four seats in 2020 and in 2016.
On 11.5 and 13.8% of first preferences. Elected third and then fourth. So, unfriendly in terms of not natural territory, and in likelihood of winning when only one candidate is elected. But, yes, they've fallen below 5%. So pretty dismal for the party of the Taoiseach.
As the last tweet in that thread says: We're headed for a scenario in which Democrats are vaccinated and Republicans aren't, and a lot of Fox viewers end up dead because they listened to the network instead of getting shots.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
So nothing different wrt infrastructure spending in Scotland then, or any other part of the country.
So the fact that the Scottish Government had to fully fund the Forth Crossing was just the same then.
And the fifth Forth vehicular crossing (not chronologically) - you will recognise the name of the engineer... but rather mean to make the human self-loading cargo get off for the crossing. Cattle had a more luxurious time.
Bouch designed a rail crossing for the Forth too and I believe work had started on it when his Tay bridge collapsed, and his spindly looking design was abandoned, replaced by the superbly over-engineered thing of beauty that was put up in its place. A bridge that is designed to state unambiguously to all who see it, I will not get blown down in a gale.*
* actually the first Tay Bridge may have been hit by a derailing train I think, but blown down in a gale is how it's remembered.
Quite. They weren't messing around when they built the Forth Bridge. The Bouch design is terrifying ... rather nice pic here, C19 vapourware.
Peter Lewis has written an interesting book - in short reckons that the Tay Bridge was so mickey mouse in design and execution it was rattling itself to bits, and bits falling off, every time a train ran along it, especially when the train met the kink where they dropped and bent a girder when erecting it (!). The accounts of quality control, or lack of, by the fabricator are terrifying.
PS Friday afternoon, so I add some nice photos (though i have to get back to work) - amaxing how the time exposure blanks out the waves:
I've a large book containing photos of the Forth Bridge's construction. Let's just say that the health and safety bods nowadays would have a little bit of a heart attack ...
My favourite is a man sitting at the end of a scaffold board, the other end of which is attached to one of the girders. No safety harness, no hard hat. Or the ones of people working in the caissons, digging out the seabed. Compressed-air working is scarier than heights.
Is that The Briggers by Elspeth Wills? It's a great book. 73 men died building it.
they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
It is no surprise Southgate is more popular than Churchill.
Churchill was a fascist (keeping people under dominion of the UK against their will is fascism.)
Churchill was an Imperialist and quite definitely not a Fascist.
The fact that you can't detect the difference suggests that your terrible taste in clothes has caused structural damage - Long Fashion?
Imperialism is fascism.
Forcible suppression of opponents is a key characteristic of fascism, look at all the arrests of Indian independence figures.
Churchill had promised India dominion status after the war but of course that fell short of independence.
The time for the former was post WW1 not WW2. India might still be a Commonwealth realm today, and you could enjoy toasting the Queen across the subcontinent.
Possibly though the reason I think Canada, Australia and New Zealand are the only non UK nations of any significant size which still have the Queen as Head of State is most of their population have ancestors who originally came from the British Isles.
That does not apply to India
I'm mildly surprised that J❤️cinda hasn't held a referendum on becoming a republic. She's probably got enough popularity and political heft to get it done at the moment. Perhaps, like Australia, they are waiting for Brenda to drop off the twig.
I think the Aussies are waiting for a year of King Charles III.
George VII please.
Why not Henry IX ?
He prefers George, and previous users of the King Charles name have had something of an unfortunate press.
Many moons ago, I did an analysis of UK Central Government spending on healthcare and pensions, to see the impact of demographic drag. As a total of government spending, the sum of both have inexorably risen:
I need to update the data, but it seems unlikely that they are under 50% of government spending today, and may be 51 or 52%.
This poses a fundamental challenge for any government: if total spending as a percent of GDP is held flat, that means that spending on all other things (defence, education, infrastructure, etc.) must fall to make up for the increasing number of oldies, *or* government spending as a percentage of GDP needs to keep rising, which means that works will be paying an increasing proportion of their incomes over to support their elders.
It's a challenge that governments have successively ducked, assuming that whoever followed them would deal with the issue next. And at some point it will have to be faced: an 8% rise in pensions, combined with the fact that the proportion of people of pensionable age keeps rising, would really blow a hole in the public finances.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
when the UK government increases spending which doesn't affect a devolved nation, that devolved nation receives money, equivalent to its population share, back to spend itself. This is the case with HS2 and Scotland which means that, in effect, all money spent on HS2 which is raised by Scottish taxes will be returned via something called the Barnett formula.
Thanks for that - wasn't sure of the situation there.
She is talking bollox Carnyx, they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
It's not "me" it's the Scottish Government and FullFact, but you're the chap who believes there's a vault in the Bank of England with "Scotland's Pension Contributions" in it......
I already posted the relevant part in that they have no clue how much we paid and many ( ie expensive ) projects are excluded from Barnett. As to your other point more lies , I believe the UK pension liabilities lie with the Westminster government and their central bank. You think they can welch on their responsibilities , surprise surprise. How many contracts did you get.
There are no pensions liabilities. They all come out of the current account.
They are still liabilities. If you have to pay something and pay it cash , just because it does not come out of your bank account does not mean you do not have to pay it. You can try to spin it any way you like but the UK has liability to pay citizens who contributed to state pensions, regardless of where they reside. Hence why people all over the world receive state pensions from UK.
Yes and Scotland is part of the UK.
If Scotland goes independent then Scotland will need to resolve that.
The UK is not just some "other" you can dump your liabilities on while continuing to claim benefits from.
The UK as part of the negotiations will resolve it as part of sharing out all the assets and liabilities etc. You F***ing halfwits cannot seem to grasp that a corrupt Westminster bunch of arseholes can just welch on their liabilities.
The UK will be on both sides of the table.
Much as I love Scotland, it'll be a very small stool that they will sit on.
Well I'd rather sit on a small stool than a big one.
Do we know what's happened to case numbers in Scotland, now that schools are out?
Edit to add: yes, we do.
The seven day moving average of cases in Scotland from 3,400 on July 2, to 2,999 today. And new cases were 2,802 yesterday, so that average is continuing to retreat.
As the last tweet in that thread says: We're headed for a scenario in which Democrats are vaccinated and Republicans aren't, and a lot of Fox viewers end up dead because they listened to the network instead of getting shots.
Oh well, stuff happens.
Fox News: Republican deaths increase due to Democrat plot.
As the last tweet in that thread says: We're headed for a scenario in which Democrats are vaccinated and Republicans aren't, and a lot of Fox viewers end up dead because they listened to the network instead of getting shots.
