'That we British are the least likely in the world to think referendums are a good way settling political issues has left me shocked in a way only matched by the time Captain Renault discovered gambling was taking place in Rick’s Cafe.'
Your winnings m'sieu.
On this, the British are right. You either have no place for referendums or a Swiss system where they happen several times a year. Nothing else seems to work in a representative democracy.
The funny thing is, before 1973 (the Northern Ireland referendum, such as it was) lots of referendums had been proposed but I can't think of any that actually took place.
Churchill wanted a referendum in 1945 on continuing the 1935 parliament until the defeat of Japan - but Attlee withdrew Labour from the coalition and an election was held instead.
Bonar Law suggested a referendum on Tariff Reform in 1913 - but by the time the Unionists won an election in their own strength again nine years had passed and the pledge was ditched.
I think Gladstone proposed a referendum on Home Rule for Ireland as well in 1885, although I'm not sure of that.
Given that the ones held since have mostly been a dog's breakfast, it's not surprising the electorate are getting fed up with them.
We had referendums in Wales in 1961, 1968 and 1975 on the vital question of whether pubs should open on Sundays. After a clean sweep in 75 'yes' was assumed to be the settled will of the nation.
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
We've had fair political development owing partly to particular developments of protestantism, but an artistic legacy on anything like the scale of France's and Italy's would need another couple of centuries of making up for the biases of the Victorians against expression, where Britain lost a lot of artistic ground.
Not entirely sure about that. Different countries have different artistic strengths, and it also depends on what constitutes ‘art’. And the 20th century saw major changes
Sticking to major ‘western’ nations (just to make it easier) I’d put the top 5 in each art form like this
Music:
1. Germany 2. USA (jazz, pop/rock) 3. Italy 4. UK (1960s on) 5. France
Painting/sculpture: 1. Italy 2. France 3. USA 4. Spain 5. UK/Holland equal
Literature 1. UK 2. Russia 3. US 4. France 5. Italy
Architecture 1. Italy 2. USA 3. France 4. UK 5. Can’t think of anywhere else
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
I’d much rather be part of a Switzerland - small, prosperous, rule of law, democratic - than a China or a Russia.
SecurityCouncil: France, not Japan
France should be banned from hosting the Olympics if they are going to be behave like this....
BREAKING: The Gold medal for biggest d*ckhead of the Tokyo Olympics goes to French marathon runner Morhad Amdouni who deliberately knocks over all the water for his fellow competitors…Unbelievable! https://t.co/D4IwmlAHlL
Twitter will have failed if no one has commented that any post from Piers Morgan talking about a gold medal for being a dickhead that does not include the words 'I've won a' is incorrect.
Are referendums not a bit like democracy: the worst way to resolve things apart from all the others?
What we have seen all too painfully in Scotland, and indeed in the UK in respect of Brexit, is that they are divisive, disruptive and change very few minds but so does a situation where there is a very substantial minority who want something but cannot get it through Westminster either because they don't stand in enough seats or because there is a cosy metropolitan consensus shared by all the major parties.
My view, FWIW, is that those wanting a referendum won a very, very narrow majority of the vote in Scotland at the last election. I think that entitles them to at least ask the question.
The EU referendum changed a few minds in Scotland about indy if various analyses are correct.
Edit: and your view is certainly worth a bit more than that of your average flint knapper.
Are referendums not a bit like democracy: the worst way to resolve things apart from all the others?
What we have seen all too painfully in Scotland, and indeed in the UK in respect of Brexit, is that they are divisive, disruptive and change very few minds but so does a situation where there is a very substantial minority who want something but cannot get it through Westminster either because they don't stand in enough seats or because there is a cosy metropolitan consensus shared by all the major parties.
My view, FWIW, is that those wanting a referendum won a very, very narrow majority of the vote in Scotland at the last election. I think that entitles them to at least ask the question.
I think seeing referendums as some panacea for an intractable political issue is a problem. The political and legal realities of a vote on a very general point, in an atypical situation, clash with a minority of successful political will.
You need to build the right culture for them, properly prepare and respond to them. I don't think we have that.
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
We've had fair political development owing partly to particular developments of protestantism, but an artistic legacy on anything like the scale of France's and Italy's would need another couple of centuries of making up for the biases of the Victorians against expression, where Britain lost a lot of artistic ground.
Not entirely sure about that. Different countries have different artistic strengths, and it also depends on what constitutes ‘art’. And the 20th century saw major changes
Sticking to major ‘western’ nations (just to make it easier) I’d put the top 5 in each art form like this
Music:
1. Germany 2. USA (jazz, pop/rock) 3. Italy 4. UK (1960s on) 5. France
Painting/sculpture: 1. Italy 2. France 3. USA 4. Spain 5. UK/Holland equal
Literature 1. UK 2. Russia 3. US 4. France 5. Italy
Architecture 1. Italy 2. USA 3. France 4. UK 5. Can’t think of anywhere else
Can't really think of what France had contributed to music. Richard Clayderman?
Vaguely on topic, the PB Scot Nits do same even angrier than normal, first Stuart Dickson goes full-on blood-and-soil measure-their-skulls Ethno-Nat, then the uniondivvie’s typical waspishness devolves to a faintly sad, rather bitter sourness, now even the peaceful malcolmg, who barely has a bad word for anyone, seems a little dyspeptic
I wonder if it is, partly, the above finding. The Brits have gone off referendums. Including indyrefs
What's just as intriguing is how a freeborn Englishman who advances Sovereignty as the reason they voted for Brexit can be so viscerally opposed to Scottish Independence given the Sovereignty argument is (at the very least) of equal relevance there. A great example of such a person would be you, of course, but there are plenty of others who exhibit the same (on the face of it) stark contradiction. I don't get this at all. The anti-SNP passion of it, I mean, in a Brexiteer. Makes no sense to me.
I could understand a position of "I hope they don't leave because I value their contribution to this Union that I love but at the end of the day it's up to them". I'd totally understand that or similar. It's exactly what one might expect the position of a Sovereignty loving English Brexiteer to be. But this does not appear to be the position with those I'm referring to. The sentiment is more that Independence for Scotland is a risible notion and the Scots have a cheek to even think about it.
It seems odd. I don't expect even PB pundits to exhibit a perfect consistency across their political views - in fact that's a sign of immaturity - but this anomaly here is quite common and it really sticks out. To me it does anyway. So any half decent explanation would be most welcome. I'm keen to learn.
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
I’d much rather be part of a Switzerland - small, prosperous, rule of law, democratic - than a China or a Russia.
SecurityCouncil: France, not Japan
France should be banned from hosting the Olympics if they are going to be behave like this....
BREAKING: The Gold medal for biggest d*ckhead of the Tokyo Olympics goes to French marathon runner Morhad Amdouni who deliberately knocks over all the water for his fellow competitors…Unbelievable! https://t.co/D4IwmlAHlL
Twitter will have failed if no one has commented that any post from Piers Morgan talking about a gold medal for being a dickhead that does not include the words 'I've won a' is incorrect.
That French bottle-strewing ‘cheat’ is getting absolutely torn apart on Twitter. It’s not just the tomfool Morgan. Indeed it first went viral in Japan
I fear for his sponsorship deal with Nike. He’s got a few people saying it was an accident, but it really really doesn’t look accidental
A final comment on the Olympics. The best technical advance in coverage was the underwater views of female artistic gymnastics. Check it out.
The worst was the use of the bullet time effect...which doesn't work without a million cameras and a carefully constructed set. Instead all you got was a blurry low res mess.
Are referendums not a bit like democracy: the worst way to resolve things apart from all the others?
What we have seen all too painfully in Scotland, and indeed in the UK in respect of Brexit, is that they are divisive, disruptive and change very few minds but so does a situation where there is a very substantial minority who want something but cannot get it through Westminster either because they don't stand in enough seats or because there is a cosy metropolitan consensus shared by all the major parties.
My view, FWIW, is that those wanting a referendum won a very, very narrow majority of the vote in Scotland at the last election. I think that entitles them to at least ask the question.
The EU referendum changed a few minds in Scotland about indy if various analyses are correct.
Indeed it did. It made anyone with any understanding of economics realise that independence was now suicidal because we would have to choose between the SM of the UK (in which case why bother, we would be even more dominated by England than we are now and the democratic deficit would be worse) or the SM of the EU (with a hard border from Berwick to Carlisle and all the problems of NI plus no doubt some bonus extras such as currency).
Unfortunately the SNP have prevented schools from teaching economics so who knows what might happen next?
Edit, it is also worth noting that although the decline in support for independence commenced before Brexit actually happened the trend has continued since January.
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
We've had fair political development owing partly to particular developments of protestantism, but an artistic legacy on anything like the scale of France's and Italy's would need another couple of centuries of making up for the biases of the Victorians against expression, where Britain lost a lot of artistic ground.
Not entirely sure about that. Different countries have different artistic strengths, and it also depends on what constitutes ‘art’. And the 20th century saw major changes
Sticking to major ‘western’ nations (just to make it easier) I’d put the top 5 in each art form like this
Music:
1. Germany 2. USA (jazz, pop/rock) 3. Italy 4. UK (1960s on) 5. France
Painting/sculpture: 1. Italy 2. France 3. USA 4. Spain 5. UK/Holland equal
Literature 1. UK 2. Russia 3. US 4. France 5. Italy
Architecture 1. Italy 2. USA 3. France 4. UK 5. Can’t think of anywhere else
There's something in some of those lists - particularly post-1960s creativity in music in Britain, where Britain has often adapted things in a way quite different from the American originating points.
Literature is another huge legacy, partly because it was the only expressive area that the Victorians really and actively encouraged, establishing Shakespeare as part of a national story for the first time, and embracing the more creative and politically unpredictable climate of British novel-making as part of the same story.
The real problem and deficiency, where Britain has a lot of ground to make up, was in imperial Victorian Britain not creating a hospitable environment for other creative expression in general. This is largely the reason why Britain's contributions to the development of both classical music and the visual arts, between 1850 and 1920, and compared to France, Germany's or Italy's, were negligible.
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
I’d much rather be part of a Switzerland - small, prosperous, rule of law, democratic - than a China or a Russia.
SecurityCouncil: France, not Japan
France should be banned from hosting the Olympics if they are going to be behave like this....
BREAKING: The Gold medal for biggest d*ckhead of the Tokyo Olympics goes to French marathon runner Morhad Amdouni who deliberately knocks over all the water for his fellow competitors…Unbelievable! https://t.co/D4IwmlAHlL
Twitter will have failed if no one has commented that any post from Piers Morgan talking about a gold medal for being a dickhead that does not include the words 'I've won a' is incorrect.