Oh well, stuff happens.
Fox News: Republican deaths increase due to Democrat plot.
Don't you mean -
Fox News: Real American Patriot deaths increase due to Democrat/Soros/Mexican/Muslim plot ?
Many moons ago, I did an analysis of UK Central Government spending on healthcare and pensions, to see the impact of demographic drag. As a total of government spending, the sum of both have inexorably risen:
I need to update the data, but it seems unlikely that they are under 50% of government spending today, and may be 51 or 52%.
This poses a fundamental challenge for any government: if total spending as a percent of GDP is held flat, that means that spending on all other things (defence, education, infrastructure, etc.) must fall to make up for the increasing number of oldies, *or* government spending as a percentage of GDP needs to keep rising, which means that works will be paying an increasing proportion of their incomes over to support their elders.
It's a challenge that governments have successively ducked, assuming that whoever followed them would deal with the issue next. And at some point it will have to be faced: an 8% rise in pensions, combined with the fact that the proportion of people of pensionable age keeps rising, would really blow a hole in the public finances.
Selective euthanasia is the answer.
iirc pensions are about £100 billion so an 8 per cent increase is easy to calculate.
Looks like my tip a couple of days ago on James Geoghegan (FG) to win the Dublin Bay South by-election is not going to go down as one of the smartest in PB history...
FG can't win but my analysis did not get beyond almost anyone else could. Having to guess STV transfers adds a whole new horror to by-election betting. The Polling Station video tipped Ivana and Labour iirc, who looks like winning.
Big result for Labour. Been nearly a decade. Utterly dismal for FF, in admittedly unfriendly territory.
It shouldn't be all that unfriendly to FF - they won one of the four seats in 2020 and in 2016.
On 11.5 and 13.8% of first preferences. Elected third and then fourth. So, unfriendly in terms of not natural territory, and in likelihood of winning when only one candidate is elected. But, yes, they've fallen below 5%. So pretty dismal for the party of the Taoiseach.
RTÉ say that it's the worst-ever FF performance in a by-election. Quite an achievement for Martin.
But it's possible to read far too much into the result. My wife watched the candidates on RTÉ and said the FF candidate was epically bad, failing to have any answer ready for a standard question on housing policy - which all the politicians said was the defining issue of the 2020GE.
A lot of the commentary from Ireland suggests that FG and the Greens both botched their candidate selection as well.
Wales just got to 90% of adults, first dose, according to the dashboard.
Nice.
Oh for Mark Drakeford to be Prime Minister of the UK.
The Welsh really are lucky to have Mark Drakeford, I think they do, which explains why Labour got their best ever result in the Senned election in May.
they regularly exclude items from being included and HS2 is likely to be one of them. They often exclude large projects spending in England so they don't have to give Scotland any benefit.
Confidence and Supply agreement between the Conservative Party and the Democratic Unionist Party.
Not a "project," let alone a "large project spending in England," but I'll give you it. So that's two instances, one nine years ago (for which the devolved governments got a payout anyway) and one four. I think malcolmg is going to have to leap in with a few more examples before we can consider this something that happens "often" or "regularly".
Hmm...DWP position as stated in the run-up to the 2014 campaign.
That shows, correctly, that state pensions would still be paid in Scotland after independence. Of course they would, unless for some reason the Scottish government post-independence decided to renege on them, which is verging on unthinkable. Equally certainly, it would of course be up to Scottish taxpayers to foot the bill.
This isn't complicated!
It will be interesting to see how the Yes campaign handles this (plus the loss of the transfers via the Barnett Consequentials and the question mark over the currency. Last time oil was going to pay for everything.)
PS - I don't think the malcolmg approach - to turn up the decibel level - is really going to wash.
Looks like my tip a couple of days ago on James Geoghegan (FG) to win the Dublin Bay South by-election is not going to go down as one of the smartest in PB history...
FG can't win but my analysis did not get beyond almost anyone else could. Having to guess STV transfers adds a whole new horror to by-election betting. The Polling Station video tipped Ivana and Labour iirc, who looks like winning.
Big result for Labour. Been nearly a decade. Utterly dismal for FF, in admittedly unfriendly territory.
It shouldn't be all that unfriendly to FF - they won one of the four seats in 2020 and in 2016.
On 11.5 and 13.8% of first preferences. Elected third and then fourth. So, unfriendly in terms of not natural territory, and in likelihood of winning when only one candidate is elected. But, yes, they've fallen below 5%. So pretty dismal for the party of the Taoiseach.
RTÉ say that it's the worst-ever FF performance in a by-election. Quite an achievement for Martin.
But it's possible to read far too much into the result. My wife watched the candidates on RTÉ and said the FF candidate was epically bad, failing to have any answer ready for a standard question on housing policy - which all the politicians said was the defining issue of the 2020GE.
A lot of the commentary from Ireland suggests that FG and the Greens both botched their candidate selection as well.
If there's one thing that will undoubtedly change as a result of Brexit it's Irish politics. No idea how, but I'm sure that Ireland is the most impacted of all of the nations involved (including UK).
Hmm...DWP position as stated in the run-up to the 2014 campaign.
That shows, correctly, that state pensions would still be paid in Scotland after independence. Of course they would, unless for some reason the Scottish government post-independence decided to renege on them, which is verging on unthinkable. Equally certainly, it would of course be up to Scottish taxpayers to foot the bill.
This isn't complicated!
I know, but you're dealing with people who think an independent Scotland will be able to set policy for the Governor of Bank England and the Governor will have to follow it, even if it contradicts RUK policy.
The craziness is spreading, here's a former First Minister.
Alex Salmond has claimed that Scotland should go for a "clean break" over debt with the UK during any independence talks.
The former first minister said Alba's position was for the country to pay no share of national debt after separation from the union.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
So nothing different wrt infrastructure spending in Scotland then, or any other part of the country.
So the fact that the Scottish Government had to fully fund the Forth Crossing was just the same then.
And the fifth Forth vehicular crossing (not chronologically) - you will recognise the name of the engineer... but rather mean to make the human self-loading cargo get off for the crossing. Cattle had a more luxurious time.
Bouch designed a rail crossing for the Forth too and I believe work had started on it when his Tay bridge collapsed, and his spindly looking design was abandoned, replaced by the superbly over-engineered thing of beauty that was put up in its place. A bridge that is designed to state unambiguously to all who see it, I will not get blown down in a gale.*
* actually the first Tay Bridge may have been hit by a derailing train I think, but blown down in a gale is how it's remembered.
Quite. They weren't messing around when they built the Forth Bridge. The Bouch design is terrifying ... rather nice pic here, C19 vapourware.
Peter Lewis has written an interesting book - in short reckons that the Tay Bridge was so mickey mouse in design and execution it was rattling itself to bits, and bits falling off, every time a train ran along it, especially when the train met the kink where they dropped and bent a girder when erecting it (!). The accounts of quality control, or lack of, by the fabricator are terrifying.
PS Friday afternoon, so I add some nice photos (though i have to get back to work) - amaxing how the time exposure blanks out the waves:
I've a large book containing photos of the Forth Bridge's construction. Let's just say that the health and safety bods nowadays would have a little bit of a heart attack ...
My favourite is a man sitting at the end of a scaffold board, the other end of which is attached to one of the girders. No safety harness, no hard hat. Or the ones of people working in the caissons, digging out the seabed. Compressed-air working is scarier than heights.
Is that The Briggers by Elspeth Wills? It's a great book. 73 men died building it.
As the last tweet in that thread says: We're headed for a scenario in which Democrats are vaccinated and Republicans aren't, and a lot of Fox viewers end up dead because they listened to the network instead of getting shots.
Oh well, stuff happens.
I have been pointing out this does have betting implications.
Mr. Rook, HS2 is more popular the further north you go.
If the part connecting London to Birmingham is completed and the northern half cancelled that will not go down well.
MD , depends on where you stop, fact that Scotland is paying part of it and it will never ever reach here means it is far from popular here for certain.
So the Scottish Government is lieing?
The Scottish Government has not contributed any funds to the HS2 rail link budget; this is wholly funded by the UK Government.
Well, it's not the English Government that pays for it. So it presumably comes out of UK taxation - ergo our Scottish pockets (rather more than the CI pockets, no douby).
Scotland gets full Barnett consequentials for HS2 spending, so in theory contributes almost nothing in net terms.
Yes, thank you; we were discussing that earlier also - bizarrely as BlackRook pointed out the Welsh have to pay a sdhare whereas the Scots don't even though it is sort of going in the right direction only to Wrecsam.
Hadn't had my afternoon coffee, so was a bit behind the discussion...
Many moons ago, I did an analysis of UK Central Government spending on healthcare and pensions, to see the impact of demographic drag. As a total of government spending, the sum of both have inexorably risen:
I need to update the data, but it seems unlikely that they are under 50% of government spending today, and may be 51 or 52%.
This poses a fundamental challenge for any government: if total spending as a percent of GDP is held flat, that means that spending on all other things (defence, education, infrastructure, etc.) must fall to make up for the increasing number of oldies, *or* government spending as a percentage of GDP needs to keep rising, which means that works will be paying an increasing proportion of their incomes over to support their elders.
It's a challenge that governments have successively ducked, assuming that whoever followed them would deal with the issue next. And at some point it will have to be faced: an 8% rise in pensions, combined with the fact that the proportion of people of pensionable age keeps rising, would really blow a hole in the public finances.
Selective euthanasia is the answer.
No, just further increases in the retirement age if average life expectancy continues to increase.
Many moons ago, I did an analysis of UK Central Government spending on healthcare and pensions, to see the impact of demographic drag. As a total of government spending, the sum of both have inexorably risen:
I need to update the data, but it seems unlikely that they are under 50% of government spending today, and may be 51 or 52%.
This poses a fundamental challenge for any government: if total spending as a percent of GDP is held flat, that means that spending on all other things (defence, education, infrastructure, etc.) must fall to make up for the increasing number of oldies, *or* government spending as a percentage of GDP needs to keep rising, which means that works will be paying an increasing proportion of their incomes over to support their elders.
It's a challenge that governments have successively ducked, assuming that whoever followed them would deal with the issue next. And at some point it will have to be faced: an 8% rise in pensions, combined with the fact that the proportion of people of pensionable age keeps rising, would really blow a hole in the public finances.
Many moons ago, I did an analysis of UK Central Government spending on healthcare and pensions, to see the impact of demographic drag. As a total of government spending, the sum of both have inexorably risen:
I need to update the data, but it seems unlikely that they are under 50% of government spending today, and may be 51 or 52%.
This poses a fundamental challenge for any government: if total spending as a percent of GDP is held flat, that means that spending on all other things (defence, education, infrastructure, etc.) must fall to make up for the increasing number of oldies, *or* government spending as a percentage of GDP needs to keep rising, which means that works will be paying an increasing proportion of their incomes over to support their elders.
It's a challenge that governments have successively ducked, assuming that whoever followed them would deal with the issue next. And at some point it will have to be faced: an 8% rise in pensions, combined with the fact that the proportion of people of pensionable age keeps rising, would really blow a hole in the public finances.
Selective euthanasia is the answer.
Like a pandemic?
As a way of balancing the books it looks a little sub-optimal.
It is no surprise Southgate is more popular than Churchill.
Churchill was a fascist (keeping people under dominion of the UK against their will is fascism.)
Churchill was an Imperialist and quite definitely not a Fascist.
The fact that you can't detect the difference suggests that your terrible taste in clothes has caused structural damage - Long Fashion?
Imperialism is fascism.
Forcible suppression of opponents is a key characteristic of fascism, look at all the arrests of Indian independence figures.
Churchill had promised India dominion status after the war but of course that fell short of independence.
The time for the former was post WW1 not WW2. India might still be a Commonwealth realm today, and you could enjoy toasting the Queen across the subcontinent.
Possibly though the reason I think Canada, Australia and New Zealand are the only non UK nations of any significant size which still have the Queen as Head of State is most of their population have ancestors who originally came from the British Isles.
That does not apply to India
I'm mildly surprised that J❤️cinda hasn't held a referendum on becoming a republic. She's probably got enough popularity and political heft to get it done at the moment. Perhaps, like Australia, they are waiting for Brenda to drop off the twig.
I think the Aussies are waiting for a year of King Charles III.
George VII please.
Why not Henry IX ?
He prefers George, and previous users of the King Charles name have had something of an unfortunate press.
Charles II gets an unfairly bad press. England made huge strides towards becoming a world power in his reign, helped by methods of government funding developed during the Civil War and Commonwealth. His main fault was not to provide a legitimate male heir.
Considering the fates of his immediate royal predecessor and successor, simply avoiding that counts as an achievement, albeit aided by time and luck.
He didn't repeal the Navigation Acts, so we Scots can blame him for the Darien failure.
Hmm...DWP position as stated in the run-up to the 2014 campaign.