That French bottle-strewing ‘cheat’ is getting absolutely torn apart on Twitter. It’s not just the tomfool Morgan. Indeed it first went viral in Japan
I fear for his sponsorship deal with Nike. He’s got a few people saying it was an accident, but it really really doesn’t look accidental
Given the heat and the humidity, even athletes from countries like Brazil and African continent got in really bad way during the distance races, so not only being a dick, but actually really dangerous to other competitors health.
Are referendums not a bit like democracy: the worst way to resolve things apart from all the others?
What we have seen all too painfully in Scotland, and indeed in the UK in respect of Brexit, is that they are divisive, disruptive and change very few minds but so does a situation where there is a very substantial minority who want something but cannot get it through Westminster either because they don't stand in enough seats or because there is a cosy metropolitan consensus shared by all the major parties.
My view, FWIW, is that those wanting a referendum won a very, very narrow majority of the vote in Scotland at the last election. I think that entitles them to at least ask the question.
The EU referendum changed a few minds in Scotland about indy if various analyses are correct.
Indeed it did. It made anyone with any understanding of economics realise that independence was now suicidal because we would have to choose between the SM of the UK (in which case why bother, we would be even more dominated by England than we are now and the democratic deficit would be worse) or the SM of the EU (with a hard border from Berwick to Carlisle and all the problems of NI plus no doubt some bonus extras such as currency).
Unfortunately the SNP have prevented schools from teaching economics so who knows what might happen next?
Edit, it is also worth noting that although the decline in support for independence commenced before Brexit actually happened the trend has continued since January.
I don't think we'd have 'all the problems of NI' unless you know something about Unionist ultras that I don't? Murdo in a balaclava? Hmm, well one obvious advantage to that..
Vaguely on topic, the PB Scot Nits do same even angrier than normal, first Stuart Dickson goes full-on blood-and-soil measure-their-skulls Ethno-Nat, then the uniondivvie’s typical waspishness devolves to a faintly sad, rather bitter sourness, now even the peaceful malcolmg, who barely has a bad word for anyone, seems a little dyspeptic
I wonder if it is, partly, the above finding. The Brits have gone off referendums. Including indyrefs
What's just as intriguing is how a freeborn Englishman who advances Sovereignty as the reason they voted for Brexit can be so viscerally opposed to Scottish Independence given the Sovereignty argument is (at the very least) of equal relevance there. A great example of such a person would be you, of course, but there are plenty of others who exhibit the same (on the face of it) stark contradiction. I don't get this at all. The anti-SNP passion of it, I mean, in a Brexiteer. Makes no sense to me.
Of course it does. Some people suggest it is logically absurd to support Brexit but oppose Sindy, or indeed to support Sindy but oppose Brexit, because similar arguments about sovereignty apply and similar issues around trade and access, untangling institutions, apply in each case.
But for me I see no contradiction or logical failing. In both cases there are economic or political arguments but the critical issue is the emotion behind it, and therefore the weight people put to those arguments. Ultimately its whether people feel a connection to or value any particular union. If they emotionally value one and not the other, similar or even the exact same argument will not have an impact. Sindy supporters will suddenly think the problems of separation are minimised (or just worth it), and Brexit Unionists (since not all do support the UK) will not regard the costs as worth it in this case.
On the referendum just thinking back to the terrible remain campaign and Obama's ill judged "back of the queue" comment. Since then US policy wrt the EU looks a lot more like what Trump left behind than what Obama said would happen. We're now well past the point where Biden could have undone everything Trump put in place but he hasn't and the US is far, far more hostile towards the EU than it was under Obama and it has been conducting almost all of its foreign policy on a bilateral basis with the nations of the EU rather than via the EU.
It's not a huge deal and probably reflects America's first priority of securing it's primacy in Asia and the Pacific and the Brexit effect of the major diplomatic partner no longer being in it.
I just thought it was interesting how different the post-Brexit realpolitik is to what Obama and the remain campaign were hopecasting. The UK/US relationship is still far, far more important to the US and UK than either of their relationships with the EU. Both the UK and US are conducting foreign policy without involving the EU and this is being aided and abetted by Macron who sees an opportunity to put France's interests at the top of the table without interference from the other 26 nations.
It will be interesting to see how the next 10 years plays out as the UK and US increasingly put their focus on Asia and the Pacific and continue to sidestep the EU. It may force the Eurocrats into a corner and try and make a play for France's UN security council seat and a new treaty to take over all external foreign policy.
I think relations between European countries and the US are massively better than under Trump.
Vaguely on topic, the PB Scot Nits do same even angrier than normal, first Stuart Dickson goes full-on blood-and-soil measure-their-skulls Ethno-Nat, then the uniondivvie’s typical waspishness devolves to a faintly sad, rather bitter sourness, now even the peaceful malcolmg, who barely has a bad word for anyone, seems a little dyspeptic
I wonder if it is, partly, the above finding. The Brits have gone off referendums. Including indyrefs
What's just as intriguing is how a freeborn Englishman who advances Sovereignty as the reason they voted for Brexit can be so viscerally opposed to Scottish Independence given the Sovereignty argument is (at the very least) of equal relevance there. A great example of such a person would be you, of course, but there are plenty of others who exhibit the same (on the face of it) stark contradiction. I don't get this at all. The anti-SNP passion of it, I mean, in a Brexiteer. Makes no sense to me.
I could understand a position of "I hope they don't leave because I value their contribution to this Union that I love but at the end of the day it's up to them". I'd totally understand that or similar. It's exactly what one might expect the position of a Sovereignty loving English Brexiteer to be. But this does not appear to be the position with those I'm referring to. The sentiment is more that Independence for Scotland is a risible notion and the Scots have a cheek to even think about it.
It seems odd. I don't expect even PB pundits to exhibit a perfect consistency across their political views - in fact that's a sign of immaturity - but this anomaly here is quite common and it really sticks out. To me it does anyway. So any half decent explanation would be most welcome. I'm keen to learn.
Vaguely on topic, the PB Scot Nits do same even angrier than normal, first Stuart Dickson goes full-on blood-and-soil measure-their-skulls Ethno-Nat, then the uniondivvie’s typical waspishness devolves to a faintly sad, rather bitter sourness, now even the peaceful malcolmg, who barely has a bad word for anyone, seems a little dyspeptic
I wonder if it is, partly, the above finding. The Brits have gone off referendums. Including indyrefs
What's just as intriguing is how a freeborn Englishman who advances Sovereignty as the reason they voted for Brexit can be so viscerally opposed to Scottish Independence given the Sovereignty argument is (at the very least) of equal relevance there. A great example of such a person would be you, of course, but there are plenty of others who exhibit the same (on the face of it) stark contradiction. I don't get this at all. The anti-SNP passion of it, I mean, in a Brexiteer. Makes no sense to me.
I could understand a position of "I hope they don't leave because I value their contribution to this Union that I love but at the end of the day it's up to them". I'd totally understand that or similar. It's exactly what one might expect the position of a Sovereignty loving English Brexiteer to be. But this does not appear to be the position with those I'm referring to. The sentiment is more that Independence for Scotland is a risible notion and the Scots have a cheek to even think about it.
It seems odd. I don't expect even PB pundits to exhibit a perfect consistency across their political views - in fact that's a sign of immaturity - but this anomaly here is quite common and it really sticks out. To me it does anyway. So any half decent explanation would be most welcome. I'm keen to learn.
In fact that specific inconsistency/contradiction is so prevalent, it might even be called a consistency.
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
We've had fair political development owing partly to particular developments of protestantism, but an artistic legacy on anything like the scale of France's and Italy's would need another couple of centuries of making up for the biases of the Victorians against expression, where Britain lost a lot of artistic ground.
Not entirely sure about that. Different countries have different artistic strengths, and it also depends on what constitutes ‘art’. And the 20th century saw major changes
Sticking to major ‘western’ nations (just to make it easier) I’d put the top 5 in each art form like this
Music:
1. Germany 2. USA (jazz, pop/rock) 3. Italy 4. UK (1960s on) 5. France
Painting/sculpture: 1. Italy 2. France 3. USA 4. Spain 5. UK/Holland equal
Literature 1. UK 2. Russia 3. US 4. France 5. Italy
Architecture 1. Italy 2. USA 3. France 4. UK 5. Can’t think of anywhere else
Can't really think of what France had contributed to music. Richard Clayderman?
France had a splendid tradition in medieval church music, then a second flowering from about the 17th century on: Bizet, Debussy, Poulenc, Saint Seans, Ravel, Satie...
However you do have a point. Their modern popular music has been so shit I may have overrated them
Sorry France you’re OUT of the top 5. Who goes in? Austria maybe (esp if you include their empire)
Are referendums not a bit like democracy: the worst way to resolve things apart from all the others?
What we have seen all too painfully in Scotland, and indeed in the UK in respect of Brexit, is that they are divisive, disruptive and change very few minds but so does a situation where there is a very substantial minority who want something but cannot get it through Westminster either because they don't stand in enough seats or because there is a cosy metropolitan consensus shared by all the major parties.
My view, FWIW, is that those wanting a referendum won a very, very narrow majority of the vote in Scotland at the last election. I think that entitles them to at least ask the question.
The EU referendum changed a few minds in Scotland about indy if various analyses are correct.
Indeed it did. It made anyone with any understanding of economics realise that independence was now suicidal because we would have to choose between the SM of the UK (in which case why bother, we would be even more dominated by England than we are now and the democratic deficit would be worse) or the SM of the EU (with a hard border from Berwick to Carlisle and all the problems of NI plus no doubt some bonus extras such as currency).
Unfortunately the SNP have prevented schools from teaching economics so who knows what might happen next?
Edit, it is also worth noting that although the decline in support for independence commenced before Brexit actually happened the trend has continued since January.
I don't think we'd have 'all the problems of NI' unless you know something about Unionist ultras that I don't? Murdo in a balaclava? Hmm, well one obvious advantage to that..
I know that the vast majority of our readers find Scottish Independence arguments tedious beyond belief but to demonstrate the point made by the thread header let's suppose that the result in 2014 had been the other way around. Is 55:45 really any basis for something as disruptive as breaking up the country? I think it would be a calamitous basis on which to start.
Exactly the same point could of course be made against me in relation to Brexit where I was the disrupter and it was even closer. I recognise the force of that argument. Its why I thought that Parliament really should have gone for a soft Brexit, May style, in the first instance and we could then determine whether to get closer to the EU again or further away over time. I very much regret that we did not achieve this. It has left the country very divided and weaker as a result.