That shows, correctly, that state pensions would still be paid in Scotland after independence. Of course they would, unless for some reason the Scottish government post-independence decided to renege on them, which is verging on unthinkable. Equally certainly, it would of course be up to Scottish taxpayers to foot the bill.
This isn't complicated!
I know, but you're dealing with people who think an independent Scotland will be able to set policy for the Governor of Bank England and the Governor will have to follow it, even if it contradicts RUK policy.
The craziness is spreading, here's a former First Minister.
Alex Salmond has claimed that Scotland should go for a "clean break" over debt with the UK during any independence talks.
The former first minister said Alba's position was for the country to pay no share of national debt after separation from the union.
But if an independent Scotland goes for that then those Scottish pensions will not be paid by RUK.
I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about the financial implications of Indy and there is no escaping the fact that it would mean austerity on steroids. Just no way of avoiding it. But that is exactly contrary to what is being offered by the SNP and believed by its supporters. A real conundrum.
The article uses "may have went to hospital" a few times. Someone please tell me I'm not going crazy and that should be "may have gone to hospital". I can't explain why but it sounds completely wrong.
On the substantive point - interesting. Of course, this may cover, depending how the data were analysed, people arriving at hospital with symptoms of Covid that were not recorded as Covid immediately until testing had happened, but as more general complaints.
25 times for elective surgery, albeit from a low base.
"6/ When we looked at elective / planned surgery, the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 was very low (0.1% or 1 in 1000 cases). However, the risk of death was 25x greater among patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. @BJAJournalshttps://t.co/Tq8hl9ugwvhttps://t.co/7916s7lxsN"
Hmm...DWP position as stated in the run-up to the 2014 campaign.
That shows, correctly, that state pensions would still be paid in Scotland after independence. Of course they would, unless for some reason the Scottish government post-independence decided to renege on them, which is verging on unthinkable. Equally certainly, it would of course be up to Scottish taxpayers to foot the bill.
This isn't complicated!
I know, but you're dealing with people who think an independent Scotland will be able to set policy for the Governor of Bank England and the Governor will have to follow it, even if it contradicts RUK policy.
The craziness is spreading, here's a former First Minister.
Alex Salmond has claimed that Scotland should go for a "clean break" over debt with the UK during any independence talks.
The former first minister said Alba's position was for the country to pay no share of national debt after separation from the union.
But if an independent Scotland goes for that then those Scottish pensions will not be paid by RUK.
I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about the financial implications of Indy and there is no escaping the fact that it would mean austerity on steroids. Just no way of avoiding it. But that is exactly contrary to what is being offered by the SNP and believed by its supporters. A real conundrum.
My day job now includes preparing for a Indyref2/Scottish independence, the implications are staggering.
I suspect Scots may end getting the worst of all worlds.
For example mortgages have to be paid in sterling if Scots go for their own currency or go rogue and that depreciates badly then you can the mortgages of Scots going up by a lot overnight.
In a past job I used to specialise in sports media rights and also mobile telephony, that's going to have major impacts as well.
Calls to RUK may end up getting charged at international calling rates.
So when you ring up to ask why Sky/BT aren't showing the football or new HBO show on Sky Atlantic then there's going to several shocks.
It is no surprise Southgate is more popular than Churchill.
Churchill was a fascist (keeping people under dominion of the UK against their will is fascism.)
Churchill was an Imperialist and quite definitely not a Fascist.
The fact that you can't detect the difference suggests that your terrible taste in clothes has caused structural damage - Long Fashion?
Imperialism is fascism.
Forcible suppression of opponents is a key characteristic of fascism, look at all the arrests of Indian independence figures.
Churchill had promised India dominion status after the war but of course that fell short of independence.
The time for the former was post WW1 not WW2. India might still be a Commonwealth realm today, and you could enjoy toasting the Queen across the subcontinent.
Possibly though the reason I think Canada, Australia and New Zealand are the only non UK nations of any significant size which still have the Queen as Head of State is most of their population have ancestors who originally came from the British Isles.
That does not apply to India
I'm mildly surprised that J❤️cinda hasn't held a referendum on becoming a republic. She's probably got enough popularity and political heft to get it done at the moment. Perhaps, like Australia, they are waiting for Brenda to drop off the twig.
I think the Aussies are waiting for a year of King Charles III.
George VII please.
Why not Henry IX ?
He prefers George, and previous users of the King Charles name have had something of an unfortunate press.
Charles II gets an unfairly bad press. England made huge strides towards becoming a world power in his reign, helped by methods of government funding developed during the Civil War and Commonwealth. His main fault was not to provide a legitimate male heir.
Considering the fates of his immediate royal predecessor and successor, simply avoiding that counts as an achievement, albeit aided by time and luck.
He didn't repeal the Navigation Acts, so we Scots can blame him for the Darien failure.
Also he tried to reimpose episcopacy on the Presbyterian Kirk despite promises. Hence lots of mayhem and murder by his troops.
Hmm...DWP position as stated in the run-up to the 2014 campaign.
That shows, correctly, that state pensions would still be paid in Scotland after independence. Of course they would, unless for some reason the Scottish government post-independence decided to renege on them, which is verging on unthinkable. Equally certainly, it would of course be up to Scottish taxpayers to foot the bill.
This isn't complicated!
I know, but you're dealing with people who think an independent Scotland will be able to set policy for the Governor of Bank England and the Governor will have to follow it, even if it contradicts RUK policy.
The craziness is spreading, here's a former First Minister.
Alex Salmond has claimed that Scotland should go for a "clean break" over debt with the UK during any independence talks.
The former first minister said Alba's position was for the country to pay no share of national debt after separation from the union.
But if an independent Scotland goes for that then those Scottish pensions will not be paid by RUK.
I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about the financial implications of Indy and there is no escaping the fact that it would mean austerity on steroids. Just no way of avoiding it. But that is exactly contrary to what is being offered by the SNP and believed by its supporters. A real conundrum.
My day job now includes preparing for a Indyref2/Scottish independence, the implications are staggering.
I suspect Scots may end getting the worst of all worlds.
For example mortgages have to be paid in sterling if Scots go for their own currency and that depreciates badly then you can the mortgages of Scots going up by a lot overnight.
In a past job I used to specialise in sports media rights and also mobile telephony, that's going to have major impacts as well.
Calls to RUK may end up getting charged at international calling rates.
So when you ring up to ask why Sky/BT aren't showing the football or new HBO show on Sky Atlantic then there's going to several shocks.
True.
Though given as long as there remains a Tory government an indyref2 will not be granted may be some time for it to be tested if ever.