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
We've had fair political development owing partly to particular developments of protestantism, but an artistic legacy on anything like the scale of France's and Italy's would need another couple of centuries of making up for the biases of the Victorians against expression, where Britain lost a lot of artistic ground.
Not entirely sure about that. Different countries have different artistic strengths, and it also depends on what constitutes ‘art’. And the 20th century saw major changes
Sticking to major ‘western’ nations (just to make it easier) I’d put the top 5 in each art form like this
Music:
1. Germany 2. USA (jazz, pop/rock) 3. Italy 4. UK (1960s on) 5. France
Painting/sculpture: 1. Italy 2. France 3. USA 4. Spain 5. UK/Holland equal
Literature 1. UK 2. Russia 3. US 4. France 5. Italy
Architecture 1. Italy 2. USA 3. France 4. UK 5. Can’t think of anywhere else
There's something in some of those lists - particularly post-1960s creativity in music in Britain, where Britain has often adapted things in a way quite different from the American originating points.
Literature is another huge legacy, partly because it was the only expressive area that the Victorians really and actively encouraged, establishing Shakespeare as part of a national story for the first time, and embracing the more creative and politically unpredictable climate of British novel-making as part of the same story.
The real problem and deficiency, where Britain has a lot of ground to make up, was in imperial Victorian Britain not creating a hospitable environment for other creative expression in general. This is largely the reason why Britain's contributions to the development of both classical music and the visual arts, between 1850 and 1920, and compared to France, Germany's or Italy's, were negligible.
On the referendum just thinking back to the terrible remain campaign and Obama's ill judged "back of the queue" comment. Since then US policy wrt the EU looks a lot more like what Trump left behind than what Obama said would happen. We're now well past the point where Biden could have undone everything Trump put in place but he hasn't and the US is far, far more hostile towards the EU than it was under Obama and it has been conducting almost all of its foreign policy on a bilateral basis with the nations of the EU rather than via the EU.
It's not a huge deal and probably reflects America's first priority of securing it's primacy in Asia and the Pacific and the Brexit effect of the major diplomatic partner no longer being in it.
I just thought it was interesting how different the post-Brexit realpolitik is to what Obama and the remain campaign were hopecasting. The UK/US relationship is still far, far more important to the US and UK than either of their relationships with the EU. Both the UK and US are conducting foreign policy without involving the EU and this is being aided and abetted by Macron who sees an opportunity to put France's interests at the top of the table without interference from the other 26 nations.
It will be interesting to see how the next 10 years plays out as the UK and US increasingly put their focus on Asia and the Pacific and continue to sidestep the EU. It may force the Eurocrats into a corner and try and make a play for France's UN security council seat and a new treaty to take over all external foreign policy.
I think relations between European countries and the US are massively better than under Trump.
European countries, yes, EU no.
During the Trump era, there was the specter (and reality) of tariffs, which was a trade bloc to trade bloc thing.
In the Biden era, what is there for the EU and the US to talk about? The US is looking to the threat of China, and the EU is largely irrelevant there. I don’t think there is unfriendliness - certainly unlike Trump - it’s more that the EU is irrelevant to the issues facing the US right now.
Well, I managed to avoid all the Olympics except the 400m hurdles world record and also the 4x400m women's relay which I watched with the sound off while eating my lunch.
Superb performances by the US and Jamaica with Britain winning a bunch finish for the each way money.
Other than that, haven't watched a thing.
Well done to all the medallists of whatever country - winning an Olympic medal remains a great individual and team achievement as appropriate no matter the sport. The dedication, self sacrifice and discipline required is commendable.
On topic, didn't the recent Redfield Wilton poll show a majority of Scots wanted a referendum within the next 5 years?
It did, but that's a slightly different question.
I'd like to see a poll with the exact same question that Ipsos MORI used on a proper Scotland poll.
Let's face it, no one gives a fuck about the AV ref.
I'm a first principles kinda guy in this area:
Should Scotland have the power to decide when it wants to have a referendum on whether to remain part of the United Kingdom?
No. Next question?
(The rationale is that it is a partnership and the other constituents of the UK have a right to stability. The occasional referendum is ok, but if Scotland could just have a vote every year then it would be unfair on the others)
Are referendums not a bit like democracy: the worst way to resolve things apart from all the others?
What we have seen all too painfully in Scotland, and indeed in the UK in respect of Brexit, is that they are divisive, disruptive and change very few minds but so does a situation where there is a very substantial minority who want something but cannot get it through Westminster either because they don't stand in enough seats or because there is a cosy metropolitan consensus shared by all the major parties.
My view, FWIW, is that those wanting a referendum won a very, very narrow majority of the vote in Scotland at the last election. I think that entitles them to at least ask the question.
I think seeing referendums as some panacea for an intractable political issue is a problem. The political and legal realities of a vote on a very general point, in an atypical situation, clash with a minority of successful political will.
You need to build the right culture for them, properly prepare and respond to them. I don't think we have that.
Yup.
The UK's recent referendums have been on things where public opinion has been fairly finely balanced, and the results have been interpreted as a winner-takes-all scenario.
In many ways understandable- the only real Westminster experience of anything else was 2010-15 and, deep down, all the parties hated it. Even if it led to relatively sane government, it was followed by all three English parties going different forms of mad.
On the other hand, the referendums that have stuck- say the GFA one in Northern Ireland, or the 1975 Common Market one (which stuck for over 30 years, after all) were the ones that were so overwhelming that they weren't strictly necessary. Perhaps that's what's going on- using a referendum to make the public decide sucks, but using them to bring public closure when the public have (unconsciously) decisively decided already works?
(Another data point- the Irish abortion referendum ended up at 2:1. Had the winning ratio been 26:24, say, would the decision have been accepted in the same way?)
On the referendum just thinking back to the terrible remain campaign and Obama's ill judged "back of the queue" comment. Since then US policy wrt the EU looks a lot more like what Trump left behind than what Obama said would happen. We're now well past the point where Biden could have undone everything Trump put in place but he hasn't and the US is far, far more hostile towards the EU than it was under Obama and it has been conducting almost all of its foreign policy on a bilateral basis with the nations of the EU rather than via the EU.
It's not a huge deal and probably reflects America's first priority of securing it's primacy in Asia and the Pacific and the Brexit effect of the major diplomatic partner no longer being in it.
I just thought it was interesting how different the post-Brexit realpolitik is to what Obama and the remain campaign were hopecasting. The UK/US relationship is still far, far more important to the US and UK than either of their relationships with the EU. Both the UK and US are conducting foreign policy without involving the EU and this is being aided and abetted by Macron who sees an opportunity to put France's interests at the top of the table without interference from the other 26 nations.
It will be interesting to see how the next 10 years plays out as the UK and US increasingly put their focus on Asia and the Pacific and continue to sidestep the EU. It may force the Eurocrats into a corner and try and make a play for France's UN security council seat and a new treaty to take over all external foreign policy.
I think relations between European countries and the US are massively better than under Trump.
European countries, yes, EU no.
During the Trump era, there was the specter (and reality) of tariffs, which was a trade bloc to trade bloc thing.
In the Biden era, what is there for the EU and the US to talk about? The US is looking to the threat of China, and the EU is largely irrelevant there. I don’t think there is unfriendliness - certainly unlike Trump - it’s more that the EU is irrelevant to the issues facing the US right now.
The problem is the same as Trump faced though. In facing off with China the EU is an unreliable friend keen to cut its own deals with China, the odd genocide be damned. As this runs contrary to the main US interest of the moment this inevitably means that relations remain somewhat cool. And the deals with Russia really don't help either.
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
We've had fair political development owing partly to particular developments of protestantism, but an artistic legacy on anything like the scale of France's and Italy's would need another couple of centuries of making up for the biases of the Victorians against expression, where Britain lost a lot of artistic ground.
Not entirely sure about that. Different countries have different artistic strengths, and it also depends on what constitutes ‘art’. And the 20th century saw major changes
Sticking to major ‘western’ nations (just to make it easier) I’d put the top 5 in each art form like this
Music:
1. Germany 2. USA (jazz, pop/rock) 3. Italy 4. UK (1960s on) 5. France
Painting/sculpture: 1. Italy 2. France 3. USA 4. Spain 5. UK/Holland equal
Literature 1. UK 2. Russia 3. US 4. France 5. Italy
Architecture 1. Italy 2. USA 3. France 4. UK 5. Can’t think of anywhere else
Can't really think of what France had contributed to music. Richard Clayderman?
France had a splendid tradition in medieval church music, then a second flowering from about the 17th century on: Bizet, Debussy, Poulenc, Saint Seans, Ravel, Satie...
However you do have a point. Their modern popular music has been so shit I may have overrated them
Sorry France you’re OUT of the top 5. Who goes in? Austria maybe (esp if you include their empire)
I'd like to make a case for Joseph Bologne. I'm a big fan of his work, and he had a back story the BBC Olympic team would love.. His father was a plantation owner, his mother was his father's wife's slave. He was also a champion fencer, so the composing could be part of the back story
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
I’d much rather be part of a Switzerland - small, prosperous, rule of law, democratic - than a China or a Russia.
SecurityCouncil: France, not Japan
France should be banned from hosting the Olympics if they are going to be behave like this....
BREAKING: The Gold medal for biggest d*ckhead of the Tokyo Olympics goes to French marathon runner Morhad Amdouni who deliberately knocks over all the water for his fellow competitors…Unbelievable! https://t.co/D4IwmlAHlL
Twitter will have failed if no one has commented that any post from Piers Morgan talking about a gold medal for being a dickhead that does not include the words 'I've won a' is incorrect.
That French bottle-strewing ‘cheat’ is getting absolutely torn apart on Twitter. It’s not just the tomfool Morgan. Indeed it first went viral in Japan
I fear for his sponsorship deal with Nike. He’s got a few people saying it was an accident, but it really really doesn’t look accidental
Given the heat and the humidity, even athletes from countries like Brazil and African continent got in really bad way during the distance races, so not only being a dick, but actually really dangerous to other competitors health.
He is being brutally shamed on social media. I kinda feel sorry for him. He did a stupid, mean, petty thing, which he will now regret for the rest of his life
Never seen such a large crowd of people at a cricket match hoping that it would somehow be possible to re-start it. Must have still been 5,000 people at Trent Bridge until about 30 minutes ago.
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
We've had fair political development owing partly to particular developments of protestantism, but an artistic legacy on anything like the scale of France's and Italy's would need another couple of centuries of making up for the biases of the Victorians against expression, where Britain lost a lot of artistic ground.
Not entirely sure about that. Different countries have different artistic strengths, and it also depends on what constitutes ‘art’. And the 20th century saw major changes
Sticking to major ‘western’ nations (just to make it easier) I’d put the top 5 in each art form like this
Music:
1. Germany 2. USA (jazz, pop/rock) 3. Italy 4. UK (1960s on) 5. France
Painting/sculpture: 1. Italy 2. France 3. USA 4. Spain 5. UK/Holland equal
Literature 1. UK 2. Russia 3. US 4. France 5. Italy
Architecture 1. Italy 2. USA 3. France 4. UK 5. Can’t think of anywhere else
Can't really think of what France had contributed to music. Richard Clayderman?
France had a splendid tradition in medieval church music, then a second flowering from about the 17th century on: Bizet, Debussy, Poulenc, Saint Seans, Ravel, Satie...
However you do have a point. Their modern popular music has been so shit I may have overrated them
Sorry France you’re OUT of the top 5. Who goes in? Austria maybe (esp if you include their empire)
You missed Vierne, Faure and Durufle from your post 17C list.
The infection rate over 7 days have actually turned positive again, albeit by a very small amount. But the hospitals are emptying so we don't care.
I think the worry is that at the moment its summer and the rugrat super spreaders aren't at school. If this is "low season" level, how bad will it get during peak season. It might also be just a plateau before it falls further, but obviously could also be the start of another significant rise.
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
I’d much rather be part of a Switzerland - small, prosperous, rule of law, democratic - than a China or a Russia.
Switzerland isn't in the EU and is terribly dull. I've lived there and been more than most other people, unsurprisingly given that my wife is Swiss.
I used to spend time in Lutzern and Grindelwald when I was younger. Much more than a week now and it’s hard work…
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
We've had fair political development owing partly to particular developments of protestantism, but an artistic legacy on anything like the scale of France's and Italy's would need another couple of centuries of making up for the biases of the Victorians against expression, where Britain lost a lot of artistic ground.
Not entirely sure about that. Different countries have different artistic strengths, and it also depends on what constitutes ‘art’. And the 20th century saw major changes
Sticking to major ‘western’ nations (just to make it easier) I’d put the top 5 in each art form like this
Music:
1. Germany 2. USA (jazz, pop/rock) 3. Italy 4. UK (1960s on) 5. France
Painting/sculpture: 1. Italy 2. France 3. USA 4. Spain 5. UK/Holland equal
Literature 1. UK 2. Russia 3. US 4. France 5. Italy
Architecture 1. Italy 2. USA 3. France 4. UK 5. Can’t think of anywhere else
Can't really think of what France had contributed to music. Richard Clayderman?
France had a splendid tradition in medieval church music, then a second flowering from about the 17th century on: Bizet, Debussy, Poulenc, Saint Seans, Ravel, Satie...
However you do have a point. Their modern popular music has been so shit I may have overrated them
Sorry France you’re OUT of the top 5. Who goes in? Austria maybe (esp if you include their empire)
You missed Vierne, Faure and Durufle from your post 17C list.
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
I’d much rather be part of a Switzerland - small, prosperous, rule of law, democratic - than a China or a Russia.
Switzerland isn't in the EU and is terribly dull. I've lived there and been more than most other people, unsurprisingly given that my wife is Swiss.
I used to spend time in Lutzern and Grindelwald when I was younger. Much more than a week now and it’s hard work…
Are referendums not a bit like democracy: the worst way to resolve things apart from all the others?
What we have seen all too painfully in Scotland, and indeed in the UK in respect of Brexit, is that they are divisive, disruptive and change very few minds but so does a situation where there is a very substantial minority who want something but cannot get it through Westminster either because they don't stand in enough seats or because there is a cosy metropolitan consensus shared by all the major parties.
My view, FWIW, is that those wanting a referendum won a very, very narrow majority of the vote in Scotland at the last election. I think that entitles them to at least ask the question.
The EU referendum changed a few minds in Scotland about indy if various analyses are correct.
Indeed it did. It made anyone with any understanding of economics realise that independence was now suicidal because we would have to choose between the SM of the UK (in which case why bother, we would be even more dominated by England than we are now and the democratic deficit would be worse) or the SM of the EU (with a hard border from Berwick to Carlisle and all the problems of NI plus no doubt some bonus extras such as currency).
Unfortunately the SNP have prevented schools from teaching economics so who knows what might happen next?
Edit, it is also worth noting that although the decline in support for independence commenced before Brexit actually happened the trend has continued since January.
I don't think we'd have 'all the problems of NI' unless you know something about Unionist ultras that I don't? Murdo in a balaclava? Hmm, well one obvious advantage to that..
I know that the vast majority of our readers find Scottish Independence arguments tedious beyond belief but to demonstrate the point made by the thread header let's suppose that the result in 2014 had been the other way around. Is 55:45 really any basis for something as disruptive as breaking up the country? I think it would be a calamitous basis on which to start.
Exactly the same point could of course be made against me in relation to Brexit where I was the disrupter and it was even closer. I recognise the force of that argument. Its why I thought that Parliament really should have gone for a soft Brexit, May style, in the first instance and we could then determine whether to get closer to the EU again or further away over time. I very much regret that we did not achieve this. It has left the country very divided and weaker as a result.
As you suggest 52-48 is a substantially closer result than 55-45, and with big discrepancies in the constituent nations of this Union. I'd contend a single country has a better chance of overcoming disruption than a unitary state that can't quite decide how to define itself (state, country, collection of countries, nation, union of nations, Britain, UK etc), though no doubt there would have been lots of crackerjack calls from Epping for indy for Shetland etc, but these people are idiots.
I'd still refer you back to my several times made contention that without Brexit support for indy would be 40%ish and the SNP would be looking a lot less dominant than they are. The people that opened Pandora's Box were Brexiteers not Indy backers. Fair play that you reluctantly recognise that there's a case for Scots to at least be allowed to review the situation.
The infection rate over 7 days have actually turned positive again, albeit by a very small amount. But the hospitals are emptying so we don't care.
I think the worry is that at the moment its summer and the rugrat super spreaders aren't at school. If this is "low season" level, how bad will it get during peak season. It might also be just a plateau before it falls further, but obviously could also be the start of another significant rise.
Maybe but the number fully vaccinated goes up every day and the number of idiots without vaccines that haven't been infected declines so the risk does fall over time.
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
I’d much rather be part of a Switzerland - small, prosperous, rule of law, democratic - than a China or a Russia.
Switzerland isn't in the EU and is terribly dull. I've lived there and been more than most other people, unsurprisingly given that my wife is Swiss.
I used to spend time in Lutzern and Grindelwald when I was younger. Much more than a week now and it’s hard work…
It is also mind-numbingly expensive. Lugano can make Oslo look cheap
Are referendums not a bit like democracy: the worst way to resolve things apart from all the others?
What we have seen all too painfully in Scotland, and indeed in the UK in respect of Brexit, is that they are divisive, disruptive and change very few minds but so does a situation where there is a very substantial minority who want something but cannot get it through Westminster either because they don't stand in enough seats or because there is a cosy metropolitan consensus shared by all the major parties.
My view, FWIW, is that those wanting a referendum won a very, very narrow majority of the vote in Scotland at the last election. I think that entitles them to at least ask the question.
I think seeing referendums as some panacea for an intractable political issue is a problem. The political and legal realities of a vote on a very general point, in an atypical situation, clash with a minority of successful political will.
You need to build the right culture for them, properly prepare and respond to them. I don't think we have that.
Yup.
The UK's recent referendums have been on things where public opinion has been fairly finely balanced, and the results have been interpreted as a winner-takes-all scenario.
In many ways understandable- the only real Westminster experience of anything else was 2010-15 and, deep down, all the parties hated it. Even if it led to relatively sane government, it was followed by all three English parties going different forms of mad.
On the other hand, the referendums that have stuck- say the GFA one in Northern Ireland, or the 1975 Common Market one (which stuck for over 30 years, after all) were the ones that were so overwhelming that they weren't strictly necessary. Perhaps that's what's going on- using a referendum to make the public decide sucks, but using them to bring public closure when the public have (unconsciously) decisively decided already works?
(Another data point- the Irish abortion referendum ended up at 2:1. Had the winning ratio been 26:24, say, would the decision have been accepted in the same way?)
I disagree strongly about the 1975 sticking. No one was consulted on the issue of Europe for the next 40 years. That’s not sticking, that’s just not asking the question.
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
I’d much rather be part of a Switzerland - small, prosperous, rule of law, democratic - than a China or a Russia.
Switzerland isn't in the EU and is terribly dull. I've lived there and been more than most other people, unsurprisingly given that my wife is Swiss.
I used to spend time in Lutzern and Grindelwald when I was younger. Much more than a week now and it’s hard work…
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
We've had fair political development owing partly to particular developments of protestantism, but an artistic legacy on anything like the scale of France's and Italy's would need another couple of centuries of making up for the biases of the Victorians against expression, where Britain lost a lot of artistic ground.
Not entirely sure about that. Different countries have different artistic strengths, and it also depends on what constitutes ‘art’. And the 20th century saw major changes
Sticking to major ‘western’ nations (just to make it easier) I’d put the top 5 in each art form like this
Music:
1. Germany 2. USA (jazz, pop/rock) 3. Italy 4. UK (1960s on) 5. France
Painting/sculpture: 1. Italy 2. France 3. USA 4. Spain 5. UK/Holland equal
Literature 1. UK 2. Russia 3. US 4. France 5. Italy
Architecture 1. Italy 2. USA 3. France 4. UK 5. Can’t think of anywhere else
There's something in some of those lists - particularly post-1960s creativity in music in Britain, where Britain has often adapted things in a way quite different from the American originating points.
Literature is another huge legacy, partly because it was the only expressive area that the Victorians really and actively encouraged, establishing Shakespeare as part of a national story for the first time, and embracing the more creative and politically unpredictable climate of British novel-making as part of the same story.
The real problem and deficiency, where Britain has a lot of ground to make up, was in imperial Victorian Britain not creating a hospitable environment for other creative expression in general. This is largely the reason why Britain's contributions to the development of both classical music and the visual arts, between 1850 and 1920, and compared to France, Germany's or Italy's, were negligible.