At the moment unless there is a Labour government dependent on the SNP for confidence and supply we may never get an indyref2, 2014 would have been the one chance the UK government ever allowed Scottish nationalists to have for independence
Hmm...DWP position as stated in the run-up to the 2014 campaign.
That shows, correctly, that state pensions would still be paid in Scotland after independence. Of course they would, unless for some reason the Scottish government post-independence decided to renege on them, which is verging on unthinkable. Equally certainly, it would of course be up to Scottish taxpayers to foot the bill.
This isn't complicated!
It will be interesting to see how the Yes campaign handles this (plus the loss of the transfers via the Barnett Consequentials and the question mark over the currency. Last time oil was going to pay for everything.)
PS - I don't think the malcolmg approach - to turn up the decibel level - is really going to wash.
Why, being 100% wrong but loud worked perfectly for the Leave campaign....
Don't worry it won't cost our (Scottish) tax payers a penny will be very popular campaign commitment at the next Independence campaign.
Looks like my tip a couple of days ago on James Geoghegan (FG) to win the Dublin Bay South by-election is not going to go down as one of the smartest in PB history...
FG can't win but my analysis did not get beyond almost anyone else could. Having to guess STV transfers adds a whole new horror to by-election betting. The Polling Station video tipped Ivana and Labour iirc, who looks like winning.
Big result for Labour. Been nearly a decade. Utterly dismal for FF, in admittedly unfriendly territory.
It shouldn't be all that unfriendly to FF - they won one of the four seats in 2020 and in 2016.
On 11.5 and 13.8% of first preferences. Elected third and then fourth. So, unfriendly in terms of not natural territory, and in likelihood of winning when only one candidate is elected. But, yes, they've fallen below 5%. So pretty dismal for the party of the Taoiseach.
RTÉ say that it's the worst-ever FF performance in a by-election. Quite an achievement for Martin.
But it's possible to read far too much into the result. My wife watched the candidates on RTÉ and said the FF candidate was epically bad, failing to have any answer ready for a standard question on housing policy - which all the politicians said was the defining issue of the 2020GE.
A lot of the commentary from Ireland suggests that FG and the Greens both botched their candidate selection as well.
If there's one thing that will undoubtedly change as a result of Brexit it's Irish politics. No idea how, but I'm sure that Ireland is the most impacted of all of the nations involved (including UK).
Irish politics in the Republic is still in the shadow of the banking crash and the austerity that followed. Brexit hasn't had an impact yet because there has been a broad consensus on how to respond to it.
If Sinn Fein/Nationalism win the next NI Assembly elections, that will have an effect sure enough, and that would seem to be in part a consequence of the DUP, and Unionism generally, trashing itself over Brexit.
Keir Starmer in NI just now, in denial over what may happen soon, but I guess he's concentrating on distancing himself from Corbyn for the benefit of voters in England over saying anything sensible about NI.
Hmm...DWP position as stated in the run-up to the 2014 campaign.
That shows, correctly, that state pensions would still be paid in Scotland after independence. Of course they would, unless for some reason the Scottish government post-independence decided to renege on them, which is verging on unthinkable. Equally certainly, it would of course be up to Scottish taxpayers to foot the bill.
This isn't complicated!
I know, but you're dealing with people who think an independent Scotland will be able to set policy for the Governor of Bank England and the Governor will have to follow it, even if it contradicts RUK policy.
The craziness is spreading, here's a former First Minister.
Alex Salmond has claimed that Scotland should go for a "clean break" over debt with the UK during any independence talks.
The former first minister said Alba's position was for the country to pay no share of national debt after separation from the union.
But if an independent Scotland goes for that then those Scottish pensions will not be paid by RUK.
I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about the financial implications of Indy and there is no escaping the fact that it would mean austerity on steroids. Just no way of avoiding it. But that is exactly contrary to what is being offered by the SNP and believed by its supporters. A real conundrum.
My day job now includes preparing for a Indyref2/Scottish independence, the implications are staggering.
I suspect Scots may end getting the worst of all worlds.
For example mortgages have to be paid in sterling if Scots go for their own currency and that depreciates badly then you can the mortgages of Scots going up by a lot overnight.
In a past job I used to specialise in sports media rights and also mobile telephony, that's going to have major impacts as well.
Calls to RUK may end up getting charged at international calling rates.
So when you ring up to ask why Sky/BT aren't showing the football or new HBO show on Sky Atlantic then there's going to several shocks.
True.
Though given as long as there remains a Tory government an indyref2 will not be granted may be some time for it to be tested if ever.
At the moment unless there is a Labour government dependent on the SNP for confidence and supply we may never get an indyref2, 2014 would have been the one chance the UK government ever allowed Scottish nationalists to have for independence
There will come a time when Boris or a future leader will willingly get rid of the tax draining Scots...
Looks like my tip a couple of days ago on James Geoghegan (FG) to win the Dublin Bay South by-election is not going to go down as one of the smartest in PB history...
FG can't win but my analysis did not get beyond almost anyone else could. Having to guess STV transfers adds a whole new horror to by-election betting. The Polling Station video tipped Ivana and Labour iirc, who looks like winning.
Big result for Labour. Been nearly a decade. Utterly dismal for FF, in admittedly unfriendly territory.
It shouldn't be all that unfriendly to FF - they won one of the four seats in 2020 and in 2016.
On 11.5 and 13.8% of first preferences. Elected third and then fourth. So, unfriendly in terms of not natural territory, and in likelihood of winning when only one candidate is elected. But, yes, they've fallen below 5%. So pretty dismal for the party of the Taoiseach.
RTÉ say that it's the worst-ever FF performance in a by-election. Quite an achievement for Martin.
But it's possible to read far too much into the result. My wife watched the candidates on RTÉ and said the FF candidate was epically bad, failing to have any answer ready for a standard question on housing policy - which all the politicians said was the defining issue of the 2020GE.
A lot of the commentary from Ireland suggests that FG and the Greens both botched their candidate selection as well.
If there's one thing that will undoubtedly change as a result of Brexit it's Irish politics. No idea how, but I'm sure that Ireland is the most impacted of all of the nations involved (including UK).
Irish politics in the Republic is still in the shadow of the banking crash and the austerity that followed. Brexit hasn't had an impact yet because there has been a broad consensus on how to respond to it.
If Sinn Fein/Nationalism win the next NI Assembly elections, that will have an effect sure enough, and that would seem to be in part a consequence of the DUP, and Unionism generally, trashing itself over Brexit.
Keir Starmer in NI just now, in denial over what may happen soon, but I guess he's concentrating on distancing himself from Corbyn for the benefit of voters in England over saying anything sensible about NI.