I forgot movies/TV
1. USA 2. UK 3. France 4. Italy 5. Germany
Science and invention should also probably added, where I would place Britain joint top with the US, Germany and Japan. Science and invention, varyingly eccentric or inspired developments of protestantism into various kinds of political liberty, popular music, and literature are our strong suits, I think.
Vaguely on topic, the PB Scot Nits do same even angrier than normal, first Stuart Dickson goes full-on blood-and-soil measure-their-skulls Ethno-Nat, then the uniondivvie’s typical waspishness devolves to a faintly sad, rather bitter sourness, now even the peaceful malcolmg, who barely has a bad word for anyone, seems a little dyspeptic
I wonder if it is, partly, the above finding. The Brits have gone off referendums. Including indyrefs
What's just as intriguing is how a freeborn Englishman who advances Sovereignty as the reason they voted for Brexit can be so viscerally opposed to Scottish Independence given the Sovereignty argument is (at the very least) of equal relevance there. A great example of such a person would be you, of course, but there are plenty of others who exhibit the same (on the face of it) stark contradiction. I don't get this at all. The anti-SNP passion of it, I mean, in a Brexiteer. Makes no sense to me.
Of course it does. Some people suggest it is logically absurd to support Brexit but oppose Sindy, or indeed to support Sindy but oppose Brexit, because similar arguments about sovereignty apply and similar issues around trade and access, untangling institutions, apply in each case.
But for me I see no contradiction or logical failing. In both cases there are economic or political arguments but the critical issue is the emotion behind it, and therefore the weight people put to those arguments. Ultimately its whether people feel a connection to or value any particular union. If they emotionally value one and not the other, similar or even the exact same argument will not have an impact. Sindy supporters will suddenly think the problems of separation are minimised (or just worth it), and Brexit Unionists (since not all do support the UK) will not regard the costs as worth it in this case.
Brexit and Sindy are both 'heart over head' propositions, yes, and at the heart of it is Sovereignty. So I'd expect an English person who feels strongly enough about this to have voted for Independence (as they'd put it) for the UK from the EU to at the least empathize with that same central argument for the Independence of Scotland from the UK. Not agree with, please note, but empathize with. It's not the combo of 'support one but oppose the other' that's weird. That isn't weird at all. Remainer/Nat, Remainer/Unionist, Leaver/Nat, Leaver/Unionist, these all work. What's weird - or let's just say worthy of a probe - is the specific combo of Passionate Sovereignty Leaver and Visceral Sindy Opponent in one and the same person.
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
I’d much rather be part of a Switzerland - small, prosperous, rule of law, democratic - than a China or a Russia.
SecurityCouncil: France, not Japan
France should be banned from hosting the Olympics if they are going to be behave like this....
BREAKING: The Gold medal for biggest d*ckhead of the Tokyo Olympics goes to French marathon runner Morhad Amdouni who deliberately knocks over all the water for his fellow competitors…Unbelievable! https://t.co/D4IwmlAHlL
Twitter will have failed if no one has commented that any post from Piers Morgan talking about a gold medal for being a dickhead that does not include the words 'I've won a' is incorrect.
That French bottle-strewing ‘cheat’ is getting absolutely torn apart on Twitter. It’s not just the tomfool Morgan. Indeed it first went viral in Japan
I fear for his sponsorship deal with Nike. He’s got a few people saying it was an accident, but it really really doesn’t look accidental
And for the people saying “it’s hard to pick up the bottles” I’d assume this is something the runners practice… as no one else seems to be struggling
The infection rate over 7 days have actually turned positive again, albeit by a very small amount. But the hospitals are emptying so we don't care.
I think the worry is that at the moment its summer and the rugrat super spreaders aren't at school. If this is "low season" level, how bad will it get during peak season. It might also be just a plateau before it falls further, but obviously could also be the start of another significant rise.
Maybe but the number fully vaccinated goes up every day and the number of idiots without vaccines that haven't been infected declines so the risk does fall over time.
The biggest concerning recent data is that vaccinated people who do become infected can still be very effective spreaders (how much is still up for further investigation). The assumption / early data from pre-delta was this would be a very rare occurrence between two vaccinated people and thus once basically everybody was, the virus really can't transmit.
We might well be stuck in a loop for a very long time of transmission, until everybody has had COVID (as reinfection does still appear to be rare and much lower viral loads inhibiting further transmission).
Are referendums not a bit like democracy: the worst way to resolve things apart from all the others?
What we have seen all too painfully in Scotland, and indeed in the UK in respect of Brexit, is that they are divisive, disruptive and change very few minds but so does a situation where there is a very substantial minority who want something but cannot get it through Westminster either because they don't stand in enough seats or because there is a cosy metropolitan consensus shared by all the major parties.
My view, FWIW, is that those wanting a referendum won a very, very narrow majority of the vote in Scotland at the last election. I think that entitles them to at least ask the question.
I think seeing referendums as some panacea for an intractable political issue is a problem. The political and legal realities of a vote on a very general point, in an atypical situation, clash with a minority of successful political will.
You need to build the right culture for them, properly prepare and respond to them. I don't think we have that.
Yup.
The UK's recent referendums have been on things where public opinion has been fairly finely balanced, and the results have been interpreted as a winner-takes-all scenario.
In many ways understandable- the only real Westminster experience of anything else was 2010-15 and, deep down, all the parties hated it. Even if it led to relatively sane government, it was followed by all three English parties going different forms of mad.
On the other hand, the referendums that have stuck- say the GFA one in Northern Ireland, or the 1975 Common Market one (which stuck for over 30 years, after all) were the ones that were so overwhelming that they weren't strictly necessary. Perhaps that's what's going on- using a referendum to make the public decide sucks, but using them to bring public closure when the public have (unconsciously) decisively decided already works?
(Another data point- the Irish abortion referendum ended up at 2:1. Had the winning ratio been 26:24, say, would the decision have been accepted in the same way?)
Just popped back in. Interesting discussion here.
You could add the 1997 Scottish devolution one. Very definite, has stuck well (pace Tories). Though so has the Welsh devolution (albeit with a party devoted to abolishing it, but then the Tories do the same role for Scotland, or at least Mr Johnson has expressed that view).
Vaguely on topic, the PB Scot Nits do same even angrier than normal, first Stuart Dickson goes full-on blood-and-soil measure-their-skulls Ethno-Nat, then the uniondivvie’s typical waspishness devolves to a faintly sad, rather bitter sourness, now even the peaceful malcolmg, who barely has a bad word for anyone, seems a little dyspeptic
I wonder if it is, partly, the above finding. The Brits have gone off referendums. Including indyrefs
What's just as intriguing is how a freeborn Englishman who advances Sovereignty as the reason they voted for Brexit can be so viscerally opposed to Scottish Independence given the Sovereignty argument is (at the very least) of equal relevance there. A great example of such a person would be you, of course, but there are plenty of others who exhibit the same (on the face of it) stark contradiction. I don't get this at all. The anti-SNP passion of it, I mean, in a Brexiteer. Makes no sense to me.
I could understand a position of "I hope they don't leave because I value their contribution to this Union that I love but at the end of the day it's up to them". I'd totally understand that or similar. It's exactly what one might expect the position of a Sovereignty loving English Brexiteer to be. But this does not appear to be the position with those I'm referring to. The sentiment is more that Independence for Scotland is a risible notion and the Scots have a cheek to even think about it.
It seems odd. I don't expect even PB pundits to exhibit a perfect consistency across their political views - in fact that's a sign of immaturity - but this anomaly here is quite common and it really sticks out. To me it does anyway. So any half decent explanation would be most welcome. I'm keen to learn.
Are referendums not a bit like democracy: the worst way to resolve things apart from all the others?
What we have seen all too painfully in Scotland, and indeed in the UK in respect of Brexit, is that they are divisive, disruptive and change very few minds but so does a situation where there is a very substantial minority who want something but cannot get it through Westminster either because they don't stand in enough seats or because there is a cosy metropolitan consensus shared by all the major parties.
My view, FWIW, is that those wanting a referendum won a very, very narrow majority of the vote in Scotland at the last election. I think that entitles them to at least ask the question.
The EU referendum changed a few minds in Scotland about indy if various analyses are correct.
Indeed it did. It made anyone with any understanding of economics realise that independence was now suicidal because we would have to choose between the SM of the UK (in which case why bother, we would be even more dominated by England than we are now and the democratic deficit would be worse) or the SM of the EU (with a hard border from Berwick to Carlisle and all the problems of NI plus no doubt some bonus extras such as currency).
Unfortunately the SNP have prevented schools from teaching economics so who knows what might happen next?
Edit, it is also worth noting that although the decline in support for independence commenced before Brexit actually happened the trend has continued since January.
I don't think we'd have 'all the problems of NI' unless you know something about Unionist ultras that I don't? Murdo in a balaclava? Hmm, well one obvious advantage to that..
I know that the vast majority of our readers find Scottish Independence arguments tedious beyond belief but to demonstrate the point made by the thread header let's suppose that the result in 2014 had been the other way around. Is 55:45 really any basis for something as disruptive as breaking up the country? I think it would be a calamitous basis on which to start.
Exactly the same point could of course be made against me in relation to Brexit where I was the disrupter and it was even closer. I recognise the force of that argument. Its why I thought that Parliament really should have gone for a soft Brexit, May style, in the first instance and we could then determine whether to get closer to the EU again or further away over time. I very much regret that we did not achieve this. It has left the country very divided and weaker as a result.
As you suggest 52-48 is a substantially closer result than 55-45, and with big discrepancies in the constituent nations of this Union. I'd contend a single country has a better chance of overcoming disruption than a unitary state that can't quite decide how to define itself (state, country, collection of countries, nation, union of nations, Britain, UK etc), though no doubt there would have been lots of crackerjack calls from Epping for indy for Shetland etc, but these people are idiots.
I'd still refer you back to my several times made contention that without Brexit support for indy would be 40%ish and the SNP would be looking a lot less dominant than they are. The people that opened Pandora's Box were Brexiteers not Indy backers. Fair play that you reluctantly recognise that there's a case for Scots to at least be allowed to review the situation.
It's tricky. Democracy requires that the majority gets their way. Cohesion requires that the majority exercise that right with restraint. As others have pointed out we do not have the culture for this presently.
Are referendums not a bit like democracy: the worst way to resolve things apart from all the others?
What we have seen all too painfully in Scotland, and indeed in the UK in respect of Brexit, is that they are divisive, disruptive and change very few minds but so does a situation where there is a very substantial minority who want something but cannot get it through Westminster either because they don't stand in enough seats or because there is a cosy metropolitan consensus shared by all the major parties.
My view, FWIW, is that those wanting a referendum won a very, very narrow majority of the vote in Scotland at the last election. I think that entitles them to at least ask the question.
The EU referendum changed a few minds in Scotland about indy if various analyses are correct.
Indeed it did. It made anyone with any understanding of economics realise that independence was now suicidal because we would have to choose between the SM of the UK (in which case why bother, we would be even more dominated by England than we are now and the democratic deficit would be worse) or the SM of the EU (with a hard border from Berwick to Carlisle and all the problems of NI plus no doubt some bonus extras such as currency).
Unfortunately the SNP have prevented schools from teaching economics so who knows what might happen next?
Edit, it is also worth noting that although the decline in support for independence commenced before Brexit actually happened the trend has continued since January.
I don't think we'd have 'all the problems of NI' unless you know something about Unionist ultras that I don't? Murdo in a balaclava? Hmm, well one obvious advantage to that..
I know that the vast majority of our readers find Scottish Independence arguments tedious beyond belief but to demonstrate the point made by the thread header let's suppose that the result in 2014 had been the other way around. Is 55:45 really any basis for something as disruptive as breaking up the country? I think it would be a calamitous basis on which to start.
Exactly the same point could of course be made against me in relation to Brexit where I was the disrupter and it was even closer. I recognise the force of that argument. Its why I thought that Parliament really should have gone for a soft Brexit, May style, in the first instance and we could then determine whether to get closer to the EU again or further away over time. I very much regret that we did not achieve this. It has left the country very divided and weaker as a result.
I largely agree
On another point, if the SNP really do go for the ‘yay let’s have a hard border in berwick’ policy, this throws up lots of further issues. If the indyref2 was actually won by YES, and a hard border was sliced across Britain, I can foresee mass civil disobedience in the Borders, maybe even violence
In addition, this policy underlines why any new indyref must be a choice for the UK Parliament as a whole (including Scots MPs), a hard Anglo-Scots border would severely affect millions of English people in the North
The infection rate over 7 days have actually turned positive again, albeit by a very small amount. But the hospitals are emptying so we don't care.
I think the worry is that at the moment its summer and the rugrat super spreaders aren't at school. If this is "low season" level, how bad will it get during peak season. It might also be just a plateau before it falls further, but obviously could also be the start of another significant rise.
Maybe but the number fully vaccinated goes up every day and the number of idiots without vaccines that haven't been infected declines so the risk does fall over time.
The biggest concerning recent data is that vaccinated people who do become infected can still be very effective spreaders (how much is still up for further investigation). The assumption / early data from pre-delta was this would be a very rare occurrence between two vaccinated people and thus once basically everybody was, the virus really can't transmit.
Yes, I have been worrying about that for a few weeks now. It is evident that delta at least can infect the fully vaccinated sufficiently to make them infectious even if they are unlikely to become seriously ill and very unlikely to die. This means that the foolish non-vaxers are not getting the protection from the rest of us that they might have hoped.
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
I’d much rather be part of a Switzerland - small, prosperous, rule of law, democratic - than a China or a Russia.
SecurityCouncil: France, not Japan
France should be banned from hosting the Olympics if they are going to be behave like this....
BREAKING: The Gold medal for biggest d*ckhead of the Tokyo Olympics goes to French marathon runner Morhad Amdouni who deliberately knocks over all the water for his fellow competitors…Unbelievable! https://t.co/D4IwmlAHlL
Twitter will have failed if no one has commented that any post from Piers Morgan talking about a gold medal for being a dickhead that does not include the words 'I've won a' is incorrect.
That French bottle-strewing ‘cheat’ is getting absolutely torn apart on Twitter. It’s not just the tomfool Morgan. Indeed it first went viral in Japan
I fear for his sponsorship deal with Nike. He’s got a few people saying it was an accident, but it really really doesn’t look accidental
And for the people saying “it’s hard to pick up the bottles” I’d assume this is something the runners practice… as no one else seems to be struggling
They have dedicated training sessions to practice picking up at refueling stations, as at the pace they run at (its basically what normal people would be sprinting at) stopping to pick up your bottle, a bag of ice, a cap etc isn't an option. And this isn't some amateur park run, these are the best of the best hardened elite distance runners.
Vaguely on topic, the PB Scot Nits do same even angrier than normal, first Stuart Dickson goes full-on blood-and-soil measure-their-skulls Ethno-Nat, then the uniondivvie’s typical waspishness devolves to a faintly sad, rather bitter sourness, now even the peaceful malcolmg, who barely has a bad word for anyone, seems a little dyspeptic
I wonder if it is, partly, the above finding. The Brits have gone off referendums. Including indyrefs
What's just as intriguing is how a freeborn Englishman who advances Sovereignty as the reason they voted for Brexit can be so viscerally opposed to Scottish Independence given the Sovereignty argument is (at the very least) of equal relevance there. A great example of such a person would be you, of course, but there are plenty of others who exhibit the same (on the face of it) stark contradiction. I don't get this at all. The anti-SNP passion of it, I mean, in a Brexiteer. Makes no sense to me.
I could understand a position of "I hope they don't leave because I value their contribution to this Union that I love but at the end of the day it's up to them". I'd totally understand that or similar. It's exactly what one might expect the position of a Sovereignty loving English Brexiteer to be. But this does not appear to be the position with those I'm referring to. The sentiment is more that Independence for Scotland is a risible notion and the Scots have a cheek to even think about it.
It seems odd. I don't expect even PB pundits to exhibit a perfect consistency across their political views - in fact that's a sign of immaturity - but this anomaly here is quite common and it really sticks out. To me it does anyway. So any half decent explanation would be most welcome. I'm keen to learn.
Can’t be arsed
Not acceptable. I'm waiting.
I’m a patriotic Brit. I love Britain as it is. All 4 nations. I don’t want it broken up. There
You could have worked this out for yourself if you bothered to think rather than drone, pompously
Are referendums not a bit like democracy: the worst way to resolve things apart from all the others?
What we have seen all too painfully in Scotland, and indeed in the UK in respect of Brexit, is that they are divisive, disruptive and change very few minds but so does a situation where there is a very substantial minority who want something but cannot get it through Westminster either because they don't stand in enough seats or because there is a cosy metropolitan consensus shared by all the major parties.
My view, FWIW, is that those wanting a referendum won a very, very narrow majority of the vote in Scotland at the last election. I think that entitles them to at least ask the question.
The EU referendum changed a few minds in Scotland about indy if various analyses are correct.
Indeed it did. It made anyone with any understanding of economics realise that independence was now suicidal because we would have to choose between the SM of the UK (in which case why bother, we would be even more dominated by England than we are now and the democratic deficit would be worse) or the SM of the EU (with a hard border from Berwick to Carlisle and all the problems of NI plus no doubt some bonus extras such as currency).
Unfortunately the SNP have prevented schools from teaching economics so who knows what might happen next?
Edit, it is also worth noting that although the decline in support for independence commenced before Brexit actually happened the trend has continued since January.
I don't think we'd have 'all the problems of NI' unless you know something about Unionist ultras that I don't? Murdo in a balaclava? Hmm, well one obvious advantage to that..
I know that the vast majority of our readers find Scottish Independence arguments tedious beyond belief but to demonstrate the point made by the thread header let's suppose that the result in 2014 had been the other way around. Is 55:45 really any basis for something as disruptive as breaking up the country? I think it would be a calamitous basis on which to start.
Exactly the same point could of course be made against me in relation to Brexit where I was the disrupter and it was even closer. I recognise the force of that argument. Its why I thought that Parliament really should have gone for a soft Brexit, May style, in the first instance and we could then determine whether to get closer to the EU again or further away over time. I very much regret that we did not achieve this. It has left the country very divided and weaker as a result.
I largely agree
On another point, if the SNP really do go for the ‘yay let’s have a hard border in berwick’ policy, this throws up lots of further issues. If the indyref2 was actually won by YES, and a hard border was sliced across Britain, I can foresee mass civil disobedience in the Borders, maybe even violence
In addition, this policy underlines why any new indyref must be a choice for the UK Parliament as a whole (including Scots MPs), a hard Anglo-Scots border would severely affect millions of English people in the North
It's another illustration as to how Brexit has made independence so much more difficult. In 2014 we were going to catch a magic carpet ride into the EU overnight and remain in a SM with both rUK and the EU. Even putting aside whether it would have been that easy it was a vaguely plausible answer. Now there is no answer, only hard choices.
On another point, if the SNP really do go for the ‘yay let’s have a hard border in berwick’ policy, this throws up lots of further issues. If the indyref2 was actually won by YES, and a hard border was sliced across Britain, I can foresee mass civil disobedience in the Borders, maybe even violence
There's an almost exact parallel. I wonder how long it will take you to spot it...
The infection rate over 7 days have actually turned positive again, albeit by a very small amount. But the hospitals are emptying so we don't care.
I think the worry is that at the moment its summer and the rugrat super spreaders aren't at school. If this is "low season" level, how bad will it get during peak season. It might also be just a plateau before it falls further, but obviously could also be the start of another significant rise.
Maybe but the number fully vaccinated goes up every day and the number of idiots without vaccines that haven't been infected declines so the risk does fall over time.
The biggest concerning recent data is that vaccinated people who do become infected can still be very effective spreaders (how much is still up for further investigation). The assumption / early data from pre-delta was this would be a very rare occurrence between two vaccinated people and thus once basically everybody was, the virus really can't transmit.
Yes, I have been worrying about that for a few weeks now. It is evident that delta at least can infect the fully vaccinated sufficiently to make them infectious even if they are unlikely to become seriously ill and very unlikely to die. This means that the foolish non-vaxers are not getting the protection from the rest of us that they might have hoped.
We really need updated booster vaccines that target the major variants ASAP.
It's another illustration as to how Brexit has made independence so much more difficult. In 2014 we were going to catch a magic carpet ride into the EU overnight and remain in a SM with both rUK and the EU. Even putting aside whether it would have been that easy it was a vaguely plausible answer. Now there is no answer, only hard choices.
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
I’d much rather be part of a Switzerland - small, prosperous, rule of law, democratic - than a China or a Russia.
SecurityCouncil: France, not Japan
France should be banned from hosting the Olympics if they are going to be behave like this....
BREAKING: The Gold medal for biggest d*ckhead of the Tokyo Olympics goes to French marathon runner Morhad Amdouni who deliberately knocks over all the water for his fellow competitors…Unbelievable! https://t.co/D4IwmlAHlL
The infection rate over 7 days have actually turned positive again, albeit by a very small amount. But the hospitals are emptying so we don't care.