Sinn Fein may win most votes and seats at the next Assembly elections but their vote will actually be down on 2017, the only reason they would be in front would be because the DUP has lost even more votes to the Traditional Unionist Voice (though Donaldson might reduce the leakage). Overall there would be barely any change at all in the overall Unionist and Nationalist votes from the last Assembly elections and the main gainers would be the UUP, the TUV and the Alliance on the latest poll, not Sinn Fein
Hmm...DWP position as stated in the run-up to the 2014 campaign.
That shows, correctly, that state pensions would still be paid in Scotland after independence. Of course they would, unless for some reason the Scottish government post-independence decided to renege on them, which is verging on unthinkable. Equally certainly, it would of course be up to Scottish taxpayers to foot the bill.
This isn't complicated!
I know, but you're dealing with people who think an independent Scotland will be able to set policy for the Governor of Bank England and the Governor will have to follow it, even if it contradicts RUK policy.
The craziness is spreading, here's a former First Minister.
Alex Salmond has claimed that Scotland should go for a "clean break" over debt with the UK during any independence talks.
The former first minister said Alba's position was for the country to pay no share of national debt after separation from the union.
But if an independent Scotland goes for that then those Scottish pensions will not be paid by RUK.
I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about the financial implications of Indy and there is no escaping the fact that it would mean austerity on steroids. Just no way of avoiding it. But that is exactly contrary to what is being offered by the SNP and believed by its supporters. A real conundrum.
My day job now includes preparing for a Indyref2/Scottish independence, the implications are staggering.
I suspect Scots may end getting the worst of all worlds.
For example mortgages have to be paid in sterling if Scots go for their own currency and that depreciates badly then you can the mortgages of Scots going up by a lot overnight.
In a past job I used to specialise in sports media rights and also mobile telephony, that's going to have major impacts as well.
Calls to RUK may end up getting charged at international calling rates.
So when you ring up to ask why Sky/BT aren't showing the football or new HBO show on Sky Atlantic then there's going to several shocks.
True.
Though given as long as there remains a Tory government an indyref2 will not be granted may be some time for it to be tested if ever.
At the moment unless there is a Labour government dependent on the SNP for confidence and supply we may never get an indyref2, 2014 would have been the one chance the UK government ever allowed Scottish nationalists to have for independence
There will come a time when Boris or a future leader will willingly get rid of the tax draining Scots...
They won't, Boris or any future Tory leader would go down in history as the 21st century Lord North if they lost Scotland. Plus they would lose most North Sea oil for any spending subsidy reduction and see a hard border and customs posts at Berwick post Brexit.
Instead as long as we Tories remain in power we will refuse indyref2 and nothing the SNP can do about it
Hmm...DWP position as stated in the run-up to the 2014 campaign.
That shows, correctly, that state pensions would still be paid in Scotland after independence. Of course they would, unless for some reason the Scottish government post-independence decided to renege on them, which is verging on unthinkable. Equally certainly, it would of course be up to Scottish taxpayers to foot the bill.
This isn't complicated!
I know, but you're dealing with people who think an independent Scotland will be able to set policy for the Governor of Bank England and the Governor will have to follow it, even if it contradicts RUK policy.
The craziness is spreading, here's a former First Minister.
Alex Salmond has claimed that Scotland should go for a "clean break" over debt with the UK during any independence talks.
The former first minister said Alba's position was for the country to pay no share of national debt after separation from the union.
But if an independent Scotland goes for that then those Scottish pensions will not be paid by RUK.
I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about the financial implications of Indy and there is no escaping the fact that it would mean austerity on steroids. Just no way of avoiding it. But that is exactly contrary to what is being offered by the SNP and believed by its supporters. A real conundrum.
My day job now includes preparing for a Indyref2/Scottish independence, the implications are staggering.
I suspect Scots may end getting the worst of all worlds.
For example mortgages have to be paid in sterling if Scots go for their own currency and that depreciates badly then you can the mortgages of Scots going up by a lot overnight.
In a past job I used to specialise in sports media rights and also mobile telephony, that's going to have major impacts as well.
Calls to RUK may end up getting charged at international calling rates.
So when you ring up to ask why Sky/BT aren't showing the football or new HBO show on Sky Atlantic then there's going to several shocks.
True.
Though given as long as there remains a Tory government an indyref2 will not be granted may be some time for it to be tested if ever.
At the moment unless there is a Labour government dependent on the SNP for confidence and supply we may never get an indyref2, 2014 would have been the one chance the UK government ever allowed Scottish nationalists to have for independence
Not even for a generation now?
Do you hear that Jocks, the future is an Epping Forest Union Jackboot stomping on your face - forever.
NE moving back to the top of the leader board. Every day now folk testing positive all around me. None seriously ill, but still not pleasant.
Has there be any reasoning why the NE seems permanently badly effected by covid?
It seemed to go round Durham university within a week and from there spread out to the general population of Durham. I suspect the same will be true of Newcastle.
The Delta variant is just so much easier to catch and spread
NE moving back to the top of the leader board. Every day now folk testing positive all around me. None seriously ill, but still not pleasant.
Has there be any reasoning why the NE seems permanently badly effected by covid?
Dunno. We seem to get it early and hard in each wave. Then be on the downside when the national figures peak. Without checking that's my impression. Usual socio-economic stuff I guess. Dense city centre campuses won't help, as.@eek notes.
Hmm...DWP position as stated in the run-up to the 2014 campaign.
That shows, correctly, that state pensions would still be paid in Scotland after independence. Of course they would, unless for some reason the Scottish government post-independence decided to renege on them, which is verging on unthinkable. Equally certainly, it would of course be up to Scottish taxpayers to foot the bill.
This isn't complicated!
I know, but you're dealing with people who think an independent Scotland will be able to set policy for the Governor of Bank England and the Governor will have to follow it, even if it contradicts RUK policy.
The craziness is spreading, here's a former First Minister.
Alex Salmond has claimed that Scotland should go for a "clean break" over debt with the UK during any independence talks.
The former first minister said Alba's position was for the country to pay no share of national debt after separation from the union.
But if an independent Scotland goes for that then those Scottish pensions will not be paid by RUK.
I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about the financial implications of Indy and there is no escaping the fact that it would mean austerity on steroids. Just no way of avoiding it. But that is exactly contrary to what is being offered by the SNP and believed by its supporters. A real conundrum.
My day job now includes preparing for a Indyref2/Scottish independence, the implications are staggering.
I suspect Scots may end getting the worst of all worlds.
For example mortgages have to be paid in sterling if Scots go for their own currency or go rogue and that depreciates badly then you can the mortgages of Scots going up by a lot overnight.
In a past job I used to specialise in sports media rights and also mobile telephony, that's going to have major impacts as well.
Calls to RUK may end up getting charged at international calling rates.
So when you ring up to ask why Sky/BT aren't showing the football or new HBO show on Sky Atlantic then there's going to several shocks.
It's 2021. Who the heck is still paying international calling rates?
Hmm...DWP position as stated in the run-up to the 2014 campaign.
That shows, correctly, that state pensions would still be paid in Scotland after independence. Of course they would, unless for some reason the Scottish government post-independence decided to renege on them, which is verging on unthinkable. Equally certainly, it would of course be up to Scottish taxpayers to foot the bill.
This isn't complicated!
I know, but you're dealing with people who think an independent Scotland will be able to set policy for the Governor of Bank England and the Governor will have to follow it, even if it contradicts RUK policy.
The craziness is spreading, here's a former First Minister.
Alex Salmond has claimed that Scotland should go for a "clean break" over debt with the UK during any independence talks.
The former first minister said Alba's position was for the country to pay no share of national debt after separation from the union.
But if an independent Scotland goes for that then those Scottish pensions will not be paid by RUK.
I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about the financial implications of Indy and there is no escaping the fact that it would mean austerity on steroids. Just no way of avoiding it. But that is exactly contrary to what is being offered by the SNP and believed by its supporters. A real conundrum.
My day job now includes preparing for a Indyref2/Scottish independence, the implications are staggering.
I suspect Scots may end getting the worst of all worlds.
For example mortgages have to be paid in sterling if Scots go for their own currency and that depreciates badly then you can the mortgages of Scots going up by a lot overnight.
In a past job I used to specialise in sports media rights and also mobile telephony, that's going to have major impacts as well.
Calls to RUK may end up getting charged at international calling rates.
So when you ring up to ask why Sky/BT aren't showing the football or new HBO show on Sky Atlantic then there's going to several shocks.
True.
Though given as long as there remains a Tory government an indyref2 will not be granted may be some time for it to be tested if ever.
At the moment unless there is a Labour government dependent on the SNP for confidence and supply we may never get an indyref2, 2014 would have been the one chance the UK government ever allowed Scottish nationalists to have for independence
There will come a time when Boris or a future leader will willingly get rid of the tax draining Scots...
They won't, Boris or any future Tory leader would go down in history as the 21st century Lord North if they lost Scotland. Plus they would lose most North Sea oil for any spending subsidy reduction and see a hard border and customs posts at Berwick post Brexit.
Instead as long as we Tories remain in power we will refuse indyref2 and nothing the SNP can do about it
Hmm...DWP position as stated in the run-up to the 2014 campaign.
That shows, correctly, that state pensions would still be paid in Scotland after independence. Of course they would, unless for some reason the Scottish government post-independence decided to renege on them, which is verging on unthinkable. Equally certainly, it would of course be up to Scottish taxpayers to foot the bill.
This isn't complicated!
I know, but you're dealing with people who think an independent Scotland will be able to set policy for the Governor of Bank England and the Governor will have to follow it, even if it contradicts RUK policy.
The craziness is spreading, here's a former First Minister.
Alex Salmond has claimed that Scotland should go for a "clean break" over debt with the UK during any independence talks.
The former first minister said Alba's position was for the country to pay no share of national debt after separation from the union.
But if an independent Scotland goes for that then those Scottish pensions will not be paid by RUK.
I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about the financial implications of Indy and there is no escaping the fact that it would mean austerity on steroids. Just no way of avoiding it. But that is exactly contrary to what is being offered by the SNP and believed by its supporters. A real conundrum.
My day job now includes preparing for a Indyref2/Scottish independence, the implications are staggering.
I suspect Scots may end getting the worst of all worlds.
For example mortgages have to be paid in sterling if Scots go for their own currency and that depreciates badly then you can the mortgages of Scots going up by a lot overnight.
In a past job I used to specialise in sports media rights and also mobile telephony, that's going to have major impacts as well.
Calls to RUK may end up getting charged at international calling rates.
So when you ring up to ask why Sky/BT aren't showing the football or new HBO show on Sky Atlantic then there's going to several shocks.
True.
Though given as long as there remains a Tory government an indyref2 will not be granted may be some time for it to be tested if ever.
At the moment unless there is a Labour government dependent on the SNP for confidence and supply we may never get an indyref2, 2014 would have been the one chance the UK government ever allowed Scottish nationalists to have for independence
I assume you just ignore the countless posters who keep asking you to stop copying and pasting the same mantra, which to be honest is boring
@TSE is making interesting and very relevant points on Scottish Independence and adds to the debate that will continue into the future and, of course, there may come an optimum time in the next few years to allow an Independence referendum and actually win it for the Union
Please try to add to the debate and not continue to embarrass yourself
Hmm...DWP position as stated in the run-up to the 2014 campaign.
That shows, correctly, that state pensions would still be paid in Scotland after independence. Of course they would, unless for some reason the Scottish government post-independence decided to renege on them, which is verging on unthinkable. Equally certainly, it would of course be up to Scottish taxpayers to foot the bill.
This isn't complicated!
I know, but you're dealing with people who think an independent Scotland will be able to set policy for the Governor of Bank England and the Governor will have to follow it, even if it contradicts RUK policy.
The craziness is spreading, here's a former First Minister.
Alex Salmond has claimed that Scotland should go for a "clean break" over debt with the UK during any independence talks.
The former first minister said Alba's position was for the country to pay no share of national debt after separation from the union.
But if an independent Scotland goes for that then those Scottish pensions will not be paid by RUK.
I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about the financial implications of Indy and there is no escaping the fact that it would mean austerity on steroids. Just no way of avoiding it. But that is exactly contrary to what is being offered by the SNP and believed by its supporters. A real conundrum.
My day job now includes preparing for a Indyref2/Scottish independence, the implications are staggering.
I suspect Scots may end getting the worst of all worlds.
For example mortgages have to be paid in sterling if Scots go for their own currency or go rogue and that depreciates badly then you can the mortgages of Scots going up by a lot overnight.
In a past job I used to specialise in sports media rights and also mobile telephony, that's going to have major impacts as well.
Calls to RUK may end up getting charged at international calling rates.
So when you ring up to ask why Sky/BT aren't showing the football or new HBO show on Sky Atlantic then there's going to several shocks.
It's 2021. Who the heck is still paying international calling rates?
You cannot Whatsapp Sky or BT customer services, so you want to ring BT to complain about BT Sport no longer airing in Scotland you'll have to ring a RUK number which has now become an international destination for Scottish residents.