I think the worry is that at the moment its summer and the rugrat super spreaders aren't at school. If this is "low season" level, how bad will it get during peak season. It might also be just a plateau before it falls further, but obviously could also be the start of another significant rise.
Maybe but the number fully vaccinated goes up every day and the number of idiots without vaccines that haven't been infected declines so the risk does fall over time.
The biggest concerning recent data is that vaccinated people who do become infected can still be very effective spreaders (how much is still up for further investigation). The assumption / early data from pre-delta was this would be a very rare occurrence between two vaccinated people and thus once basically everybody was, the virus really can't transmit.
Yes, I have been worrying about that for a few weeks now. It is evident that delta at least can infect the fully vaccinated sufficiently to make them infectious even if they are unlikely to become seriously ill and very unlikely to die. This means that the foolish non-vaxers are not getting the protection from the rest of us that they might have hoped.
The PM et al should have hammered home the point that the vaccines protect you but not necessarily others. Don’t count on others doing it for you should have been and should be the message.
Are referendums not a bit like democracy: the worst way to resolve things apart from all the others?
What we have seen all too painfully in Scotland, and indeed in the UK in respect of Brexit, is that they are divisive, disruptive and change very few minds but so does a situation where there is a very substantial minority who want something but cannot get it through Westminster either because they don't stand in enough seats or because there is a cosy metropolitan consensus shared by all the major parties.
My view, FWIW, is that those wanting a referendum won a very, very narrow majority of the vote in Scotland at the last election. I think that entitles them to at least ask the question.
I think seeing referendums as some panacea for an intractable political issue is a problem. The political and legal realities of a vote on a very general point, in an atypical situation, clash with a minority of successful political will.
You need to build the right culture for them, properly prepare and respond to them. I don't think we have that.
Yup.
The UK's recent referendums have been on things where public opinion has been fairly finely balanced, and the results have been interpreted as a winner-takes-all scenario.
In many ways understandable- the only real Westminster experience of anything else was 2010-15 and, deep down, all the parties hated it. Even if it led to relatively sane government, it was followed by all three English parties going different forms of mad.
On the other hand, the referendums that have stuck- say the GFA one in Northern Ireland, or the 1975 Common Market one (which stuck for over 30 years, after all) were the ones that were so overwhelming that they weren't strictly necessary. Perhaps that's what's going on- using a referendum to make the public decide sucks, but using them to bring public closure when the public have (unconsciously) decisively decided already works?
(Another data point- the Irish abortion referendum ended up at 2:1. Had the winning ratio been 26:24, say, would the decision have been accepted in the same way?)
Just popped back in. Interesting discussion here.
You could add the 1997 Scottish devolution one. Very definite, has stuck well (pace Tories). Though so has the Welsh devolution (albeit with a party devoted to abolishing it, but then the Tories do the same role for Scotland, or at least Mr Johnson has expressed that view).
Welsh devolution has however been a very gradual process by comparison. It didn’t get law making powers for years after the vote.
I’m a patriotic Brit. I love Britain as it is. All 4 nations. I don’t want it broken up. There
You could have worked this out for yourself if you bothered to think rather than drone, pompously
4 nations? Really?
You're not keen on writing the wrong of Hingston Down ?
More seriously, there's a fifth nation - the British nation - those born here, the sons of migrants and refugees, who have no affinity to England, Scotland, Wales or Ireland but see themselves as British.
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
I’d much rather be part of a Switzerland - small, prosperous, rule of law, democratic - than a China or a Russia.
Switzerland isn't in the EU and is terribly dull. I've lived there and been more than most other people, unsurprisingly given that my wife is Swiss.
I used to spend time in Lutzern and Grindelwald when I was younger. Much more than a week now and it’s hard work…
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
I’d much rather be part of a Switzerland - small, prosperous, rule of law, democratic - than a China or a Russia.
Switzerland isn't in the EU and is terribly dull. I've lived there and been more than most other people, unsurprisingly given that my wife is Swiss.
I used to spend time in Lutzern and Grindelwald when I was younger. Much more than a week now and it’s hard work…
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
I’d much rather be part of a Switzerland - small, prosperous, rule of law, democratic - than a China or a Russia.
Switzerland isn't in the EU and is terribly dull. I've lived there and been more than most other people, unsurprisingly given that my wife is Swiss.
I used to spend time in Lutzern and Grindelwald when I was younger. Much more than a week now and it’s hard work…
It is also mind-numbingly expensive. Lugano can make Oslo look cheap
But Lugano is different - basically Italy with Swiss taxes.
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
I’d much rather be part of a Switzerland - small, prosperous, rule of law, democratic - than a China or a Russia.
Switzerland isn't in the EU and is terribly dull. I've lived there and been more than most other people, unsurprisingly given that my wife is Swiss.
I used to spend time in Lutzern and Grindelwald when I was younger. Much more than a week now and it’s hard work…
Why is it hard work?
It’s very pedestrian and cut off from the rest of the world. Nice for a break but - for me at least - I get antsy after a while unless I’m skiing or climbing.
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
I’d much rather be part of a Switzerland - small, prosperous, rule of law, democratic - than a China or a Russia.
SecurityCouncil: France, not Japan
France should be banned from hosting the Olympics if they are going to be behave like this....
BREAKING: The Gold medal for biggest d*ckhead of the Tokyo Olympics goes to French marathon runner Morhad Amdouni who deliberately knocks over all the water for his fellow competitors…Unbelievable! https://t.co/D4IwmlAHlL
Twitter will have failed if no one has commented that any post from Piers Morgan talking about a gold medal for being a dickhead that does not include the words 'I've won a' is incorrect.
That French bottle-strewing ‘cheat’ is getting absolutely torn apart on Twitter. It’s not just the tomfool Morgan. Indeed it first went viral in Japan
I fear for his sponsorship deal with Nike. He’s got a few people saying it was an accident, but it really really doesn’t look accidental
And for the people saying “it’s hard to pick up the bottles” I’d assume this is something the runners practice… as no one else seems to be struggling
They have dedicated training sessions to practice picking up at refueling stations, as at the pace they run at (its basically what normal people would be sprinting at) stopping to pick up your bottle, a bag of ice, a cap etc isn't an option. And this isn't some amateur park run, these are the best of the best hardened elite distance runners.
He also, very deftly, manages to pick up the very last bottle - after knocking down all the others. It’s even worse in slo-mo
The infection rate over 7 days have actually turned positive again, albeit by a very small amount. But the hospitals are emptying so we don't care.
I think the worry is that at the moment its summer and the rugrat super spreaders aren't at school. If this is "low season" level, how bad will it get during peak season. It might also be just a plateau before it falls further, but obviously could also be the start of another significant rise.
Maybe but the number fully vaccinated goes up every day and the number of idiots without vaccines that haven't been infected declines so the risk does fall over time.
The biggest concerning recent data is that vaccinated people who do become infected can still be very effective spreaders (how much is still up for further investigation). The assumption / early data from pre-delta was this would be a very rare occurrence between two vaccinated people and thus once basically everybody was, the virus really can't transmit.
Yes, I have been worrying about that for a few weeks now. It is evident that delta at least can infect the fully vaccinated sufficiently to make them infectious even if they are unlikely to become seriously ill and very unlikely to die. This means that the foolish non-vaxers are not getting the protection from the rest of us that they might have hoped.
The PM et al should have hammered home the point that the vaccines protect you but not necessarily others. Don’t count on others doing it for you should have been and should be the message.
I fear we made a mistake in not persevering with vaccine passports although a PM wary of losses of liberty is probably a good thing in general.
Are referendums not a bit like democracy: the worst way to resolve things apart from all the others?
What we have seen all too painfully in Scotland, and indeed in the UK in respect of Brexit, is that they are divisive, disruptive and change very few minds but so does a situation where there is a very substantial minority who want something but cannot get it through Westminster either because they don't stand in enough seats or because there is a cosy metropolitan consensus shared by all the major parties.
My view, FWIW, is that those wanting a referendum won a very, very narrow majority of the vote in Scotland at the last election. I think that entitles them to at least ask the question.
The EU referendum changed a few minds in Scotland about indy if various analyses are correct.
Indeed it did. It made anyone with any understanding of economics realise that independence was now suicidal because we would have to choose between the SM of the UK (in which case why bother, we would be even more dominated by England than we are now and the democratic deficit would be worse) or the SM of the EU (with a hard border from Berwick to Carlisle and all the problems of NI plus no doubt some bonus extras such as currency).
Unfortunately the SNP have prevented schools from teaching economics so who knows what might happen next?
Edit, it is also worth noting that although the decline in support for independence commenced before Brexit actually happened the trend has continued since January.
I don't think we'd have 'all the problems of NI' unless you know something about Unionist ultras that I don't? Murdo in a balaclava? Hmm, well one obvious advantage to that..
I know that the vast majority of our readers find Scottish Independence arguments tedious beyond belief but to demonstrate the point made by the thread header let's suppose that the result in 2014 had been the other way around. Is 55:45 really any basis for something as disruptive as breaking up the country? I think it would be a calamitous basis on which to start.
Exactly the same point could of course be made against me in relation to Brexit where I was the disrupter and it was even closer. I recognise the force of that argument. Its why I thought that Parliament really should have gone for a soft Brexit, May style, in the first instance and we could then determine whether to get closer to the EU again or further away over time. I very much regret that we did not achieve this. It has left the country very divided and weaker as a result.
I largely agree
On another point, if the SNP really do go for the ‘yay let’s have a hard border in berwick’ policy, this throws up lots of further issues. If the indyref2 was actually won by YES, and a hard border was sliced across Britain, I can foresee mass civil disobedience in the Borders, maybe even violence
In addition, this policy underlines why any new indyref must be a choice for the UK Parliament as a whole (including Scots MPs), a hard Anglo-Scots border would severely affect millions of English people in the North
If they do have a hard border it’s only reasonable to have a border poll - as in Ireland - so individual districts get to decide whether they are England or Scotland
But Lugano is different - basically Italy with Swiss taxes.
I love Locarno - just beautiful by the Lake with the ferries down to Stresa where you can stand in the room were the Stresa Pact was signed and wonder how we might have avoided World War 2.
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
I’d much rather be part of a Switzerland - small, prosperous, rule of law, democratic - than a China or a Russia.
Switzerland isn't in the EU and is terribly dull. I've lived there and been more than most other people, unsurprisingly given that my wife is Swiss.
I used to spend time in Lutzern and Grindelwald when I was younger. Much more than a week now and it’s hard work…
It is also mind-numbingly expensive. Lugano can make Oslo look cheap
But Lugano is different - basically Italy with Swiss taxes.
I live that little Italian bit of Switzerland. It’s just the prices that disturb
Intriguingly, the final medal table is a pretty good proxy for The Five Greatest Countries on Earth
USA China Japan Great Britain Russia
That’s basically the UN Security Council right there. The five most powerful and influential nations, the five most culturally dominant countries, with the most important languages, the best universities, the grandest art, the most epic history, the biggest and bravest empires, basically the flower of humanity.
Beneath them come the funny little EU provinces - ‘Italy’, ‘France’ - pretty and well-meaning but not of great seriousness. Below them there’s just a lot of places no one has ever heard of, with weird pickled veg for breakfast.
Odd how sport mimics and underlines reality.
I’d much rather be part of a Switzerland - small, prosperous, rule of law, democratic - than a China or a Russia.
SecurityCouncil: France, not Japan
France should be banned from hosting the Olympics if they are going to be behave like this....
BREAKING: The Gold medal for biggest d*ckhead of the Tokyo Olympics goes to French marathon runner Morhad Amdouni who deliberately knocks over all the water for his fellow competitors…Unbelievable! https://t.co/D4IwmlAHlL
Twitter will have failed if no one has commented that any post from Piers Morgan talking about a gold medal for being a dickhead that does not include the words 'I've won a' is incorrect.
That French bottle-strewing ‘cheat’ is getting absolutely torn apart on Twitter. It’s not just the tomfool Morgan. Indeed it first went viral in Japan
I fear for his sponsorship deal with Nike. He’s got a few people saying it was an accident, but it really really doesn’t look accidental
And for the people saying “it’s hard to pick up the bottles” I’d assume this is something the runners practice… as no one else seems to be struggling
They have dedicated training sessions to practice picking up at refueling stations, as at the pace they run at (its basically what normal people would be sprinting at) stopping to pick up your bottle, a bag of ice, a cap etc isn't an option. And this isn't some amateur park run, these are the best of the best hardened elite distance runners.
The infection rate over 7 days have actually turned positive again, albeit by a very small amount. But the hospitals are emptying so we don't care.
I think the worry is that at the moment its summer and the rugrat super spreaders aren't at school. If this is "low season" level, how bad will it get during peak season. It might also be just a plateau before it falls further, but obviously could also be the start of another significant rise.
Maybe but the number fully vaccinated goes up every day and the number of idiots without vaccines that haven't been infected declines so the risk does fall over time.
The biggest concerning recent data is that vaccinated people who do become infected can still be very effective spreaders (how much is still up for further investigation). The assumption / early data from pre-delta was this would be a very rare occurrence between two vaccinated people and thus once basically everybody was, the virus really can't transmit.
Yes, I have been worrying about that for a few weeks now. It is evident that delta at least can infect the fully vaccinated sufficiently to make them infectious even if they are unlikely to become seriously ill and very unlikely to die. This means that the foolish non-vaxers are not getting the protection from the rest of us that they might have hoped.
We really need updated booster vaccines that target the major variants ASAP.
For me I think the research focus needs to be: 1. A vaccine that prevents transmission. 2. Treatments for the vulnerable who are unable to be vaccinated.
Comments
Sticking to major ‘western’ nations (just to make it easier) I’d put the top 5 in each art form like this
Music:
1. Germany
2. USA (jazz, pop/rock)
3. Italy
4. UK (1960s on)
5. France
Painting/sculpture:
1. Italy
2. France
3. USA
4. Spain
5. UK/Holland equal
Literature
1. UK
2. Russia
3. US
4. France
5. Italy
Architecture
1. Italy
2. USA
3. France
4. UK
5. Can’t think of anywhere else
Thank you.
Edit: and your view is certainly worth a bit more than that of your average flint knapper.
You need to build the right culture for them, properly prepare and respond to them. I don't think we have that.
I could understand a position of "I hope they don't leave because I value their contribution to this Union that I love but at the end of the day it's up to them". I'd totally understand that or similar. It's exactly what one might expect the position of a Sovereignty loving English Brexiteer to be. But this does not appear to be the position with those I'm referring to. The sentiment is more that Independence for Scotland is a risible notion and the Scots have a cheek to even think about it.
It seems odd. I don't expect even PB pundits to exhibit a perfect consistency across their political views - in fact that's a sign of immaturity - but this anomaly here is quite common and it really sticks out. To me it does anyway. So any half decent explanation would be most welcome. I'm keen to learn.
I fear for his sponsorship deal with Nike. He’s got a few people saying it was an accident, but it really really doesn’t look accidental
Unfortunately the SNP have prevented schools from teaching economics so who knows what might happen next?
Edit, it is also worth noting that although the decline in support for independence commenced before Brexit actually happened the trend has continued since January.
Literature is another huge legacy, partly because it was the only expressive area that the Victorians really and actively encouraged, establishing Shakespeare as part of a national story for the first time, and embracing the more creative and politically unpredictable climate of British novel-making as part of the same story.
The real problem and deficiency, where Britain has a lot of ground to make up, was in imperial Victorian Britain not creating a hospitable environment for other creative expression in general. This is largely the reason why Britain's contributions to the development of both classical music and the visual arts, between 1850 and 1920, and compared to France, Germany's or Italy's, were negligible.
Murdo in a balaclava? Hmm, well one obvious advantage to that..
GUTTED.
But for me I see no contradiction or logical failing. In both cases there are economic or political arguments but the critical issue is the emotion behind it, and therefore the weight people put to those arguments. Ultimately its whether people feel a connection to or value any particular union. If they emotionally value one and not the other, similar or even the exact same argument will not have an impact. Sindy supporters will suddenly think the problems of separation are minimised (or just worth it), and Brexit Unionists (since not all do support the UK) will not regard the costs as worth it in this case.
Can’t be arsed
https://twitter.com/JonathanDoidge/status/1424380739316064256
Toby Perkins MP
@tobyperkinsmp
·
20m
May I take this opportunity to wish all Chesterfield’s females a Happy International Female Orgasm Day.
However you do have a point. Their modern popular music has been so shit I may have overrated them
Sorry France you’re OUT of the top 5. Who goes in? Austria maybe (esp if you include their empire)
Toby Perkins MP
@tobyperkinsmp
·
26m
Especially you
@ACollumbine
Exactly the same point could of course be made against me in relation to Brexit where I was the disrupter and it was even closer. I recognise the force of that argument. Its why I thought that Parliament really should have gone for a soft Brexit, May style, in the first instance and we could then determine whether to get closer to the EU again or further away over time. I very much regret that we did not achieve this. It has left the country very divided and weaker as a result.
1. USA
2. UK
3. France
4. Italy
5. Germany
In the Biden era, what is there for the EU and the US to talk about? The US is looking to the threat of China, and the EU is largely irrelevant there. I don’t think there is unfriendliness - certainly unlike Trump - it’s more that the EU is irrelevant to the issues facing the US right now.
Superb performances by the US and Jamaica with Britain winning a bunch finish for the each way money.
Other than that, haven't watched a thing.
Well done to all the medallists of whatever country - winning an Olympic medal remains a great individual and team achievement as appropriate no matter the sport. The dedication, self sacrifice and discipline required is commendable.
(The rationale is that it is a partnership and the other constituents of the UK have a right to stability. The occasional referendum is ok, but if Scotland could just have a vote every year then it would be unfair on the others)
Politics For All
@PoliticsForAlI
NEW: A Tory donor has paid £15,000 for a personal magic show by Minister Penny Mordaunt
Via @thesundaytimes
The UK's recent referendums have been on things where public opinion has been fairly finely balanced, and the results have been interpreted as a winner-takes-all scenario.
In many ways understandable- the only real Westminster experience of anything else was 2010-15 and, deep down, all the parties hated it. Even if it led to relatively sane government, it was followed by all three English parties going different forms of mad.
On the other hand, the referendums that have stuck- say the GFA one in Northern Ireland, or the 1975 Common Market one (which stuck for over 30 years, after all) were the ones that were so overwhelming that they weren't strictly necessary. Perhaps that's what's going on- using a referendum to make the public decide sucks, but using them to bring public closure when the public have (unconsciously) decisively decided already works?
(Another data point- the Irish abortion referendum ended up at 2:1. Had the winning ratio been 26:24, say, would the decision have been accepted in the same way?)
Gold 94
Silver 81
Bronze 97
TOTAL 272
EU** team @Tokyo:
Gold 83
Silver 94
Bronze 107
TOTAL 284
(* USA, Eng+Sco+Wal+NI, Canada, Australia, NZ and Ireland)
(** excluding (Anglophone) Ireland)
For more on this and other news visit http://news.sky.com
Left at 1pm when the ducks started swimming on the covers
Coffee and fruit cake was marvellous £2.50 a shot
I'd still refer you back to my several times made contention that without Brexit support for indy would be 40%ish and the SNP would be looking a lot less dominant than they are. The people that opened Pandora's Box were Brexiteers not Indy backers. Fair play that you reluctantly recognise that there's a case for Scots to at least be allowed to review the situation.
We might well be stuck in a loop for a very long time of transmission, until everybody has had COVID (as reinfection does still appear to be rare and much lower viral loads inhibiting further transmission).
You could add the 1997 Scottish devolution one. Very definite, has stuck well (pace Tories). Though so has the Welsh devolution (albeit with a party devoted to abolishing it, but then the Tories do the same role for Scotland, or at least Mr Johnson has expressed that view).
On another point, if the SNP really do go for the ‘yay let’s have a hard border in berwick’ policy, this throws up lots of further issues. If the indyref2 was actually won by YES, and a hard border was sliced across Britain, I can foresee mass civil disobedience in the Borders, maybe even violence
In addition, this policy underlines why any new indyref must be a choice for the UK Parliament as a whole (including Scots MPs), a hard Anglo-Scots border would severely affect millions of English people in the North
You could have worked this out for yourself if you bothered to think rather than drone, pompously
For example I saw someone bid £100k for a Dancing Queen LP signed by Theresa May - before returning it to the pool to be resold in the next auction
I am delighted that we beat the Russians.
You're not keen on writing the wrong of Hingston Down ?
More seriously, there's a fifth nation - the British nation - those born here, the sons of migrants and refugees, who have no affinity to England, Scotland, Wales or Ireland but see themselves as British.
1. A vaccine that prevents transmission.
2. Treatments for the vulnerable who are unable to be vaccinated.