Comments
The Forth Bridge, by Sheila Mackay
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Forth-Bridge-Picture-History/dp/1841589357
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJpcJEOEvec
Mind you, even Blue Peter's classic John Noakes' ascent of Nelson's Column would be frowned upon now.
(On Louisiana, latest data I can see https://www.ldh.la.gov/coronavirus/ has 6 deaths and 789 cases. UK had 32.5k cases and 35 deaths. It's all nonsense/overly crude stats due to differet testing regimes, lags between cases and deaths etc etc, but 35/32.5k looks to me smaller than 6/789, around 1/7 of the ratio, in fact.)
This poses a fundamental challenge for any government: if total spending as a percent of GDP is held flat, that means that spending on all other things (defence, education, infrastructure, etc.) must fall to make up for the increasing number of oldies, *or* government spending as a percentage of GDP needs to keep rising, which means that works will be paying an increasing proportion of their incomes over to support their elders.
It's a challenge that governments have successively ducked, assuming that whoever followed them would deal with the issue next. And at some point it will have to be faced: an 8% rise in pensions, combined with the fact that the proportion of people of pensionable age keeps rising, would really blow a hole in the public finances.
Edit to add: yes, we do.
The seven day moving average of cases in Scotland from 3,400 on July 2, to 2,999 today. And new cases were 2,802 yesterday, so that average is continuing to retreat.
Fox hosts are relentlessly attacking the vaccination campaign against the coronavirus. Their nightly effort to delegitimize the vaccines is a big problem
https://twitter.com/MattGertz/status/1413468151686352897
This isn't complicated!
Could be a dip due to schools skailing in the last week of June (various places) but bump due to the football.
But, yes, they've fallen below 5%. So pretty dismal for the party of the Taoiseach.
Oh well, stuff happens.
Sorry, get my coat.
Nice.
Fox News: Real American Patriot deaths increase due to Democrat/Soros/Mexican/Muslim plot ?
But it's possible to read far too much into the result. My wife watched the candidates on RTÉ and said the FF candidate was epically bad, failing to have any answer ready for a standard question on housing policy - which all the politicians said was the defining issue of the 2020GE.
A lot of the commentary from Ireland suggests that FG and the Greens both botched their candidate selection as well.
Uh-oh
Moody hospitalisation numbers?
The Welsh really are lucky to have Mark Drakeford, I think they do, which explains why Labour got their best ever result in the Senned election in May.
PS - I don't think the malcolmg approach - to turn up the decibel level - is really going to wash.
The craziness is spreading, here's a former First Minister.
Alex Salmond has claimed that Scotland should go for a "clean break" over debt with the UK during any independence talks.
The former first minister said Alba's position was for the country to pay no share of national debt after separation from the union.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19273429.alex-salmond---scotland-aim-clean-break-debt-uk-future-independence-talks/
But if an independent Scotland goes for that then those Scottish pensions will not be paid by RUK.
No way the BBC’s insurers would allow that now, let alone the insurers of the cleaning company. Barely a safety rope in sight!
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/04/19/we-need-to-talk-about-antivaxxer-gopers/
In actual fact life expectancy in the UK was falling even pre Covid
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/mar/07/life-expectancy-slumps-by-five-months
Even asymptomatic infection greatly increases the risk of death with surgery, by a factor of 6.
https://twitter.com/_tomabbott/status/1405793264662425607?s=19
On the substantive point - interesting. Of course, this may cover, depending how the data were analysed, people arriving at hospital with symptoms of Covid that were not recorded as Covid immediately until testing had happened, but as more general complaints.
Assuming he makes it that far.
If he does, he's certain to be in Green, too.
"6/ When we looked at elective / planned surgery, the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 was very low (0.1% or 1 in 1000 cases). However, the risk of death was 25x greater among patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. @BJAJournals https://t.co/Tq8hl9ugwv https://t.co/7916s7lxsN"
Based on UK date over 14 months.
I suspect Scots may end getting the worst of all worlds.
For example mortgages have to be paid in sterling if Scots go for their own currency or go rogue and that depreciates badly then you can the mortgages of Scots going up by a lot overnight.
In a past job I used to specialise in sports media rights and also mobile telephony, that's going to have major impacts as well.
Calls to RUK may end up getting charged at international calling rates.
So when you ring up to ask why Sky/BT aren't showing the football or new HBO show on Sky Atlantic then there's going to several shocks.
https://twitter.com/James_Kpatrick/status/320150923336892416
Though given as long as there remains a Tory government an indyref2 will not be granted may be some time for it to be tested if ever.
At the moment unless there is a Labour government dependent on the SNP for confidence and supply we may never get an indyref2, 2014 would have been the one chance the UK government ever allowed Scottish nationalists to have for independence
Don't worry it won't cost our (Scottish) tax payers a penny will be very popular campaign commitment at the next Independence campaign.
Or maybe even main plot given GC seems to be a podium race now.
If Sinn Fein/Nationalism win the next NI Assembly elections, that will have an effect sure enough, and that would seem to be in part a consequence of the DUP, and Unionism generally, trashing itself over Brexit.
Keir Starmer in NI just now, in denial over what may happen soon, but I guess he's concentrating on distancing himself from Corbyn for the benefit of voters in England over saying anything sensible about NI.
Instead as long as we Tories remain in power we will refuse indyref2 and nothing the SNP can do about it
Do you hear that Jocks, the future is an Epping Forest Union Jackboot stomping on your face - forever.
The Delta variant is just so much easier to catch and spread
Without checking that's my impression. Usual socio-economic stuff I guess.
Dense city centre campuses won't help, as.@eek notes.
A former Labour MP sexually assaulted, harassed and victimised a parliamentary worker, a tribunal has found.
Ex-Hartlepool MP Mike Hill rubbed himself against the woman, known as Ms A, and attempted to touch her breasts, it accepted.
The central London employment tribunal upheld claims of "detrimental treatment" over a 16-month period.
Its judgement said "spiteful or retaliatory" acts followed the woman's rejection of Mr Hill's sexual advances.
Judge Joffe found Mr Hill had, on two occasions, got into bed with Ms A, rubbed his groin against her and attempted to touch her breasts.
He had also sexually assaulted Ms A by rubbing his penis against her bottom.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-57770107
@TSE is making interesting and very relevant points on Scottish Independence and adds to the debate that will continue into the future and, of course, there may come an optimum time in the next few years to allow an Independence referendum and actually win it for the Union
Please try to add to the debate and not continue to embarrass yourself